ERA-New Orleans announces new partnership in early education research

August 28, 2019

We've established the New Orleans Early Education Research Alliance (NOEERA), a partnership with representatives from the New Orleans Public Schools, and the New Orleans Early Education Network.

NOEER­A’s goal is to help improve stu­dent out­comes in New Orleans by iden­ti­fy­ing fac­tors that enable fam­i­lies to access their desired preschool pro­grams, and fac­tors that max­i­mize the ben­e­fits of those pro­grams. NOEERA is co-direct­ed by Lind­say Weixler (ERA-New Orleans), Jen Roberts (NOEEN), and Thomas Lam­bert (NOLA-PS). Ear­ly edu­ca­tion, from birth through third grade, lays the foun­da­tion for suc­cess in school and lat­er in life, mak­ing it essen­tial that states and dis­tricts pro­vide access to high-qual­i­ty ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion pro­grams and ele­men­tary schools. NOEERA’s ini­tial work will explore how New Orleans fam­i­lies apply to ear­ly child­hood pro­grams and kinder­garten and how appli­ca­tion behav­iors are asso­ci­at­ed with child out­comes. ​“Improv­ing access to qual­i­ty ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion has been a pri­or­i­ty for all part­ners,” said Lind­say Weixler, ERA-New Orleans’ Asso­ciate Direc­tor for Research and Co-Direc­tor of NOEERA. ​“This part­ner­ship is the first of its kind to bring togeth­er pol­i­cy mak­ers, prac­ti­tion­ers, and researchers in New Orleans to bet­ter under­stand how the ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion appli­ca­tion and enroll­ment process­es are serv­ing our city.” New Orleans’ cen­tral­ized enroll­ment sys­tem (OneApp) is the first of its kind in the coun­try to uni­fy K‑12 pub­lic edu­ca­tion, school-based pre‑K, and Head Start pro­grams in one appli­ca­tion sys­tem. NOEERA’s ini­tial projects will iden­ti­fy fac­tors that enable fam­i­lies to access their desired ear­ly child­hood pro­grams and ele­men­tary schools, while part­ners work to build a long-term research agen­da to exam­ine pro­gram, school, and sys­tem char­ac­ter­is­tics that max­i­mize long-term aca­d­e­m­ic and devel­op­men­tal ben­e­fits. ​“NOLA Pub­lic Schools is excit­ed to part­ner with NOEEN and ERA-New Orleans to iden­ti­fy ways to improve how our enroll­ment sys­tem serves New Orleans fam­i­lies,” said Super­in­ten­dent of Schools Dr. Hen­der­son Lewis, Jr. ​“We are delight­ed to co-found this ini­tia­tive,” said Jen Roberts, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the New Orleans Ear­ly Edu­ca­tion Net­work (NOEEN) at Agen­da for Chil­dren. ​“Our orga­ni­za­tion uses research to guide our prac­tice, strat­e­gy, and resources to part­ners who work with and on behalf of young chil­dren. NOEERA will help us con­tin­ue to deliv­er on our goals of ele­vat­ing the qual­i­ty of learn­ing and care for ear­ly learn­ers.” NOEERA’s work is fund­ed by a $399,988 grant from the Insti­tute of Edu­ca­tion Sci­ences, U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, as well as $36,852 in non-fed­er­al sup­port. ​“The gen­er­ous sup­port of the Insti­tute of Edu­ca­tion Sci­ences pro­vides us with an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to pos­i­tive­ly impact the short- and long-term out­comes of New Orleans’ stu­dents,” said Weixler. ​“We are thrilled to expand our work in this impor­tant direc­tion and sup­port the work of our part­ners serv­ing New Orleans’ youngest stu­dents,” said ERA-New Orleans Direc­tor Dou­glas Harris.