Latest College of Education News

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A Penn State College of Education researcher is co-leading a groundbreaking study that could reshape how policymakers, practitioners and the public think about life after incarceration.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A new research brief from Penn State’s Center for Education and Civil Rights (CECR) finds that early childhood classrooms across the United States remain highly segregated by race and ethnicity, with significant implications for equity, opportunity and children’s social development.

As a 13-year-old, Powell managed to have a conversation with then-President Jimmy Carter. Powell spoke to Carter as part of the live radio show “Ask the President” on National Public Radio (NPR). Classmates at Barnstable Middle School in Hyannis, Mass. had invited the president to visit the school’s campus — with Powell eventually making a lasting memory on a phone call broadcasted nationwide.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For many parents, advocating for a child with a disability can feel like navigating a labyrinth of school meetings, medical appointments and complex legal documents. For Black mothers, these challenges are often compounded by systemic inequities rooted in racism and gender discrimination. A new study by a Penn State College of Education faculty member and her co-authors seeks to reframe how these mothers’ advocacy is understood — highlighting not only the struggles they face, but the knowledge and power they bring to their communities.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In the American imagination, local school districts symbolize grassroots democracy — neighbors shaping the education of their community’s children. But Penn State education policy scholar David Gamson says history tells a more complicated story: the same districts that can be engines of equity have also been tools for segregation and resource hoarding, with lasting consequences for generations of students.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A new study by Brandy Henry, assistant professor of rehabilitation and human services at the Penn State College of Education, is reshaping how health systems track and improve care for people with opioid use disorder (OUD). The study, “Opioid Use Disorder Cascade of Care: Defining a Taxonomy for Measurement,” was published in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse and introduces a standardized framework for measuring treatment quality across the OUD care continuum.