UMass Boston

Early Education Leaders is one of five core partners driving the work of the National Early Care and Education (ECE) Workforce Center, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The National Early Care and Education (ECE) Workforce Center supports the early childhood workforce by identifying effective policies and strategies through research and evaluation, translating lessons from research for practice, and supporting innovations in states and communities through technical assistance.

The UMass Boston Early Education CUSP is led by a multidisciplinary team that designed a simulator and uses it to produce current, relevant, accurate, and responsive estimates about the key impacts of proposed legislation to expand access to affordable, quality child care and early education. The team seeks to provide essential information to guide policymaking on child care and early education affordability, quality, and access in Massachusetts. 

The team has released two research briefs with links below. A forthcoming policy brief on cliff effects and the simulator’s technical report will be available in the coming months.

Research Brief #2

Building a Foundation for Racial and Ethnic Equity: Estimated Impacts of Massachusetts Legislation to Expand Affordable Quality Child Care and Early Education [June 2024]

Research Brief #2

Executive Summary, Research Brief #2

Research Brief #1

Estimating the Impacts of Legislation to Expand Affordable Quality Child Care and Early Education in Massachusetts: Initial Findings on Utilization, Employment, and Financial Assistance [October 2023]

Research Brief #1

Executive Summary, Research Brief #1

Project Team

Randy Albelda, PhD, is professor emerita of economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her research covers a broad range of economic policies affecting women’s economic status, especially for low-income workers in the United States, with particular attention to the intersection of public supports and earnings. Albelda has worked with various local, state, and national groups on policies that promote gender, racial, and income equality. She co-developed a paid family and medical leave simulator with Alan Clayton-Matthews in conjunction with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Alan Clayton-Matthews, PhD, is an associate professor emeritus in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the Department of Economics at Northeastern University. He is a senior contributing editor of MassBenchmarks, a joint publication of the University of Massachusetts in cooperation with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; a member of the Board of Economic Advisors of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM); and a director of the New England Economic Project. 

Anne Douglass, PhD, is professor of early childhood education policy and founding executive director of the Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is an expert on the early care and education workforce, leadership, and quality improvement, and she brings years of experience leading innovations to equitably increase early educator access to higher education and professional development. She also has 20 years of experience as an early educator. She is the author of Leading for Change in Early Care and Education: Cultivating Leadership from Within; has been published in a wide range of journals, books, and news media; and presents nationally and internationally to academic, policy, and professional audiences.

Christa Kelleher, PhD, serves as research and policy director of UMass Boston’s Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy. She enjoys building and managing diverse teams to conduct collaborative applied research on public leadership and a range of public policy issues. Among other projects, she has directed studies on women’s economic status, the midwifery workforce, women in construction, gender parity in higher education leadership, the early care and education workforce, and pay equity. She also partners with UMass Boston’s Collins Center for Public Management, helping to coordinate the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism Practice.

Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, PhD, MPH, MA is director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at UMass Boston and graduate program director of the Gender, Leadership, and Public Policy graduate certificate program. She is committed to equity and inclusion in her work as a faculty member, executive leader, and researcher. An expert on the intersection of race, class, and gender in health, health care and social policy, she is extremely well versed in the tools and applications of diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in multiple spheres and venues. She has held faculty and senior scientist positions at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, where she was affiliated with the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy, the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, and the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy. 

Songtian (Tim) Zeng, PhD, is assistant professor of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education and Human Development and director of research for the Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation at UMass Boston. His research aims to support the health and social-emotional well-being of young children with adverse childhood experiences and disabilities by promoting equitable health and social service access for them. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles and secured a number of grants to support his research.

The Leadership Institute has been studying and testing a new model for quality improvement and leadership in early care and education programs. Our current study of this is a federally-funded project called the Culture of Continuous Learning Project. We work with ECE programs in Boston to enhance social and emotional teaching and learning using the model for improvement called the Breakthrough Series Collaborative. This model facilitates both individual and organizational change by mobilizing leadership from all levels within ECE programs, and creating a culture of learning among ECE programs. The BSC model for change has supported practice and process improvements in the health, child trauma, and child welfare fields, but has not yet been widely tested in ECE.

This project is funded by the Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation at the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and is a partnership with Child Trends, the Center for the Study of Social Policy, and JRA Consulting.

In January, 2018, the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in the Office of the Administration of Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published Culture of Continuous Learning Project: A Literature Review of the Breakthrough Series Collaborative (BSC)

Douglass, A. (2017). Leading for Change in Early Care and Education: Cultivating Leadership from Within. New York: Teachers College Press. Mobilizing Leadership with the Breakthrough Series Collaborative. This policy brief summarizes Chapter 7 from Leading for Change in Early Care and Education, which describes the promising results of an 18-month pilot program of the Breakthrough Series Collaborative model for organizational change in early care and education settings. 

Douglass, A. (2019). The Role of Relationships: An Exploratory Study of Early Childhood Educators Earning a Bachelor’s Degree. SAGE Open. 

Douglass, A. (2017). Redefining Leadership: Lessons from an Early Education Leadership Development Initiative. Early Childhood Education Journal. Pathways to Leadership

Douglass, A., Taj, K., Coonan, M., & Friedman, D. H. (2017). Lessons from an urban school readiness initiative: Including family, friend, and neighbor care providers. Early Education and Development, 28(6), 640-654. doi:10.1080/10409289.2017.1309628

Douglass, Anne; Carter, Alice; Smith, Frank; and Killins, Sherri (2015). Training together: State policy and collective participation in early educator professional development.  New England Journal of Public Policy, 27 (1), Article 5. Available at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp/vol27/iss1/5

Douglass, Anne (2014).  Resilience in change: Positive perspectives on the dynamics of change in early education systems.  Journal of Early Childhood Research. doi:10.1177/1476718X14555704.

Gittell, Jody Hoffer; Douglass, Anne (2012).  Embedding reciprocal relationships into roles: the relational bureaucratic form.  Academy of Management Review, 37(4), 709-733.

Douglass, Anne; Gittell, Jody Hoffer (2012).  Transforming professionalism: relational bureaucracy and parent-teacher partnerships in child care settings.  Journal of Early Childhood Research, 10 (3), 267-281.

Jor’dan, Jamilah; Wolf, Kathy Goetz; Douglass, Anne (2012).  Strengthening families in Illinois: Increasing family engagement in early childhood programs.  Young Children. 67 (5), 18-23.

Douglass, Anne;  Klerman, Lorraine (2012). The Strengthening Families initiative and child care quality improvement:  how Strengthening Families influenced change in child care programs in one state. Early Education and Development, 23, 373-392.

Douglass, Anne (2011).  Improving family engagement: the organizational context and its influence on partnering with parents in formal child care settings. Early Childhood Research and Practice,13 (2). Retrieved from ecrp.uiuc.edu/v13n2/douglass.html

Özkazanç-Pan, B. (Forthcoming 2018). “Seminal work in gender and entrepreneurship”, in G. Javidan, G. Guo, V. Gupta, A. Osorio, B. Özkazanç-Pan and D. Dutta (Eds.), Classics in Entrepreneurship, Palgrave Macmillan.

Özkazanç-Pan, B. (2017). “On entrepreneurship and empowerment: Postcolonial feminist interventions” in C. Essers, P. Dey, K. Verduyn, and D. Tedmanson, (Eds.), Routledge Series on Critical Entrepreneurship, Routledge.

Forthcoming 2018. G. Javidan, G. Guo, V. Gupta, A. Osorio, B. Özkazanç-Pan and D. Dutta (Eds.), Classics in Entrepreneurship, Palgrave Macmillan.

Özkazanç-Pan, B. (Forthcoming 2016). “On entrepreneurship and empowerment: Postcolonial feminist interventions” in C. Essers, P. Dey, K. Verduyn, and D. Tedmanson, (Eds.), Routledge Series on Critical Entrepreneurship.

Forthcoming 2018. E. Kelan, B. Özkazanç-Pan, H. Liu and A. Pullen (Eds.), The Routledge Companion for Gender, Work and Organization, Routledge/ Taylor & Francis Publishing.
Clark Muntean, S. and Özkazanç-Pan, B. (Forthcoming 2016). Feminist Perspectives on Social Entrepreneurship: Critique and New Directions. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, 8(3)

Özkazanç-Pan, B., and Calás, M. B. (2016). “Transnational approaches to diversity” in R. Bendl, I. Bleijenbergh, E. Henttonen, and A. Mills (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Diversity. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp.376-390.

Özkazanç-Pan, B., and Clark Muntean, S. (2016). International high-technology entrepreneurs: Hybrid identities and entrepreneurial practices. Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development, 9(1): 23-40.

Clark Muntean, S., and Özkazanç-Pan, B. (2015). A gender integrative conceptualization of entrepreneurship. New England Journal of Entrepreneurship, Fall issue.

Douglass, A. (2022). Want better child care? Invest in entrepreneurial training for child care workers. The Conversation https://theconversation.com/want-better-child-care-invest-in-entrepreneurial-training-for-child-care-workers-175625

Douglass, A. (2019). Wage gap, devaluation of certain work go hand in hand. Boston: Boston Globe. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/letters/2019/05/29/actually-kamala-harris-something-pushing-for-equal-pay/zDDYgQu564r4jpeehOS47M/story.html

Douglass, A. (2019). Massachusetts Must Do More to Boost Early Education Workforce. Boston: CommonWealth Magazine.https://commonwealthmagazine.org/education/mass-must-do-more-to-boost-early-education-workforce/

Douglass, A. (2019). The Field’s Leadership Potential is Being Ignored. New America. https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/the-fields-leadership-potential-is-being-ignored/

Douglass, A. (2019). Early Education Should Be On The 116th Congress’ Agenda. Here’s Why. Boston: WGBH News.https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2019/01/11/early-education-should-be-on-the-116th-congress-agenda-heres-why

Douglass, A. (2017). Massachusetts Early Education Programs are in Peril (pp. 1). Boston: The Boston Globe. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/07/18/massachusetts-early-education-programs-are-peril/rlyXHYwkYEKJz66kOtOi5J/story.html

Bookman, A. & Douglass, A. (2017). ViewPoint: Invest in our children and our economy. Boston: Boston Business Journal. https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2017/03/24/viewpoint-invest-in-our-children-and-our-economy.html

Douglass, A., Kelleher, C., Zeng, S., Agarwal, V., Beauregard, B., Reyes, A., & Crandall, S. (2020). The Massachusetts Early Education and Care Workforce Survey 2019: Key Findings. Boston: University of Massachusetts Boston

Bookman, A.; Crandall, S.; Douglass; A.; Kelleher, C. (2018). The Massachusetts Early Care and Education Workforce Study: Final Report Relevant to Survey Design.Boston: University of Massachusetts Boston.

Bookman, A.; Crandall, S.; Douglass; A.; Kelleher, C. (2018). The Massachusetts Early Care and Education Workforce Study: Phase I Executive Summary. Boston: University of Massachusetts Boston.

Doyle, S., Rivers, S., Agosti, J., Douglass, A. (2016). Early care and education Breakthrough Series Collaborative: A toolkit. Boston, United States: Boston Public Health Commission.

Douglass, Anne (2016).  Strengthening Leadership from the Field, For the Field: Key Research Findings.  Leadership Research Brief #3. Boston: University of Massachusetts Boston. 

Douglass, Anne (2016).  Co-Creating a Leadership Development Ecosystem in Early Care and Education. Leadership Research Brief #4. Boston: University of Massachusetts Boston. 

Douglass, Anne (2016).  Impact of the Post Master’s Certificate Program in Early Education Research, Policy, and Practice: 2015 Alumni Survey Results. Leadership Research Brief #2. Boston: University of Massachusetts Boston.

Douglass, Anne (2016).  Overview of The Post Master’s Certificate in Early Education Research, Policy, And Practice. Leadership Research Brief #1.  University Of Massachusetts Boston.