Christina Weiland

Christina Weiland is Professor at the Marsal Family School of Education and the Karl and Martha Kohn Professor of Social Policy at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, where she is affiliated with the Educational Studies department and the Combined Program in Psychology and Education program. She co-directs the Education Policy Initiative (with Dr. Kevin Stange) and directs the University of Michigan’s Predoctoral Training Program in Causal Inference in Education Policy Research.  She is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Learning Policy Institute and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Urban Institute.

Dr. Weiland’s research focuses on the effects of early childhood interventions and public policies on children’s development, especially on children from families with low incomes. She is particularly interested in the active ingredients that drive children’s gains in successful, at-scale public preschool programs. She is also interested in quantitative research methods, educational measurement, and developmental processes research. Her work is also characterized by strong, long-standing research collaborations with practitioners, particularly the Boston Public Schools Department of Early Childhood. 

Her current projects include a longitudinal descriptive study of the preschool to fifth grade experiences of Boston Public School students as part of the Institute of Education Sciences’ Early Learning Network. She is also PI of a large-scale, Institute of Education Sciences-funded study of the longitudinal impacts of the Boston Public Schools prekindergarten into early adulthood, as well as an implementation study of Boston’s scale out to community-based preschool programs.  In partnership with the Michigan Department of Education, she leads (with Brian Jacob) an evaluation of Michigan’s Transitional Kindergarten program.  She also serves as co-PI on a lottery-based evaluation of the DC UPK program.

Her work has been recognized with a 2018 Association for Education Finance and Policy Early Career Award, a 2014 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, and a 2013 Best Dissertation Award from the Society for Research in Child Development.  

Her work has been generously funded by the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Smith-Richardson Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Foundation for Child Development,  the Foundation for Child Development, Chile’s Ministry of Education, and the University of Michigan. She has presented her work on preschool to the Seattle City Council, to senior U.S. Department of Education officials, and at a Congressional briefing, at U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee and U.S. Senate HELP Committee briefing, among others.

She holds an EdD (quantitative policy analysis in education) and a MA from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a BA from Dartmouth College.

Educational background

• EdD in quantitative policy analysis in education, Harvard University
• MEd, Harvard University
• BA in history (high honors), Dartmouth College

Recent publications

• Weiland, C., Greenberg, E., Bassok, D., Markowitz, A., Guerrero Rosada, P. … & Snow, C.  (2021). Historic crisis, historic opportunity: Using evidence to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on young children and early care and education programs.  Ann Arbor, MI and DC: University of Michigan Education Policy Initiative and Urban Institute Policy Brief.  https://edpolicy.umich.edu/files/EPI-UI-Covid%20Synthesis%20Brief%20Jun…
• Weiland, C., Sachs, J., McCormick, M., Hsueh, H., & Snow, C. (2021). “Fast response” research to address timely practice and policy questions. Future of Children.
• McCormick, M., Weiland, C., Hsueh, J., Pralica, M., Weissman, A., Moffett, L., Snow, C., & Sachs, J. (2021). Is skill type the key to the PreK fadeout puzzle? Differential associations between enrollment in PreK and constrained and unconstrained skills across kindergarten. Child Development.
• Guerrero Rosada, P., Weiland, C., Taylor, A., Penfold, L., Snow, C., Sachs, J., & McCormick, M. (2021). Effects of COVID-19 on early childhood education centers: Descriptive evidence from Boston’s Universal Prekindergarten initiative. Ann Arbor, MI: Ford Education Policy Initiative Policy Brief. https://edpolicy.umich.edu/files/BPS_ECE_COVID_Policy_Brief.pdf
• Weiland, C., Unterman, R., & Shapiro, A.  (2021). The kindergarten hotspot: Literacy skill convergence between Boston Prekindergarten enrollees and non-enrollees. Child Development.
• Kabay, S., Weiland, C., & Yoshikawa, H.  (2020). Costs of the Boston Public Prekindergarten Program. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 13, 574-600.
• Guerrero Rosada, P., Weiland, C., McCormick, M., Hsueh, J., Sachs, J., Snow, C., & Maier, M. (2020). Null relations between CLASS scores and Gains in Children's Language, Math, and Executive Function Skills: A Replication and Extension Study. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 54, 1-12..
• McCormick, M.P., Pralica, M., Rosada, P.G., Weiland, C., Condliffe, B., Hsueh, J., Sachs, J., & 
  Snow, C. (2020). Can center-based care reduce summer slow-down prior to kindergarten? Exploring variation by family income, race/ethnicity, and dual language Learner status. American Education Research Journal.
• McCormick, M., Ketner, A., Weiland, C., Hsueh, J., Sachs, J., & Snow, C.  (2020). Time well spent: Home Learning Activities and Gains in Children’s Academic Skills in the Prekindergarten Year. Developmental Psychology.
• Weiland, C., Unterman, R., Shapiro, A., Staszak, S., Rochester, S., & Martin, E. (2020). The effects of enrolling in oversubscribed prekindergarten programs through third grade. Child Development, 5, 1401-1422.
• Weiland, C., Unterman, R., Shapiro, A., & Yoshikawa, H. (2019). Findings on Boston Prekindergarten through Early Elementary School. Ann Arbor, MI: Ford Education Policy Initiative Policy Brief. http://edpolicy.umich.edu/files/boston-prekindergarten-findings.pdf
• McCormick, M., Weiland, C., Hsueh, J., Maier, M., Snow, C., Leacock, N., Schick, L., & Hagos, R. (2020). Promoting content-enriched alignment across the early grades: A study of policies and practices in the Boston Public Schools. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 52, 57-73..