Advancing Access and Opportunity and Projects

An accepted conclusion is that children at risk for educational failure who participate in high-quality early care and education (ECE) enter kindergarten “more ready,” possessing skills comparable to their more advantaged peers. There is less consensus about longer-term outcomes with some studies finding continuation of early gains, while others report “fade out” by elementary school.

This study investigated outcomes of 75 children, kindergarten through Grade 3,  randomly assigned as infants to either participate or not in an enhanced Early Head Start/Head Start program.

It was hypothesized that the children who experienced this high-quality ECE would perform better than their control group peers across a range of measures. From kindergarten to Grade 3, children in the treatment group demonstrated higher skills in letter and word identification, vocabulary, oral comprehension, and math than control group children after controlling for child/family characteristics and classroom quality.

Results for executive functioning were mixed with children in the treatment group showing higher skills on one of the two measures of executive function. No group differences were found for social-emotional skills. This study contributes to the scant literature of longitudinal studies spanning infancy through to Grade 3.

Lead research, education and outreach for ethical genomic research in partnership with American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Our Center works Indigenous communities and researchers to identify and develop approaches to genomic research that align with the values, interests, expectations, and needs of American Indian and Alaska Native peoples.

A multidisciplinary consortium of tribal partners, university researchers and community-based institutions working collaboratively to conduct culturally grounded comparative research on the ethical, legal, and social implications of genomics in American Indian and Alaska Native communities. 

The Center for the Ethics of Indigenous Genomic Research engages with American Indian and Alaska Native communities to explore the potential role of genomic medicine and research in promoting and achieving tribal health and research priorities. CEIGR aims to model meaningful community engagement in genomics research and move toward ethical and culturally sensitive research practices. 

In partnership with Mineola Independent School District in Texas, this five-year, $4 million project - funded through the Education Innovation and Research Competition - aims to develop a multi-tiered coaching program that leverages rural strengths and context to support implementation of the Second Step® digital curriculum. The research team, led by Drs. Brittany Hott, Courtney Dewhirst, Sarah Heiniger, and Jacquelyn Purser, completed the development phase in May 2025, with promising preliminary results. The team also validated two school climate and student well-being measures, the first of their kind available for kindergarten through second grade. The second-year impact study will launch in Fall 2025 with new district partners, with additional districts joining each subsequent year of the project. 

Project CREATE, supported by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education and led by Drs. Brittany Hott, Julie Atwood, Bre Martin, and Kevin Muns, involved developing, and piloting, a low-cost, high-impact professional development package designed to support rural Oklahoma special education teachers who are certified through alternative pathways or in their first three years of teaching. National educator shortages are at an all-time high, with almost half of novice teachers leaving the field of education within five years of service and almost 40% of special educators exiting the field within their first three years of service. The special educator shortage is even more pronounced in Oklahoma where our state ranks 49th in education in the U.S. Results of Project CREATE are highly encouraging with 94% of participants continuing to serve their districts and 100% continuing to servrf rural districts in Oklahoma during the 2025-2026 school year.