The Early Link Podcast

Anne Griffith shares the visionary story of building an innovative, supportive and free preschool from the ground up that serves low-income students in Albany, Oregon. The program has been a success, incorporating families and the community in helping the most vulnerable children.

Professor Sean Reardon, a Stanford researcher, was the keynote speaker for our annual Make It Your Business Luncheon. Reardon received his doctorate from Harvard and has spent his career researching how to ensure every child is able to obtain the best education. In his keynote address, he says statistics indicate some Oregon school districts are outperforming other school districts in similar soci...

Senate Bill 182 would help early educators across the state access professional learning to increase the quality of early education. The bill would also allow K-12 schools to coordinate more with local preschools to ensure high-quality and seamless education in the state. In this podcast, Children's Institute President Swati Adarkar and Chalkboard Project President Sue Hildick discuss Senate Bill...

Coquille School District Tim Sweeney is the guest for this edition of the Early Link podcast. Sweeney tells the story of the high school junior who led him to start early learning in his district and the increasing demand for high-quality early education on Oregon’s south coast.

Investments in early childhood that focus on children age 0-5 can yield a 13 percent return. Talking with Marina Merrill, Children's Institute's senior research and policy advisor, we examine the results of a recent paper from James Heckman called The Life-Cycle Benefits of an Influential Early Childhood Program. Heckman, professor of economics at the University of Chicago and Nobel Prize winner,...

In the fourth installment of the Early Link Podcast, and the last one for 2016, I visited Yoncalla in Douglas County to learn more about the community, our Early Works initiative, and Yoncalla Elementary's new preschool funded by Oregon's Preschool Promise program. I spoke with teachers Megan Barber and Cassie Reigard, as well as parents Crystal Sampson and Kevin Hoyt, all of whom have deep ties t...

For this segment of the Early Link Podcast, I brought my kids to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) to explore the exhibits and learn more about the science museum's involvement in early learning. We spent lots of time in the Science Playground learning about animals, playing in sand, splashing in water fountains and whirl pools, and building dams. We also visited Innovation Station...

In this installment of the Early Link Podcast, we speak with Ruby Takanishi about her new book First Things First: Creating the New American Primary School. In the interview, Takanishi says, “primary education today reflects the social and economic divides in our country.” While some children in the United States are getting an outstanding world class education, many more children are in danger of...

Children’s Institute is excited to introduce the Early Link Podcast with an interview with our president and CEO, Swati Adarkar. Focused on Oregon’s early learning system and the state’s new preschool program called Preschool Promise, the segment explores what’s happening as the program launches. Preschool Promise is part of an effort to help Oregon change the trajectory for vulnerable children an...