Landry Heads National, State Groups on Early Education

Panel and forums focus on improving, evaluating pre-kindergarten education

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson has appointed Susan Landry, Ph.D., chief of the Division of Developmental Pediatrics in The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, as chair of a panel to assess progress in developing and implementing the Head Start National Reporting System.

Susan Landry, Ph.D., the Michael Matthew Knight Memorial Professor of Pediatrics at the UT Medical School at Houston, is helping improve education for young children on a state and national level.

Photo by Morrison Wulffraat

"These experts on child development will offer their guidance and perspective so we may improve early learning for our nation's children," Thompson said of the 10 panel members. "Their contributions will move us toward President Bush's goal of leaving no child behind."

Landry is director of the State Center for Early Childhood Development at the UT Health Science Center at Houston and leads the UT Children's Learning Institute, which includes the Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education (CIRCLE), Reach Out and Read- Texas and the Center for Academic and Reading Skills (CARS). She is the Michael Matthew Knight Memorial Professor of Pediatrics.

Landry was a featured speaker at First Lady Laura Bush's White House Summit on cognitive development in young children and has presented her research to U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) and representatives of the Department of Education.

Together with an existing technical work group that helped develop the National Reporting System, the new national panel will find ways to integrate the system into a broader assessment of early childhood learning. The reporting system was designed to implement a common set of measures for all 4- and 5-year-old children at the beginning and end of the program year, and to assess the ability of local Head Start programs to achieve positive outcomes.

On a state level, Landry was one of the lead speakers at a series of forums to make sure pre-school children are not left behind. The forums, titled "The Economic Impact of Early Childhood Education," were held in seven cities during February and March in conjunction with United Way of Texas.

Speakers discussed the importance of pre-kindergarten education and its influence on students throughout their school years. They explained the promising, early results of the state-mandated Texas Early Education Model (TEEM) project.

TEEM is a pilot project of the state center to give children from child care, Head Start and school district pre-kindergarten the tools necessary to become good readers and therefore better overall students. The project was the result of the bi-partisan Senate Bill 76 passed in the last session of the Texas Legislature.

Other Medical School faculty members speaking at the forums were: Susan Gunnewig, associate director of CIRCLE and assistant professor of pediatrics, and Lilla Dale McManis, Ph.D., instructor and coordinator for CIRCLE activities.

By Deborah Mann Lake