Emily Weinberg

Senior Researcher

Emily Weinberg is a senior researcher focusing on early childhood and K-12 education policy. Weinberg has more than 16 years of experience conducting and contributing to evaluations of educational programs and policies. Weinberg has also provided support to foundations, counties, and other local organizations in California on planning for expanding preschool access and quality. For example, she provided guidance on preschool and early education planning, including guidance on funding options, for Long Beach Unified School District’s Educare Center, Sonoma County, and to the City of Oakland.

Weinberg has extensive experience working with state early childhood data to inform state early care and education needs assessments. She is the administrator for AIR’s Early Learning Needs Assessment Tool that provides data related to childcare and early education needs for the state of California. She has also worked with state early care and education data to inform needs assessments and other early childhood data projects for Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona.

Weinberg is skilled in selecting, training, and assembling teams of researchers to collect qualitative and quantitative data including interviews, observations, surveys, and assessments for large and complex systems, including for both K-12 schools and early education and care programs. Weinberg has extensive experience managing data collection and training data collectors for large scale research and evaluation projects including for the Birth Through Eight Strategy for Tulsa (BEST) Study, the Efficacy Trial of the HighScope Preschool Curriculum, the Pennsylvania Kindergarten Entry Inventory concurrent validity study, the Independent Evaluation of California’s RTT-ELC Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS).

Before joining AIR, Weinberg was a senior research analyst with Berkeley Policy Associates (BPA). At BPA, Weinberg managed a random assignment evaluation of the infant/toddler caregiver professional development program, the Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC).

Emily Weinberg
Expertise
Education
District and School Improvement
Early Childhood and Child Development

M.A., Developmental Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University; B.A., Human Development, University of California at San Diego

Contact Emily Weinberg

+1.781.373.7000
Related Work
Toddlers playing on the floor with blocks

Incorporating Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Pre-Kindergarten Expansions

09 Apr 2024
Pre-kindergarten students do not learn in the same ways that older elementary students do. Here are five ways education leaders can incorporate research-based developmentally appropriate practice into public pre-kindergarten expansions.
Image of teacher with young students

Evaluation of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP) Approach

The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP) is an approach to literacy instruction for students in elementary and middle schools with two primary goals: to improve students’ reading and writing, and to help children become lifelong, confident readers and writers who display agency and independence through work with teachers, ...

Connecting All Children to High-Quality Early Care and Education: Promising Strategies From the International Community

24 Oct 2016
High-quality early care and education (ECE) provides an important foundation for young children’s success in school and in life. With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, AIR conducted a scan of efforts to improve access to quality ECE for low-income, minority families in other countries that might inform learning ...

Independent Evaluation of California’s Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge Quality Rating and Improvement System: Cumulative Technical Report

13 Aug 2016
The purpose of the Independent Evaluation of California’s Race to the Top–Early Learning Challenge (RTT–ELC) Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) is to inform California stakeholders about the ability of the QRIS to accurately measure program quality, differentiate programs with better learning outcomes for children, and provide quality improvement (QI) ...
Preschool teacher with kids

Ten Questions Local Policymakers Should Ask About Expanding Access to Preschool

26 May 2016
High-quality preschool programs can have far reaching benefits for kids, parents, and communities—and they can provide a high return on initial investments. This 10 Series report summarizes our key findings about local preschool initiatives in 10 U.S. communities.

Analysis of Options for Funding Universal Preschool in Sonoma County - Updated Report

30 Apr 2016
Critical gaps currently exist in the availability of high-quality preschool, particularly in low-income areas of Sonoma County, California. Building on the county's interest in universal preschool, and the body of work already conducted in the county supporting it, this report provides a plan to expand access to preschool and to ...

HighScope Preschool Curriculum and Professional Development Efficacy Study

State and federal governments have invested heavily in expanding, and improving the quality of early childhood education programs. AIR led a study to investigate the impact of the HighScope Preschool Curriculum on children’s learning and development and classroom quality.