Innovative Professional Development Program for Early Childhood Teachers Helps Tackle Education Disparities in NYC

NEW YORK, Aug. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Only half of all teacher training programs in the US offer any formal instruction on how to engage with students' families—despite evidence that a strong school-home partnership is critical to boosting children's well-being and success in school.

New research from NYU Langone Health found that an innovative professional development program, known as ParentCorps, delivered to educators in universal pre-Kindergarten programs in New York City, led to significantly stronger family engagement, including greater trust and inclusiveness.

The study, recently published in the journal Frontiers in Education, was the first to measure the impact of professional development on family engagement from the parents' perspective, the researchers said.

"Our findings show that professional development helps educators build inclusive environments and trusting relationships with families. It can be scaled across the country, with the potential to drive systems change and ultimately reduce long-standing disparities in education," said lead author Spring R. Dawson-McClure, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

To assess the impact of ParentCorps professional development relative to the school district's standard professional development program, the investigators conducted two randomized, side-by-side studies at universal pre-K programs in New York City over four years, from 2016 through 2019. One study was conducted across 61 schools and the other across 70 early education centers. The schools and centers in the studies served primarily Latino and Black children living in concentrated poverty, with approximately 4,500 parents in each study.

Using responses from the annual NYC School Survey over four consecutive years, the researchers measured the quality of family engagement by looking at parents' ratings of communication and trust in their child's teacher, trust in the school leader, and inclusiveness of school leadership. In all three domains, ParentCorps professional development resulted in significantly higher ratings than the standard professional development program.

According to Dr. Dawson-McClure, professional development offered through ParentCorps is unlike most professional development offered to teachers. "Our approach is highly experiential, focused on reflection, candid sharing, and respect for participants' expertise. ParentCorps facilitators are skillful in creating learning spaces where teachers feel seen, heard, valued, and also challenged." ParentCorps is designed to support educators in building strong, culturally responsive relationships with families and promoting children's social-emotional well-being.

"Traditionally, efforts to strengthen family engagement have been limited to what parents can do to support their children's learning," said Laurie M. Brotman, PhD, senior author of the study and the Bezos Family Foundation Professor of Early Childhood Development in the Department of Population Health. "ParentCorps focuses on how to effectively support teachers and school leaders as well as families to promote children's learning and development, and ultimately health and education equity." Dr. Brotman is also a professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU Grossman and the founder of ParentCorps.

Going forward, the researchers hope to continue partnering with school districts across the country to transform the early childhood experience for children and their families.
As of the 2025–26 school year, ParentCorps had reached over 28,000 children in New York City, Detroit, Washington, DC, and beyond.

Study funding was provided by the Bezos Family Foundation, Overdeck Family Foundation, and Einhorn Family Charitable Trust.

In addition to Drs. Dawson-McClure and Brotman, NYU Langone researchers involved in the study include Nicholas Illenberger, PhD; Alexandra Ursache, PhD; R. Gabriela Barajas-Gonzalez, PhD; Dimitra Kamboukos PhD; and Keng-Yen Huang, PhD.

About NYU Langone Health

NYU Langone Health is a fully integrated health system that consistently achieves the best patient outcomes through a rigorous focus on quality that has resulted in some of the lowest mortality rates in the nation. Vizient Inc. has ranked NYU Langone No. 1 out of 118 comprehensive academic medical centers across the nation four years in a row, and it continues to have the most No. 1– and top 10–ranked specialties among medical centers in the United States, according to U.S. News & World Report. NYU Langone offers a comprehensive range of medical services with one high standard of care across seven inpatient locations, its Perlmutter Cancer Center, and more than 330 outpatient locations in the New York City area and Florida. The system also includes two tuition-free medical schools, in Manhattan and on Long Island, and a vast research enterprise. 

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SOURCE NYU Langone Health System