About

The Partnership for Early Education Research (PEER) is a research alliance among early childhood stakeholders in Connecticut that aims to conduct rigorous, collaborative, actionable research focused on children from birth through age 8. By pursuing questions developed collaboratively with its partners, PEER aims to produce research that can inform early childhood education policy and practice at the local and state levels, increase access to high-quality early childhood education, and reduce disparities in educational outcomes. To ensure that its research is relevant and useful its partners, PEER engages diverse stakeholders in the research process, including early childhood care and education providers, district and state administrators, policymakers, advocates, and social science researchers.

PEER was founded in 2014 as an alliance of early childhood education stakeholders in Bridgeport, Norwalk, Stamford, Connecticut Office of Early Childhood (OEC), and Connecticut State Department of Education (SDE). The alliance is led by the PEER Management Team, which includes representatives from Yale School of Medicine, C.E.S. (Cooperative Education Services), and Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC).

PEER was initially funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which supported research to address PEER's initial research questions and the development of a long-term research agenda through a collaborative process in which member organizations identified PEER's priority research areas. PEER later received funding from the Spencer Foundation’s Research-Practice Partnership Program and the U.S. Administration for Children & Families’ Office of Planning Research & Evaluation (OPRE). PEER has also undertaken a variety of research and evaluation projects in partnership with PEER partner organizations, including Connecticut Office of Early Childhood. For more information on our past and present work, please visit our projects and publications page and our news page.

If you would like to join PEER's mailing list, please sign up here.

Please contact PEER@yale.edu with any questions.