Stevens briefed journalists in December 2020: How COVID-19 Worsened Education Inequality.

Katharine B. Stevens is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where her work focuses on the early development and learning of children. She studies the crucial role of early childhood in fostering better economic outcomes and breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty in disadvantaged communities, as well as the challenges of implementing rapidly expanding early-childhood initiatives.

Before joining AEI, Dr. Stevens founded and led Teachers for Tomorrow, one of the first teacher apprenticeship programs in the United States, which recruited and trained teachers for New York City’s lowest-performing schools. She began her career in public education as an assistant in a Head Start classroom in St. Louis, Missouri, and as a preschool teacher in New Haven, Connecticut.

Her publications include “Workforce of Today, Workforce of Tomorrow: The Business Case for High-Quality Childcare” (US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, 2017); “Does Pre-K Work? The Research on Ten Early Childhood Programs—And What It Tells Us” (AEI, 2016); and “Renewing Childhood’s Promise: The History and Future of Federal Early Care and Education Policy” (AEI, 2015).

Her analyses and commentary have been published in Education Week, The Hill, HuffPost, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, US News & World Report, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

Dr. Stevens has a PhD in education policy from Columbia University, an MEd from Teachers College, an MBA from Columbia Business School, and a BA in US history from the University of Chicago.