University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. John Fantuzzo: Making Urban Education Work for Children

Dr. John Fantuzzo is the Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations at the University of Pennsylvania whose groundbreaking scholarship on young children and school-based early learning programs is funded by the Foundation. For years, Dr. Fantuzzo has been building scientific knowledge that benefits vulnerable populations of children, mostly in urban, low-income settings.

He works with Head Start children, maltreated children, children with serious emotional and behavioral problems, students with low reading and mathematical skills, children in foster care, and children victimized by domestic violence. Through federally funded grants, he has conducted large-scale studies of children’s social competencies, learning behaviors, and the risk factors that influence them. In 2003, he received a grant from multiple federal departments to develop and evaluate an integrated literacy, mathematics, and socio-emotional curriculum for urban, Head Start children – a curriculum being deployed and tested in Philadelphia.

Dr. Fantuzzo is also co-founder of the Kids Integrated Data System (KIDS), a remarkable tool capable of drawing on data from multiple municipal data sources in Philadelphia for population-based, policy-relevant research. With KIDS, he and his team conduct longitudinal studies that develop knowledge about how best to support young children in Philadelphia. These studies have generated local and national recognition for KIDS and, most importantly, have resulted in key policy changes in the School District and City public service agencies to enhance child well-being.