Jean Lennon

With a doctorate in Developmental Psychology and more than 20 years of research experience, Jean Lennon directs complex, large-scale efforts focused on education and learning from early childhood to the postdoctoral level. Her primary interests are school readiness, early education quality, and assessments. She has extensive experience in classroom observations, teacher surveys, instrument development, direct child assessments, data analysis, and report writing. Dr. Lennon has provided instrumentation expertise on both national and international studies of early childhood education settings and child assessments.

Dr. Lennon has been with RTI since 2000. She currently directs Making Pre-K Count, a randomized, longitudinal evaluation of a math curriculum in New York City preschools. The study follows a cohort of 2,700 children from preschool into kindergarten, with plans for a 3rd grade follow-up. Previously, she served as Associate Director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort, which followed 10,000 children into kindergarten, measuring many aspects of early education, health, and family experiences. She has served as early childhood content area expert, developing early grade instruments for the National Children’s Study – Vanguard Study and advising on pilot results of the Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes (MELQO) study.