Professor Bushouse was awarded The 2011 Virginia Hodgkinson Research Prize for her book Universal Preschool: Policy Change, Stability and the Pew Charitable Trusts (2009 SUNY Press).  The award from the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organization and Voluntary Action recognizes Bushouse’s contributions to both the study of philanthropy and public policy.  In her award letter, the committee of interdisciplinary nonprofit and philanthropy scholars noted, “we were impressed by your strong and well-considered discussions of the policy implications of your findings.”  There will be an Award Recognition Party on Thursday, October 27, 2011, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. in the Gordon Hall Atrium hosted by the Center for Public Policy and Administration.

Universal Preschool: Policy Change, Stability, and the Pew Charitable Trusts (2009 SUNY Press) is an analysis of how six states passed legislation to create universally accessible, publicly funded preschool education in the and the challenges the fledgling programs experienced to gain political and budgetary stability.  The book reflects the quiet revolution underway in American education policy; since 1995, forty-one states and the District of Columbia created some form of state-funded preschool program. Professor Bushouse tells how universal preschool was effectively reframed from a child care issue to one of investing in early education to improve the state economic outcomes.  This reframing  successfully broadened support beyond the traditional supporters of early childhood to also include unlikely interests such as business and criminal justice. She then turns to how states achieved budgetary and political stability for the new programs.  For some states, stability was achieved due to institutional changes or securing a steady funding stream.  But some states struggled to achieve stability and for those states an important source of support was the Pew Charitable Trusts.  In 2001 Pew created an ambitious new giving program aimed at creating universal preschool for all three- and four-year-olds. Bushouse reveals Pew’s complex strategy for advancing universal preschool policy and its impacts on state policy environments. A reviewer notes, “Bushouse’s work is required reading for anyone interested in educational change in the United States, and more widely. Her work is a critical case study of one insurgency for change, revealing how difficult it is to secure change in liberal capitalist democratic societies.” 

Professor Bushouse is Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Policy.  She has a joint appointment with the Center for Public Policy and Administration.   She researches the role of nonprofit organizations in the policy process with a particular passion for early education policy.  She teaches courses on public policy and nonprofit organizations for the Department of Political Science and the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.