Amy Jo Dowd

Lecturer

Policy, Organizations, Leadership, and Systems Division

Contact

ajdowd@upenn.edu

Media Inquiries:
Contact Penn GSE Communications.

Education

Ed.D. (Education) Harvard University, 2001
M.Ed. (Education) Harvard University, 1997
MA (Education) Stanford University, 1991
BA (International Relations) Stanford University, 1991

Areas of Expertise

Implementation research
International learning assessments
Early childhood development
School readiness measurement
Equity in international education
Innovation and scaling solutions

Programs

International Educational Development M.S.Ed.

Bio Nav

Biography

Professional Biography

Over her three-decade career, Dr. Amy Jo Dowd has used rigorous research to innovate and improve practice in basic education and child development across the globe. A graduate of Stanford (MA) and Harvard’s (M.Ed. & Ed.D.) Graduate Schools of Education, she built and led Save the Children’s research team to ensure that all children develop and learn essential skills. The development and field-testing of Literacy Boost, now implemented and evolving in partnership with ministries and communities in dozens of countries, transformed the way that Save the Children, World Vision, and their partners use data to support families and children to reach their potential. Building from there, Dr. Dowd and colleagues developed, tested, and scaled numeracy and preschool interventions and the International Development and Early Learning Assessment. With each innovation, teams of implementers established systems to ask and answer questions from the field to fuel continuous improvement.

Dr. Dowd led evidence work at the LEGO Foundation during COVID, spearheading investment and learning from US $10 million in distance learning investments as well as enhancing adaptive management across Foundation initiatives. She currently consults for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on implementation research to scale foundational literacy and numeracy and is a member of the Global Partnership for Education’s Independent Technical Advisory Panel. Through this work she continues to promote evidence use in ensuring learning at scale with equity. Pursuing equity in higher education in the United States, she chairs the board of the Come to Believe Network, which replicates across higher education institutions an innovative, inclusive, results-oriented college model that achieves high rates of graduation among underrepresented students.

Research Interests and Current Projects

Dr. Dowd’s current research interests focus on implementation research and its role in meeting the challenges of scaling solutions to the global learning crisis. This builds upon her prior interests in measurement as well as equity but also implies exploration and testing of better strategies to leverage and empower local research expertise in the policy and implementation ecosystems in which they work. With a variety of collaborators, she has published peer-review articles, including the Comparative Education Review’s 2019 most impactful article: The Need for Speed: Interrogating the Dominance of Oral Reading Fluency in International Reading Efforts. She has contributed chapters to edited books on the SDGs (Optimizing Early Childhood Potential for All: Pursuing Holism in Measurement, Policy and Practice), equity (Early Learning and Development at the Bottom of the Pyramid) and applied research in sub-Saharan Africa (Education for All or Literacy for All? Evaluating Student Outcomes from Save the Children’s Literacy Boost Program in Sub-Saharan Africa). She has also co-authored technical guidance for UNICEF on Leveraging the Enthusiasm of Parents and Caregivers for Lifewide Learning, and for the UNESCO Institute of Statistics on Understanding What Works in Oral Reading Assessments.

From the start of large international investments in reading interventions, she and colleagues pursued learning to read with a vision embracing learners' time inside schools and outside as well. They generated practical guides (Community Strategies for Promoting Literacy), advocated for more and better data (Two Wheels are Better than One: The Importance of Capturing the Home Literacy Environment in Large Scale Assessments of Reading) and published on the impact of reading support both inside and outside of schools (Lifewide Learning for Early Reading Development in Twelve African and Asian Sites). Their efforts across several years shifted investments to include reading culture and actors beyond school walls.

Publications

Selected Publications

Pisani, L., & Dowd, A. J. (2022). Diversity and equity in education: Policy, practice, and options for reaching children at the bottom of the pyramid. In D. A. Wagner, N. M. Castillo, & S. Grant Lewis (Eds). Learning, marginalization, and improving the quality of education in low-income countries. UNESCO IIEP.

Dowd, A. J., & Stjerne-Thomsen, B. (2020). Learning through play: Increasing impact, reducing inequity. LEGO.

Dowd, A. J., Bartlett, L., Khamis-Dakwar, R., & Froud, K. (2020). Measure fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension in international reading efforts. Comparative Education Review, 64(2): 309.

Dowd, A. J., & Bartlett, L. (2019). The need for speed: Interrogating the dominance of oral reading fluency in international reading efforts. Comparative Education Review, 63(2): 189-212.

Dowd, A. J., Pisani, L., Dusabe, C., & Howell, H. J. (2018). UNICEF Think Piece Series: Leveraging the enthusiasm of parents and caregivers for lifewide learning. UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, Nairobi.

Dowd, A. J., & Pisani, L. (2018). Early learning and development at the bottom of the pyramid. In D. Wagner, R. F. Boruch, & S. Wolfe (Eds.), Learning at the bottom of the pyramid. UNESCO-IIEP.

Dowd, A., Pisani, L, & Hsaio, C. (2018). Optimizing early childhood potential for all: Pursuing holism in measurement, policy and practice. In A. Petersen & S. Verma (Eds.), Sustainable development goals: Using developmental science to improve young lives globally. Springer.

Dowd, A. J., Friedlander, E., Jonason, C., Leer, J., Sorensen, L. Z., Guajardo, J., D’Sa, N., Pava, C., & Pisani, L. (2017). Lifewide learning for early reading development in twelve African and Asian sites. In P. McCardle, A. Mora, & A. Gove (Eds.), Progress toward a literate world: Early reading interventions in low-income countries (pp. 31–49). Jossey-Bass.

Friedlander, E., Dowd, A. J., Guajardo, J., & Pisani, L. (2017). Education for all or literacy for all? Evaluating student outcomes from Save the Children’s Literacy Boost program in sub-Saharan Africa. In A. Abubakar & F. van de Vijver (Eds.), Handbook of Applied Developmental Science in sub-Saharan Africa. Springer

Wolf, S., Halpin, P., Yoshikawa, H., Dowd, A. J., Pisani, L., & Borisova, I. (2017). Measuring school readiness globally: Assessing the construct validity and measurement invariance of the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA) in Ethiopia. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 41: 21–36.

Dowd, A. J., Pisani, L., & Borisova, I. (2016). “Evaluating Early Learning from Age 3 to Grade 3” in Understanding what works in oral reading assessments. UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Dowd, A. J., Borisova, I., Amente, A., & Yenew, A. (2016). Realizing capabilities in Ethiopia: Maximizing early childhood investment for impact and equity. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 17(4): 477–493.

Bartlett, L., Dowd, A. J., & Jonason, C. (2015). Problematizing early grade reading: Should the post-2015 agenda treasure what is measured? International Journal for Educational Development, 40(C): 308–314.

Dowd, A. J., Friedlander, E., & Guajardo, J. (2014). Opportunity to learn (OTL): A framework for supporting learning? In N.V. Varghese (Ed.), From schooling to learning: A report from the International Working Group on Education. UNESCO IIEP.

Dowd, A. J., & Pisani, L. (2013). Two wheels are better than one: The importance of capturing the home literacy environment in large scale assessments of reading. Research in Comparative & International Education, 8(3): 359.

Friedlander, E., Dowd, A. J., Borisova, I., & Guajardo, J. (2012). Lifewide learning: Supporting all children to enjoy quality education. UN Women & UNICEF.

Wagner, D. A., Lockheed, M., Mullis, I., Martin, M. O., Kanjee, A., Gove, A., & Dowd, A. J. (2012). The debate on learning assessments in developing countries. Compare: A Journal of Comparative & International Education, 42(3): 509–545.

Dowd, A. J., O’Donnell, N., Ochoa, C., & Borisova, I. (2010). Community strategies for promoting literacy. Save the Children and World Vision.

Courses

ED5406: International Early Childhood Policies and Programs
ED6480: International Educational Development in Practice: Tools, Techniques & Ethics
EDUC5418 : Global Governance in International Education: Who’s Who in the Zoo?