Curry School of Education

Education

• Ph.D., University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 1986
• M.A., University of Connecticut, 1978
• B.S., University of Connecticut, 1977

Personal Statement

Robert Pianta is the Dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.

The Novartis Professor of Education and director of UVa’s Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, Pianta and his team of education researchers have proven what it takes to build better teachers.  With more than $50 million in grant funding, his team has developed a proven-effective system to both assess a teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom and to improve that teacher’s effectiveness with specific supports and mentoring.

The Classroom Assessment Scoring System™ or CLASS™ is an observational measure that has been tested and proven effective in several large national studies and is being utilized by every Head Start program in the country, touching 50,000 teachers and over a half a million students.  The supports engineered to target and improve a teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom are administered through the MyTeachingPartner™ system.

Pianta’s work in teacher and classroom quality is nationally recognized.

Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews calls Bob Pianta “one of America’s smartest educational scholars, with a long history of observing kids and teachers in classrooms.” The Post editorial page, on two occasions, noted the use of Bob’s work as a primary source of optimism about the future of Head Start.

Pianta was featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article, “Most Likely To Succeed.” The article explores what it takes to identify and develop successful teachers.

In the fall of 2008, Pianta was asked to provide recommendations for public education to the Obama Presidential Transition Team. In his recommendations he writes, “Good teachers are key. If we want to improve our students’ learning, we need to improve the quality of teachers and of teaching.”

Dr. Pianta received a B.S. and a M.A. in Special Education from the University of Connecticut, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota, and began his career as a special education teacher.  He originally joined the Curry faculty in 1986 and began his appointment as dean in 2007.

Pianta, an avid runner and Yankees fan, and his wife, Ann McAndrew, currently live on the Lawn at UVa and enjoy being in the center of the University community.  They have three children: Meghan is a UVa graduate currently living in New York City working for MSNBC, Tony is a Virginia Tech graduate and works at a small computer company in Washington DC, and Tim is a student in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at UVa.

Research Interests

Research Measures/Instruments

A former special education teacher, Bob’s research focuses on investigating the effects of schooling on children’s social and academic outcomes and on improving school and classroom experiences through teachers’ professional development. He has been involved in developing observational assessments of classrooms and observationally-based systems for professional development. Bob has been a principal investigator on several major research and training grants and is also Editor of the Journal of School Psychology. He is the author of more than four hundred journal articles, chapters, and books in the areas of early childhood development, transition to school, school readiness, and parent-child and teacher-child relationships, and he consults regularly with Federal agencies, Foundations, and universities.

Sample Introduction