Charles Smith, PhD

Executive Director, David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality

Vice President of Research, The Forum for Youth Investment

In addition to guiding the Center’s portfolio of work on quality accountability systems and policy, Charles leads the Center’s work on metrics and evaluation of program change interventions.  Charles Smith manages youth-level research, training and consulting, and direct service.

Previously, Dr. Smith coordinated a longitudinal evaluation of the Michigan School Readiness Program for High/Scope.  His current policy and consulting focus is on development of quality accountability and improvement systems in education and human service organizations. 

His current research includes observational assessment methodology and modeling multi-level relationships between setting characteristics and individual outcomes.

Smith pursued an undergraduate focus on early development of the welfare state, an M.A. focus on adult learning and completed a Ph.D. in Public Policy, all at Wayne State University.  Charles received his degrees from Wayne State University in Detroit with primary concentrations in welfare state history, urban planning, and education policy. While at Wayne State, he co-founded and implemented the Youth Urban Agenda Civic Literacy Project, an ongoing civic learning initiative for secondary and undergraduate students. 

CYPQ is charged with positioning point of service quality as a powerful public idea that drives the out-of-school time field toward higher levels of understanding, expectation, and action about the quality of experiences available to children and youth.