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Courtesy of Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for American Education: Images of Teachers and Students in Action
Task force releases 'audacious' vision to reform early ed profession
Power to the Profession has been a broad effort involving input from
over 11,000 early educators. But many questions remain about how to
implement — and pay for — the recommendations.
Linda Jacobson
March 9, 2020
The early-childhood education profession would be organized into three
levels, each with specific competencies and pathways into the field,
according to a culminating report released Monday by Power to the
Profession. The task force has spent three years defining the work and
preparation of those who teach and care for young children.
Its “unifying framework” aims to bridge the existing “incoherent” and
chaotic array of training, degree and licensing programs — or no
professional preparation at all — with an “audacious” vision of an
“effective, diverse, well-prepared, and well-compensated workforce.”
The initiative has been, in part, a response to a 2015 Institute of
Medicine and National Research Council report calling for those working
with children birth through 8 to have pathways toward earning a
bachelor’s degree.
The 15-member task force, convened by the National Association for the
Education of Young Children (NAEYC), also released new “standards and
competencies” that clearly outline what early educators would be
expected to do at each level. The standards, they write, should “inform
state and federal policy” in areas such as licensing, hiring and
performance evaluations, professional development and national
accreditation.
“It is historic to have these organizations to come together to agree
on what the next steps should be to really build our profession,” said
Valora Washington, a member of the task force and CEO of the Council
for Professional Recognition, which grants the Child Development
Associate (CDA) credential in the U.S. and internationally.
Under the task force’s plan, those who hold a CDA, for example, would
be considered an "early childhood educator I." Many state-funded pre-K
programs require assistant teachers to have a CDA, while some still
require only a high school diploma. Those with an associate degree
would be an early childhood educator II, and a level III would require
a four-year degree.
The National Institute for Early Education Research also includes a
bachelor’s degree for lead teachers as one of its quality benchmarks.
Its annual state preschool “yearbook” is due for release in April.
"I think the idea of one profession with three designations offers ...
cohesion, which is what people really want because the field is so
fragmented," said Lea Austin, executive director of the Center for the
Study of Child Care Employment, which provided feedback on drafts
throughout the process. The organization raised concerns over whether
the broad range of early educators in the profession were well
represented in the process.
In addition to the groups represented on the task force — including the
National Head Start Association (NHSA), the American Federation of
Teachers (AFT) and the National Association of Elementary School
Principals (NAESP) — 35 organizations with connections to the
early-childhood education field have influenced the framework.
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