Share Your Feedback on Draft Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has released the first public draft of its position statement on “Professional Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators.” Feedback from AACTE members—schools, colleges, and departments of education that house many early childhood degree programs—about the content and clarity of the statement is critical! We encourage you to provide feedback through this survey.
This statement is a revision of the 2009 position statement on “NAEYC Standards for Early Childhood Professional Preparation,” which is a cornerstone of the early childhood profession. It serves as the standards for NAEYC’s higher education accreditation system, as well as the standards for the NAEYC SPA recognition system through the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). It also influences states’ early childhood competencies and professional development systems and informs the program content and design of most early childhood degree programs (preparing an early childhood workforce that serves young children, birth through age eight).
NAEYC position statements are driven by the early childhood field and serve as an important tool for building understanding and support for significant and often controversial issues related to early childhood education. The revisions of this position statement were particularly informed by the recommendations coming out of Power to the Profession (P2P), a national initiative to build a unified framework for the early childhood profession and by the National Academy of Medicine’s seminal Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8. AACTE currently serves as a stakeholder organization in the P2P work.
There are many ways to learn more about the draft. On October 15, 2:00-3:00p.m. EST, NAEYC is holding a webinar to provide an opportunity to learn more about the revisions, to answer your questions, and to hear your suggestions. We’ll also hold a listening session at the NAEYC Annual Conference, November 12-16 in Washington DC. Visit the NAEYC website to listen to a pre-recorded overview of the revisions (10 minutes) and short introductory videos (in English and Spanish) from Dina Castro, chair of early childhood education at the University of North Texas, a NAEYC Governing Board Member and a member of the workgroup informing the revisions to the statement. A Spanish translation of the draft is forthcoming.
We are eager to receive your feedback! Please take time to review the position statement, to share it with your colleagues and students, and to make your voice heard through this survey, open until Friday, November 16, 2018.
Members of the workgroup and NAEYC Board committee (see Appendix B of the position statement) who are overseeing the revisions will consider all feedback submitted during the public comment period. A final draft will be released for a second round of comments before it is considered for formal adoption by the Governing Board.
Thank you for your engagement! For more information, email Mary Harrill at mharrill@naeyc.org.
Tags: AACTE partner organizations, accreditation, early childhood education