Exploring the NAEYC website

Unfortunately, I still have not received a newsletter from the NAEYC organization, but I did find some rather interesting information.

While on the NAEYC website today, I was please to read about the new legislation that was introduced by Senator Harkin of Iowa. It is known as Start Strong for America's Children Act. This legislation will support early childhood programs by providing expanding funding and creating partnership that will ensure quality programs.

According the the website, the legislation has three main parts:
1. Grants to states to expand the preschool programs
2. Grant to create partnerships between Early Head Start and Child care to improve quality and expand access
3. Expand the home visiting program to serve infants and toddlers

Emphasis were placed on the following:

"Using high-quality, research-based and developmentally appropriate standards and assessments in all settings (and avoiding inappropriate use of testing);
Building on the use of existing state systems to deliver preschool programs in high-quality child care, Head Start, and school settings;
Ensuring that programs engage families and support children’s comprehensive needs;
Attracting and retaining teachers by helping them to gain the specialized knowledge required and earn degrees in early childhood education, including improved compensation;
Improving  and expanding access to infant and toddler care in Early Head Start/child care partnerships;  and
Strengthening families by providing access to voluntary home visiting in the critical infant and toddler years. " (NAEYC, 2013)

I researched more on the issue of how to be an effective advocate for funding the early childhood programs. The website has a toolkit link that offers suggestions and information that is important to advocates. To be an effective advocate, one must be an informed advocate. The section I focused on learning was the area of the workforce in early childhood education. While most of the stats were from 2004, I was very impressed at the number of educators in early childhood programs, over two million. In comparison, there were just over three million educators working in in public elementary and secondary programs.

I was really surprised at the low number of states that pre-service qualifications for teachers in the child care centers. Below is a chart taken from the website.

Setting	Role	Number of States that Require Pre-Service Qualifications	Number of States that Require Annual Ongoing Hours
Child Care Center	Teacher	16	48
	Master Teacher1	14	16
	Director	40	46

While these numbers are high, I feel that all states should require pre-service qualifications for educators.

References:
http://www.naeyc.org/policy/advocacy/ECWorkforceFacts#K12