“I-3C.3—To
strive to secure adequate and equitable compensation (salary and benefits) for
those who work with or on behalf of young children. (NAEYC, 2005, p. 5)”
I
serve on the Iowa AEYC’s Executive Board as Vice President. We recently received the state contract for
the WAGE$ program. This program pays early
childhood professionals a bonus based on their level of formal education and
their commitment to be a consistent presence in their program. This is just one
step towards ensuring the childcare workforce has enough income to support
their families. Currently, this is only
a pilot program in very limited areas of the state.
The
other event that I work on is Worthy Wage Day.
It is a day to raise awareness in the public to understand how important
and impactful early childhood practitioners role is in the community. They put out public service announcements,
send e-mails, and would like to organize a walk out strike by all childcare
workers. The impact of such a strike
would send a clear message to employers, policy makers, and parents that you
need to invest in early care and education and you need to this because its
good for children and it is an economic development issue.
“I-3C.4—To
encourage and support continual development of employees in becoming more
skilled and knowledgeable practitioners. (NAEYC, 2005, p. 5)”
I
work within my current work place to bring new opportunities to my colleagues
when I find new pockets of information.
I was lucky enough to hear in person from the Institute of Medicine as
they released their new research report in April, 2015.
This
impacts the work we do when we encourage the child care workers we consult with
to further their education by reading journal articles, going back to school
for a formal education, or attend a
training on something they don’t already have knowledge of.
“I-4.7—To
support policies and laws that promote the well-being of children and families,
and to work to change those that impair their well-being. To participate in
developing policies and laws that are needed, and to cooperate with other
individuals and groups in these efforts. (NAEYC, 2005, p.7)”
I
worked to convince my community that early care and education is critical to
them even if they do not have children in care at the present moment. I talked with them about how in Iowa, we have
stricter requirements for in-home doggie daycares vs. the requirements for
in-home child care providers.
“P-4.11—When
policies are enacted for purposes that do not benefit children, we have a
collective responsibility to work to change these practices. (NAEYC, 2005, p. 7)”
I
have become very vocal in our state on the issue of ensuring developmentally
appropriate practices are kept as the top priority across all settings of care
and education. With the advent of
Universal Pre-K in our state, we are now finding more and more push down from
the K-12 Education system requiring inappropriate assessment practices that are
causing Early Childhood Teachers to protest because policy makers and data
analyzers are adding more and more assessments to their work load and some are
not developmentally appropriate for these young children. Teachers are finding they spend so much time
assessing the children that they are losing their ability to interact within
the moment. Many feel this in impacting
their effectiveness as teachers.
References:
I enjoyed reading your post. None of the statements you picked that are meaningful to you surprised me. What I mean to say is, each one describes you very well since you so passionate about each of them. Your last statement, "“P-4.11—When policies are enacted for purposes that do not benefit children, we have a collective responsibility to work to change these practices. (NAEYC, 2005, p. 7)”, made me think. You mentioned Early Childhood Teachers are feeling the push down from the K-12 teachers. Sounds like your Early Childhood Teachers are starting to feel what K-2 teachers in my state have been feeling for some time now. We have complained for ages we are doing too much testing and teaching standards that are not developmentally appropriate. We don't teach students, we teach to tests. Takes the fun out of it for everyone. I am sad to hear Early Childhood Teachers are feeling our pain now. But it does not surprise me. I knew it would be coming. The only way to stay away from it would be to stay away from accepting government money. That way, the government has no control if they do not give any money. I know the money is helpful though, so it is a double edge sword. So until the people stand up and tell politicians they will not tolerate teaching to tests, I am afraid nothing is going to change. We are already beginning to see a decline of people going into education and it appears this might even make it's way to early childhood education. So sad for the future of tomorrow. Thanks for sharing.
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