NAEYCâs âAdvancing Equity in Early Childhood Educationâ position statement provides a blueprint for what the early childhood education system needs to do to ensure that all children have access to high-quality, culturally affirming, and sustaining early learning experiences. This position statement also underscores how the broader societal context in the United States, including historical and current inequities, shape the field and the profession, as well as the nation. It also recognizes that educators cannot address inequities by trying to âfixâ children and their families; rather the work must start with individuals looking inward:
For this chapter, the book editors asked a group of diverse early childhood education professionals to walk us through their journey of self-reflection about their roles and approaches in ensuring a more equitable early education system by answering a set of questions. The questions were designed to help the education professionals think more intentionally about these issues. In their answers, they talk about their own experiences with marginalization and privilege, provide some information about bias and how to become aware of and counter it, and share lessons to help others in their own journeys. The book editors encourage others to reflect on these questions as they engage in this work with their colleagues, friends, and other professional groups.
Anthony Broughton, NAEYC Governing Board member (2020) and Interim Department Chair at Claflin University, School of Education
Michael Gonzalez, President of the Governing Board of the Texas Association for the Education of Young Children
Jillian Herink, Executive Director for the Iowa Association for the Education of Young Children
Steven Hicks, NAEYC Governing Board member (2020) and Assistant State Superintendent for the Division of Early Childhood at the Maryland State Department of Education
Tamara Johnson, NAEYC Governing Board member (2020) and Executive Director of the Malaika Early Learning Center
Jen Neitzel, Executive Director of the Educational Equity Institute
Karen Nemeth, Senior Training and Technical Specialist â DLL for the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning as part of Zero to Three
Nicol Russell, NAEYC Governing Board member (2020) and Vice President of Implementation Research for Teaching Strategies, LLC
Shannon Wanless, Associate Professor of Applied Developmental Psychology and Director of the Office of Child Development at the University of Pittsburghâs School of Education
For more information about these contributors, please see the Contributor List located in the front of the book.
Question 1: What is your area of work and expertise?
Anthony Broughton: My area of work is in equity and excellence in early childhood education and culturally responsive/sustaining pedagogies.
Michael Gonzalez: My area of work is in the early childhood field with professional development. My work began 20 years ago as a toddler teacher. My experiences as an administrator, parent, consultant, student, and educator made me who I am today and who I will become. I am now a coach for early childhood professionals in the Houston area.
Jillian Herink: Educational leadership is my area of expertise. Currently, my role is executive director for the Iowa Association for the Education of Young Children (Iowa AEYC). Prior to this position, I was the superintendent of the only Native American school in Iowa. In my educational leadership and teaching experience, I worked extensively with second language instructional practices and educational supports for least restrictive environments.
Steven Hicks: I oversee child care, mixed-delivery state pre-K, assessment, curriculum, Head Start Collaboration, early childhood advisory councils, Judy Center Early Learning Hubs, professional development and training, family engagement, early childhood systems, and Maryland EXCELS, the quality rating and improvement system. Prior to that, I served as senior advisor on early learning at the US Department of Education and was an early childhood educator for 20 years.
Tamara Johnson: My areas of work and expertise are leadership, organizational development, and empowering people, all of which focus on work with children and families.
Jen Neitzel: I am engaged in providing professional development to educators on implicit bias, structural racism, and culturally responsive anti-bias practices through a practice-based coaching train-the-trainer framework. With this approach, the system is altered in a way that practices are sustained over time, and policies can be changed to support implementation. I also have become more focused on addressing systems change through a community organizing approach in which power is shared across community members to produce meaningful change that is sustained over time.
Karen Nemeth: I am an author, consultant, and subject matter expert on early childhood education for children who are dual language learners (DLLs). My masters in learning, cognition, and development focused on first and second language acquisition. I have published more than 40 articles on this topic and more than 10 books including edited volumes, two NAEYC books, e-books for families, an app, and childrenâs storybooks. I currently work as the senior training and technical specialist â DLL for the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning.
Nicol Russell: Currently, I work as a leader and researcher for an early childhood educational technology company. My expertise is in early childhood programming and policy, with a passion for supporting administrators with their implementation practices.
Shannon Wanless: All of my work focuses on the intersection between scholarship and practice. The translation from research findings to implementation can raise new issues that require the expertise of practitioners and policymakers to adapt and transform recommendations to be successful in real-world contexts serving a wide range of people. I focus my work on trying to push the world toward being a place where young children and their important adults can thrive. This means using social-emotional competence and cultural responsivity to address our collective need for humanity in schools and communities. It also means focusing on building adult capacity to see racism, power, and oppression happening in the systems they work in and to act to counter them. In Pittsburgh, like in many places, racial inequity is a major force driving the challenges children face in our city.
Question 2: Why are you engaged in this work? What do you see as the outco...
