Critical Role of Leadership

The early care and education (ECE) workforce plays a critical role in promoting children’s learning — especially through their interactions with children and through the enriching and nurturing learning environments they shape.

COVID-19, health disparities, and the ongoing killings of black people have highlighted decades of pain and injustice against people of color in general and African Americans in particular.

The Early Childhood Leadership Development Consortium is a network of early childhood experts and advocates, committed to developing progressive and transformational leaders of early childhood center- and school-based programs, who will improve outcomes for all children birth through age eight.

In April 2015, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council released the report Transforming the Workforce for the Children Birth Through Age Eight: A Unifying Foundation (IOM/NRC Report). We view this report as the blueprint for the Foundation for Child Development’s work to support the preparation, competency, well-being, and on-going professional learning of the ECE workforce.

This full report discusses the implications of child developmental science for early care and education professionals in terms of necessary competencies and practices, as well as the systems change needed to better support the preparation, competency, professional development, and compensation for the early care and education workforce.

This policy brief that outlines the findings of an in depth PreK-3rd assessment training program for school district administrators in New Jersey.

This case study seeks to engage, educate, and support principals and district administrators to be strong leaders for PreK-3rd has been released by Advocates for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ). The study documents how a collaborative group of organizations – ACNJ; the New Jersey Department of Education, Division of Early Childhood Education (DECE); and the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association (NJPSA) – came together to develop a series of professional development trainings to school district administrators on leading and sustaining comprehensive PreK-3rd reforms.

Policymakers and educators recognize the critical importance of elementary school principals in leading effective schools to improve student achievement.