Quality of Professional Practice

Foundation for Child Development Grants in Action The early care and education (ECE) field is paying special attention to elevating the educational requirements of early educators and simultaneously increasing compensation.

Unifying and strengthening the early childhood workforce may be the single most important step towards closing the opportunity/achievement gap.

We can close the gap between research, policy, and practice.

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 two-page brief explains the formation of the New York City Early Childhood Research Network Summary and current studies examining the early care and education workforce within New York City’s Universal Prekindergarten Program.

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.

As of 2012, 20 states and DC require evidence of student learning to play a role in evaluating teacher performance.

PreK-3rd: Getting Literacy Instruction Right, the ninth in the FCD series of Policy to Action Briefs outlines the elements of strong PreK-3rd literacy instruction including: what high-quality instruction looks like,what supports enable teachers to carry out strong literacy instruction, and what policies enable schools to carry out strong PreK-3rd reading instruction.