I started the new year re-reading David Kirp’s Kids First, an immodest proposal  for changing children’s trajectories in our dear U.S. of A., a country that pays lip service to mother, apple pie, and family values, but doesn’t walk the talk.  As I glided through his chapters, with their vivid descriptions of early learning settings and the professionals who staff them, I came upon the “B” word:  “Babysitting,” that is.   Kirp, of course, was referring to other people’s perceptions of the work of early childhood educators.   But talk about pushing my buttons.

In a nanosecond, I was back at the battle between Jon Corzine and Chris Christie for the governor’s seat in New Jersey.  “He’s still putting in money for universal pre-K, because he’s decided that the government should babysit for children?” huffed the Republican challenger, now state CEO, captured for posterity, in a Corzine ad, on You Tube.  And I still hadn’t recovered from Iowa caucus winner Rick Santorum’s rant last summer. “They want your children from the womb so they can indoctrinate your children,” he railed at the public library in Perry.  Note the redundancy—italics mine—lest we miss his point, aimed right at the proverbial gut.

It’s no secret that the work of caring for and educating our youngest children is devalued.  [Check out “(Not) Valuing Care: A Review of Recent Popular Economic Reports on Early Ed in the U.S.,”  by Cornell professor Mildred Warner, who explores the role of human services in economic development.]  Historically relegated to mothers, perennial objects of love and scorn, ECE work is a Rorschach test for America’s mightily mixed feelings about women, children, gender equity, and the role of government in the oh-so-intimate realm of the family.  Combine those feelings with the evidence—the majority of women with children under five in the workforce, the dizzying pace of brain development in the earliest years,  the incontrovertible knowledge that school readiness begins in infancy —and you’ve got one combustible mix.

I know, I know, we’ve evolved with all of this; we can point to bucket loads of progress, as I routinely do.  But even as the Committee for Economic Development, the Partnership for Economic Success (now part of America’s Promise Alliance), and the indefatigable James Heckman continue to drive home the tremendous economic benefits of ECE, and the federal government boosts system-building in the early end of the ed spectrum, we keep butting up against all this deep, ugly stuff.

I just tuned into a recent conversation about professionalism on BAM Radio Network  with ECE teacher educators and authors Stephanie Feeney and Sue Martin, and the Hechinger Report’s Sarah Garland.  “There are many who claim that the early childhood field—especially where caregiving is concerned—does not meet the criteria for professionalism,” declared moderator Rae Pica.  Feeney’s answer speaks volumes about the disconnect between the reality of early childhood education and external perceptions of the work. “Well I claim that,” she said.  But, here are the broader, arguably more relevant, questions she posed: Do we serve society? Do we do important work? Does this work require knowledge and skills?  Feeney answers all of those question in the affirmative, of course.  And her conclusion?  “We must behave as professionals, whether or not we are regarded by society as professionals.”

Teacher quality, effectiveness, and accountability are—for better and for worse—the hot-button issues of education reform today.  As federal funding continues to bring early childhood educators into the inner circle, these issues cannot be pushed aside.  In the quest for quality and better outcomes, ECE professionals are, and will continue to be, under greater scrutiny.  But for far too long, early childhood educators have internalized the value judgments of others.  It’s more than time to shift the paradigm—to define yourselves and your work on your own terms, and to insert your knowledge and voices into the larger arena of education reform. 

To start, think about joining the conversation at the New America Foundation, Watching Teachers Work: Using Data from Classroom Observations to Improve Teaching, on January 26.   This is a case of ECE leading the way, strutting its stuff, and an opportunity to inform the contentious debates about teacher evaluation—coming your way, soon.

Yesterday, I happened upon the latest blog post of Amanda Ripley, an up-and-coming edu-pundit who recently changed focus from how the brain works under extreme duress to how other countries “build” smarter kids.  “Reality Distortion Field,”  is a frontal assault on Diane Ravitch and others who declare poverty “a problem so intractable that schools cannot be expected to overcome it.”  The same debate, she states, gleefully, citing an old story from the New York Times, was used to defend low-performing, segregated public schools in New York City in the 1960s.

Wouldn’t you know that on the same day Ripley lobbed her grenade, taking Ravitch to task for some messy data analysis, NYC’s hometown newspaper featured an op-ed by Helen Ladd, a public policy and economics professor at Duke, and Edward Fiske, former NY Times education editor.  “Class Matters.  Why Won’t We Admit It?” they ask.   In education reform circles, they remind us, it’s become fashionable to accuse anyone who even mentions the “P” word of “letting schools off the hook—or what Mr. Bush [architect of NCLB] famously called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” 

The new edu-pundits, it should be noted, have no truck with the idea of low expectations, and are careful to dissociate themselves from anything that smacks of the retro “blame-the-victim” deficit model.  Ed Reform 2.0 is based on a fervent belief in the infinite perfectibility of schools, educators, and the systems they inhabit—a universe in which standards, accountability, and corporatization promise to eradicate the ills of what everyone agrees is a badly damaged enterprise.   Educators in higher-performing systems across the globe, Ripley claims, acknowledge poverty, but they think it is their problem, “a problem so intractable that our schools must be outstanding in order to help overcome it.”  

How can anyone argue with outstanding schools?  Or taking ownership of poverty?  But it’s quite another thing to expect educators to tackle the problem alone.

Today, 25 percent, or one in four, of children under age 6 live in poverty.   Positive outcomes for  these children, including their readiness for school, ongoing academic success, and future productivity, depend not only on their intellectual development, but also on their physical and social-emotional health, and on their immediate environments, most importantly, their families and neighborhoods.  Poverty can shape children’s long-term health and development in profound ways.  When little ones are exposed to “toxic stress,” or prolonged physical or emotional abuse, chronic neglect, parental substance abuse, violence, or the considerable burden of family economic hardship without adequate adult support, their development and learning can be severely compromised.

While voluminous research supports the benefits of high-quality early care and education, we are not going to change children’s outcomes without more holistic community supports and interventions.  Promise Neighborhoods, the federal initiative based on Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone model, is taking this tack.  States and communities across the country have long been creatively using education funding—including Title I—to support services for children beginning at birth. In Wisconsin, for example, the Appleton Area School District has adopted a comprehensive Birth to Five plan, which includes literacy programs for parents delivering at local hospitals; community parent education workshops; Parents as Teachers home visiting; Early Childhood Special Education, Title I Preschool and Even Start Family Literacy.

The stories of teachers and schools that have changed children’s trajectories are legion.  Education has historically been, and must continue to be, a path out of poverty.  As a nation, we should never aspire to less.  But as we shoot one silver bullet after another at the intractable challenges of education reform, we need to confront the reality and ravages of poverty head-on, lest our quest for school improvement  be permanently derailed.