At the Early Childhood Professional Development Institute (PDI), we seek to build a comprehensive professional development system for individuals who work with young children in New York. This includes fostering a dialogue about how we can better support the workforce at large. We invited Dr. Valora Washington, CEO of the Council for Professional Recognition, to respond to the recent Washington Post article, "The Famous “Word Gap” Affects the Young and Many Educators, Too." Please email kariena.sonnee@cuny.edu if you are interested in being a guest writer.

 

Literacy is Embedded in the CDA Credentialing Process
Dr. Valora Washington
Chief Executive Officer, Council for Professional Recognition

University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Elizabeth A. Gilbert recently wrote in a Washington Post blog piece about the “word gap,” a phenomenon in which low-income children are exposed to 30 million fewer words than “their more fortunate peers” by age three. She went on to state that focused literacy instruction is needed not only for these at-risk kids, but also for their early childhood instructors who, because of their own limited resources and exposure, could potentially fall victim to the same malady.

As the chief executive officer for the Council for Professional Recognition, the leading national early childhood professional development credentialing organization in the United States, I will not argue for or against the merits of Ms. Gilbert’s assertions. We’re not in the literacy business; we credential the best and brightest early care and education professionals through a competency-based process—the Child Development Associate™ (CDA) National Credentialing Program—in which the requisite level of literacy is embedded.

Let’s Separate Fact from Fiction

In her blog entry, Ms. Gilbert stated the following:

The story doesn’t end here. The only national early education professional development credentialing body in the country, the Center for Professional Recognition (incorrect organizational name), requires no testing or verification of adult literacy competence for any educator it credentials. There are more than 350,000  practicing non-college early childhood educators with a Child Development Associate certificate today (the Council does not offer a CDA “certificate”: ours is a more robust credentialing process that is portable from state to state and recognized as the only national credential in the country). Many will never step into a college classroom, because of their functional illiteracy.

These comments have the distinction of being misleading and incorrect at the same time. While it is true that the Council does not test or verify adult literacy competence for our CDA recipients, it is patently false to assume that each of the more than 350,000 early educators who holds a CDA is incapable of attending or graduating from a college or university. In fact, our internal data reflects that our CDAs, who are typically adult learners, use the CDA credentialing process to jump-start them into pursuing additional degrees.  In fact, many colleges—including some in Gilbert’s home state of Massachusetts—award college credit to CDA credential holders, or embed the CDA in their college coursework.

This is not an argument for the CDA versus a college degree. We view obtaining both as part of a continuous progression of skills and competence for many early educators. Ideally, the CDA is the “best 1st step” for many early educators, who then move on to obtain more formal education—and experience—working with young children and their families.

This best first step leads to deeper confidence in people like Magdalena Monroy from Brooklyn, N.Y., who, after being awarded her CDA credential, went on to earn a bachelor’s degree and later work with the Council as one of our Professional Development (PD) Specialists. As a PD Specialist, she supported other CDA candidates through coaching and mentoring as they pursued their own CDA credential.

Another CDA holder, who was required to obtain his CDA as a condition of continued employment, described the process as a “lifesaver” that eventually led to him obtaining a Ph.D. This amazing professional, Calvin Moore, Ph.D., now heads the state of Alabama’s child care services. 

How Does the CDA Work?

The CDA™ encompasses multiple sources of evidence, such as 120 hours of professional education in early childhood development, 480 hours of work experience, a written Professional Portfolio that demonstrates an understanding of competence, feedback from families, an observation by our trained Professional Development Specialists that demonstrates effective practice and content knowledge via a computer-based CDA exam taken at an independent PearsonVue testing center.

The CDA credential is a pathway to learning best teaching practices for many early care professionals, such as:

  • An assistant teacher with experience, but little formal education
  • A lead teacher who already holds an academic degree, but needs to gain hands-on practical skill and competency
  • A family child care provider who must improve the quality of their setting to meet licensing requirements
  • A high school student interested in pursuing a career in working with young children

No functionally illiterate early childcare provider could successfully navigate such a rigorous, competency-based credential.

To conclude, we’ll leave the literacy issue to those best suited to address it, while clearing up some of Ms. Gilbert’s factual errors and asserting that the level of competency that must be demonstrated in the CDA process implies high literacy, and ensures the highest professional development across the ECE community.