Uniting to Do Right: The 2024 Early Educators Leadership Conference

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men,” as Frederick Douglass declared in 1855. The leaders of our profession strongly agree, and they gathered last month to find new ways to advance early learning nationwide. This year’s Early Educators Leadership Conference (EELC) took place at the Capital Hilton, not far from the first house where the great statesman and social reformer once lived in Washington, DC. And it was as though he had joined us when a skilled Douglass reenactor opened the first day of the EELC by urging attendees to take their passion for early learning and turn it into action.

As leaders in our field, attendees are also playing a role in the ongoing fight for equity and freedom that Douglass waged during the Civil War. He believed “education means emancipation,” words that stirred Dr. Calvin Moore, Council CEO. So, he declared his resolve to ensure that all young children get the education they need, whatever the roadblocks ahead. “Like Douglass, I feel that ‘the soul that is within me no man can degrade,’” Dr. Moore said. “Now, we’re here to make children confident that no one can degrade them. As we search for solutions, let us form a more perfect union through collaboration.”

All of us, whether attendees, speakers or honorees, are on the front lines as we campaign for our youngest learners and the educators who serve them, as Eddie Koen knows well. Our opening keynote speaker is president of the Institute for Educational Leadership, which knocks down systemic roadblocks that stand in the way of success for youth from pre-K through college age. “One of the ways we do this,” he told attendees, “is to advocate for money for preschools so we can reduce the high cost of an early education. But our institute can’t do it alone. We need partners because collaboration helps us compete for the support our field needs.”

Frederick Douglass would have agreed since he was willing to partner with all who shared his values. “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong,” he said. And attendees heard about programs that are now joining to do right by children by providing the skilled educators they need, some of them right in DC. American University is partnering with Morgan Chase and two community groups to build seamless higher education pathways for early childhood teachers, as one of our panels discussed. Another explored how the DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) is partnering with higher education to help educators earn their CDA® and receive the compensation they deserve as professionals in our field.

Since 2022, OSSE has administered the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund, a first-in-the-nation program to achieve parity between early childhood teachers and their counterparts in K-12. This year, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed cutting the equity fund from the city budget due to severe constraints. But the DC Council, under the leadership of its chair, Phil Mendelson, introduced emergency legislation to update teachers’ salaries based on their credentials. And Mendelson appeared at the EELC to explain why the DC Council fought hard to keep the equity fund afloat.

“The program has increased the number of credentialed early childhood teachers,” Mendelson said. And that’s crucial since “its members play a key role in DC’s struggle with social justice issues,” he pointed out. “We can solve them through education that starts at birth with skilled, credentialed teachers” who Mendelson honored as the professionals they are. “The fund is recognition that early education isn’t babysitting. It is education. So, we want to elevate the early childhood workforce, and we’re leading the way for other cities nationwide.”

DC isn’t taking on the challenge alone. “The Council and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) are also powerful forces for change,” said NAEYC CEO Michelle Kang as she followed up on Mendelson’s talk. “Together, we can amplify our impact. Arm in arm, we can stand up on behalf of ECE.” And “relationships like this are important,” Dr. Moore agreed. “I look forward to working more with others as we seek to elevate those who work for our children. Together we can create a world in which all children have the quality early childhood education they deserve.”

Granted, there are roadblocks, but we must face them. “If there is no struggle, there is no progress,” as Frederick Douglass pointed out. And the Council has acted on those words as it seeks to scale up the CDA credential to meet the booming demand for qualified teachers. “We’ve faced communication challenges, bandwidth challenges and process challenges,” said Council COO Andrew Davis in a session on how the Council is now reimagining the CDA. “Our goal is to ensure equity in access to the credential by providing stellar customer service and harnessing all the available technology we can,” Davis said. “Delivering on the promise of the CDA,” he revealed, has involved addressing a lot of nagging details, but that’s the foundation for change, as Douglass explained. “We succeed, not alone by the laborious exertions of our faculties, be they small or great, but by the regular, thoughtful and systematic exercise of them.”

Systematic progress requires a wide range of partners, as panelists pointed out at a session on Trailblazers in Innovation hosted by Dr. Moore. “Collaboration plays a key role in innovation,” said Marica Cox Mitchell, director of early learning at the Bainum Family Foundation. “We must reach out not just to educators, but to other stakeholders, since you don’t get innovation unless you throw ideas out there.” And Steven Barnett, senior co-director and founder of the National Institute for Early Education Research, agreed. “I like the word partnership. Even as a researcher, we couldn’t do our work without state administrators,” he said.

But getting everyone on the same page isn’t easy, said Linda Smith, director of policy at the Buffett Early Childhood Institute and former deputy director at the Office of Family Policy for Child Care and Youth for the Department of Defense. “When I was with the military, it was a challenge getting the DOD to hire educators and pay them fairly. As we strived to do that for four branches of the service, we realized we had to be in lockstep. Advocates for early childhood education need to do that, too.”

These advocates come from a wide range of fields, but they share the Council’s vision of a world in which all children have the high-quality education they deserve. And attendees learned many of the advocates’ thoughts when the conference closed with a screening of Starting at Zero, a film about the value and promise of early learning programs. “The film brings together the voices of policymakers, educators, academics, business leaders, pediatricians, parents and children. It features five current and past governors who are champions of early childhood education: Governors Steve Bullock of Montana, Kay Ivey of Alabama and Ralph Northam of Virginia, as well as former Governors Jim Hunt of North Carolina, and Phil Bryant of Mississippi.

They were united in the goal to do right by children, and EELC attendees were, too. That requires raising our voices and demanding radical change in the way our nation supports the early childhood field. “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will,” as Douglass said. “It is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.” We have to shake up the way people think about our early childhood workforce by “connecting what teachers do with outcomes for our kids,” as Linda Smith said. “We have to “hammer” in the connection, she pointed out, as Douglass did so long ago.

If we want to build strong children, we must build a stronger early learning system That means “we must unite all stakeholders in our field,” Dr. Moore said, to repair systemic flaws that stop our early childhood teachers from getting the pay and professional training they need. The conference provided some insights and thoughts to light the way ahead, all linked by a common theme: for our profession to progress, we must ignite the fire of innovation and join to amplify our impact. We must all speak together so our voices thunder nationwide. We must work arm in arm to turn our passion into action and do what is right for children.

(Click to enlarge photos)