Early childhood educators should take advantage of attention on assessment to design appropriate systems. Proper assessments should enable more reflective teaching, honor children's full range of development, and provide safeguards to children from unnecessary assessment or misuse of assessment data. Issues include what standards to measure, what…

Summarizes national studies relating staff education/training to child care quality. Finds that more training/education yields higher quality, but no study identifies the most effective dimensions of training/education for improving teacher behavior or child outcomes. Suggests that a common nomenclature for education/training is needed for…

Examines the changes and challenges accompanying increased attention to early childhood education during the past several years. Interest has been piqued by the first national educational goal (readiness), big business concerns, and professionals' reexamination of the field. The authors in this special "Kappan" section examine issues…

Despite obvious need, a strong, empirically based rationale, and a growing political will, the promised new era in childcare and early education has faced complex challenges. This article discusses inequity, discontinuity, and fragmentation in providing these services and explores some ameliorative strategies within a new policy context. Includes…

Examines three challenges facing the field of early childhood education: (1) homogenization of early childhood education; (2) over-scientization of the field; and (3) bureaucratization of early childhood education. (KB)

Outlines a framework for determining the infrastructure cost of universal early care and education for young children and adequate compensation for caregivers. Discusses the nature of compensation and infrastructure, including governance and administration, compensation, professional development, and regulation. Suggests that costs could be…

Explores an anecdote about a parent withdrawing her child from a child care program as a metaphor for the current status of early childhood to illustrate the pedagogical, practice, and policy dilemmas challenging the field. Maintains that pedagogy, practice, and policy are inseparable and that early childhood professionals must be cognizant of…

Discusses the reasons for the popularity of collaboration in early care and education. Defines the term "collaboration." Discusses results of a national study of early care and education collaborations in terms of the achievements of collaborations and the situations in which they work best. Also offers suggestions for making…