Suggested Relationship Between the CDA Formal Child Care Education Requirement and NAEYC Standards for Professional Preparation Programs
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This document is offered as a guide to correlate the formal education requirements of the Council for Professional Recognition (the Council) as part of earning a CDA credential and the 2009 National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Standards for Professional Preparation Programs.
The chart is more than a checklist of topics to cover or information to transmit through presentations, activities, textbooks or handouts. It is intended as a contribution to a larger discussion about what early childhood professionals should know and be able to do - the importance and quality of professional training and education, the decisions that are made when designing and evaluating training and education programs, and exploration of related issues such as the portability of individual credentials and the desired professional continuum or pathway from entry into the early childhood field to advanced or specialized credentials earned over the course of a career.
Research and common sense indicate that the expertise needed to provide a nurturing environment for young children is acquired through specialized professional development - training, education and technical assistance that begins with entry into the field and continues throughout each individual career. Effective professional development is grounded in relationships, theory and practice, and results in meaningful connections. It transforms discrete learning experiences into an integrated body of knowledge, dispositions and skills.
Professional development takes place in many forms, but where it is most effective, there is an organized process, a coherent sequence of learning experiences aligned with defined learning outcomes, and a system of assessments that ensure program completers have mastered those defined learning outcomes and can demonstrate them in practice. In training and education programs for the early childhood workforce, desired learning outcomes include the NAEYC Professional Preparation Standards and the CDA Competencies.
It is in support of this concept that the Council requires CDA Candidates to participate in 120 clock hours of "formal education" in specific areas - no fewer than 10 hours in each subject area and a total of 120 clock hours. Similarly, only full "programs of study" and not individual workshops or courses are eligible for NAEYC accreditation – though the common core NAEYC standards have differing "initial" and "advanced" expectations in associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degree programs.
NAEYC and the Council are advocates for state and national professional development systems that help personnel make connections between the information they learn in the first hour of training and the 120th hour; between their first course and completion of a specialized degree; between what they learn in one content area and another; between theory and practice; between who they are today and who they will be in the future. NAEYC standards provide a common national framework for all early childhood professional development systems and programs. The CDA is a key stepping stone on the path of career advancement in early childhood education.