Partnering to Improve Child Care: The Promise of the CDA®The CDA® credential is the best first step toward an early care and learning system that works for us all. This was the message that attendees recently heard at the Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) Symposium, “Child Care Strong: Igniting Opportunity.” The symposium this May gave a platform to fans of the CDA like Fran Jamison, CCAoA’s VP of military programs. “I received a CDA early in my career when I went to work in the military child care system,” Jamison told an attentive crowd. “Working with a cohort of other educators to earn my CDA helped me build a sense of community and move ahead in my career,” he recalled. “It brought me here today, where you can soon expect some exciting news about the CDA.”
There’s a new partnership to provide educators with access to the CDA, as CCAoA’s CEO Susan Gale Perry announced later at a reception to mark the release of the Council’s new book, A Credentialing Revolution: The Power of Competency-Based Credentialing in the Early Childhood Field. The occasion was also a chance for Perry to stand before a room of early childhood leaders and share a bold goal: having a CDA-credentialed educator in every early childhood classroom nationwide. The competency-based CDA stands for more than professional recognition. It also offers a clear path to the strong early childhood system that children, families and communities need, as the Council has long maintained. And now, we have strong allies. CCAoA and the Child Care Trust, a catalyst for change, will be joining us to build the future of our field and fulfill the promise of the CDA.
“The best first step toward moving the profession ahead is to boost the ranks of CDA credential holders. That will make early learning a true profession and build a competent workforce,” said Linda Smith, head of the Child Care Trust, when she joined Perry, Jamison and me on a panel to discuss the new venture. Smith brought the CDA to the Department of Defense, an innovation that made its child care system a model for the nation. “I’ve seen what works in child care,” she said, “so I’m a strong believer in the CDA.” Jamison is, too, since he’s convinced that more access to the CDA would address the roadblocks that stand in the way of affordable, quality early learning and care for all young children and their families. “Early childhood education is one of the few professions without a clear entry point and career pathway,” Jamison said. “Giving educators more avenues to earn a CDA is a solution to the lack of respect and pay that has led to staffing shortfalls in child care programs across the country.”
I share this conviction, as I told the attendees at the conference. I’m a proud CDA holder and I’m invested in the future of the credential because I know its value. The CDA is a competency-based credential that measures more than hours spent taking courses, like traditional teacher preparation programs. Instead, it requires educators to show both what they know and what they can do in a real-world classroom. The CDA draws on a classroom assessment and multiple sources of proof to demonstrate competence in early learning, it’s portable across states and there’s nothing else quite like it.
What makes the CDA especially unique is that experts in the early learning field created it expressly for professionals in the early learning field, as the Council points out in a new white paper, Leveraging the CDA® as the Entry-Level Qualification for the Early Learning Field. This title reflects the intent to set consistent, entry-level qualifications in our profession, leading to the CDA’s launch in 1975. More than 50 years later, the CDA remains the best first step toward building a firm foundation for educators so they can meet the diverse needs of young learners.
There’s still a compelling case for making the CDA the entry-level qualification in our field, a goal of the Council’s new partnership with CCAoA and the Child Care Trust. The CDA has already shown its impact on the large-scale child care programs run by Head Start and the Department of Defense, where Linda Smith faced the challenge of mending a system that failed to give dependable quality service to service members and their children. “Based on the success seen in Head Start, we decided that everyone who worked in the military child care system would meet the CDA Competency Standards within two years,” Smith recalled, “and that led the department’s system to turn around. Anywhere that military families went, they had a guarantee of getting good child care.”
Every family nationwide deserves to have that sense of assurance, as Susan Gale Perry pointed out. “All parents should be able to say, ‘I love my child’s educator, an incredible early learning professional who helps children advance every day.’” And we can make this hope a reality nationwide. By embedding the CDA in state requirements and workforce systems, we can send a signal that early childhood education is a profession with clear standards and straight pathways that lead to success for educators and children. That’s the goal of the partnership and it would build a simple system based on the CDA that policymakers and families can all get behind.
Early childhood stakeholders who want further proof of the CDA’s value can turn to the Council’s new book, A Credentialing Revolution. It shows how the impact of the CDA makes it more than a credential for our profession. It also serves as a commitment to excellence and a steppingstone for aspiring early childhood teachers. Competency-based credentials like the CDA play a unique role, as I’m convinced, in equipping entry-level educators with the knowledge and skills to foster positive learning environments for all children.
Reaching this goal requires early childhood stakeholders to unite and try new ways to boost the ranks of skilled, qualified educators like those who earn a CDA. It’s high time to look beyond time-worn methods of preparing educators, like the partners in this bold new venture to put a CDA in every classroom nationwide. “It’s a proven, scalable solution that will work,” Linda Smith insisted, “and we need to act on it today.” Competency-based approaches like the CDA can launch a credentialing revolution and help reach the goal that brought the early learning community together at CCAoA’s symposium last month: making child care strong and igniting opportunity for our field.
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Vice President of Product
Mackenzie Pelland serves as Vice President of Product at the Council. In this role, she oversees the Council’s product strategy and portfolio, including credentialing programs, educational publications, professional development resources, and branded merchandise, ensuring offerings are sustainable and responsive to the evolving needs of early childhood educators and the broader early care and education field. Her work focuses on building scalable, user-centered products that strengthen quality and integrity across the Council’s credentialing, educational, and professional learning offerings.
Prior to this role, Mackenzie served as Director of ECE Observation Systems at the Council, where she oversaw the observation portion of the CDA® credentialing assessment process and led the ECE Observation Team. She also worked to support, refine, and strengthen the Professional Development Specialist community to better meet the needs of a diverse CDA® candidate population.
Before joining the Council, Mackenzie was Senior Director of Monitoring and Compliance Systems at Acelero Learning, where she led the development and execution of monitoring systems related to federal grant compliance, child care licensing, health and safety, incident management, and facilities compliance across Head Start programs nationwide. She also previously served as Program Accountability and Policy Implementation Manager at New York City’s Department of Education within the Division of Early Childhood Education.
Mackenzie is recognized as a credentialing specialist by the Institute for Credentialing Excellence. She holds a master’s degree in education policy from Teachers College, Columbia University, a Certificate in Education and Program Evaluation from Georgetown University, and a bachelor’s degree in politics and education from Occidental College.
Vice President of Strategic Alliances
Elisa Shepherd is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances at the Council, where she leads initiatives to advance the Council’s mission and strategic plan through designing, managing, and executing a comprehensive stakeholder relationship strategy.
With over 25 years of experience in early childhood education (ECE), Elisa has dedicated her career to developing impactful programs, professional development opportunities, and public policies that support working families, young children, and ECE staff. Before joining the Council, Elisa held numerous roles within the childcare industry. Most recently, she served as Associate Vice President at The Learning Experience and as Senior Manager at KinderCare Education, where she influenced government affairs and public policies across 40 states.
Elisa’s commitment to leadership is reflected in her external roles on the Early Care and Education Consortium Board of Directors, the Florida Chamber Foundation Board of Trustees, and as the DEI Caucus Leader for KinderCare Education. She has been recognized as an Emerging Leader in Early Childhood by Childcare Exchange’s Leadership Initiative.
Elisa earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a focus on child development from Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA.
Chief Administrative Officer (CAO)
Janie Payne is the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) for the Council for Professional Recognition. Janie is responsible for envisioning, developing, and executing initiatives that strategically manage talent and culture to align people strategies with the overarching business vision of the Council. Janie is responsible for driving organizational excellence through strategic talent practices, orchestrating workforce planning, talent acquisition, performance management as well as a myriad of other Human Resources Programs. She is accountable for driving effectiveness by shaping organizational structure for optimal efficiency. Janie oversees strategies that foster a healthy culture to include embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of the organization.
In Janie’s prior role, she was the Vice President of Administration at Equal Justice Works, where she was responsible for leading human resources, financial operations, facilities management, and information technology. She was also accountable for developing and implementing Equal Justice Works Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy focused on attracting diverse, mission-oriented talent and creating an inclusive and equitable workplace environment. With more than fifteen years of private, federal, and not-for-profit experience, Janie is known for her intuitive skill in administration management, human resources management, designing and leading complex system change, diversity and inclusion, and social justice reform efforts.
Before joining Equal Justice Works, Janie was the Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer for Global Communities, where she was responsible for the design, implementation, and management of integrated HR and diversity strategies. Her work impacted employees in over twenty-two countries. She was responsible for the effective management of different cultural, legal, regulatory, and economic systems for both domestic and international employees. Prior to Global Communities, Janie enjoyed a ten-year career with the federal government. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, she held key strategic human resources positions with multiple cabinet-level agencies and served as an advisor and senior coach to leaders across the federal sector. In these roles, she received recognition from management, industry publications, peers, and staff for driving the creation and execution of programs that created an engaged and productive workforce.
Janie began her career with Verizon Communications (formerly Bell Atlantic), where she held numerous roles of increasing responsibility, where she directed a diversity program that resulted in significant improvement in diversity profile measures. Janie was also a faculty member for the company’s Black Managers Workshop, a training program designed to provide managers of color with the skills needed to overcome barriers to their success that were encountered because of race. She initiated a company-wide effort to establish team-based systems and structures to impact corporate bottom line results which was recognized by the Department of Labor. Janie was one of the first African American women to be featured on the cover of Human Resources Executive magazine.
Janie received her M.A. in Organization Development from American University. She holds numerous professional development certificates in Human Capital Management and Change Management, including a Diversity and Inclusion in Human Resources certificate from Cornell University. She completed the year-long Maryland Equity and Inclusion Leadership Program sponsored by The Schaefer Center for Public Policy and The Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. She is a trained mediator and Certified Professional Coach. She is a graduate of Leadership America, former board chair of the NTL Institute and currently co-steward of the organization’s social justice community of practice, and a member of The Society for Human Resource Management. Additionally, Janie is the Board Chairperson for the Special Education Citizens Advisory Council for Prince Georges County where she is active in developing partnerships that facilitate discussion between parents, families, educators, community leaders, and the PG County school administration to enhance services for students with disabilities which is her passion. She and her husband Randolph reside in Fort Washington Maryland.
Chief Operations Officer (COO)
Andrew Davis serves as Chief Operating Officer at the Council. In this role, Andrew oversees the Programs Division, which includes the following operational functions: credentialing, growth and business development, marketing and communications, public policy and advocacy, research, innovation, and customer relations.
Andrew has over 20 years of experience in the early care and education field. Most recently, Andrew served as Senior Vice President of Partnership and Engagement with Acelero Learning and Shine Early Learning, where he led the expansion of state and community-based partnerships to produce more equitable systems of service delivery, improved programmatic quality, and greater outcomes for communities, children and families. Prior to that, he served as Director of Early Learning at Follett School Solutions.
Andrew earned his MBA from the University of Baltimore and Towson University and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland – University College.
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Jan Bigelow serves as Chief Financial Officer at the Council and has been with the organization since February of 2022.
Jan has more than 30 years in accounting and finance experience, including public accounting, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. She has held management-level positions with BDO Seidman, Kiplinger Washington Editors, Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Communities In Schools, B’nai B’rith Youth Organization and American Humane. Since 2003, Jan has worked exclusively in the non-profit sector where she has been a passionate advocate in improving business operations in order to further the mission of her employers.
Jan holds a CPA from the State of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lycoming College. She resides in Wilmington, NC with her husband and two dogs.
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