November 2022 Council Letter: Honoring Cultural Competence in Our Native American ECE Communities
November 17, 2022
Home > Newsletters > November 2022 Council Letter: Honoring Cultural Competence in Our Native American ECE Communities
Dear Colleagues,
Native Americans view children as sacred because they have a close connection to the creator. It’s a lovely belief to keep in mind as we mark Native American Heritage Month this November. And one of the best ways we can honor our wakanjeya, or “sacred little ones,” as the Lakota tribe refers to children, is to guarantee them quality early learning. And New Mexico recently took a step in that direction. After a political fight that goes back more than a decade, New Mexico voters approved a ballot measure that made the state the country’s first to guarantee a constitutional right to early childhood education.
The measure will boost state funding for public schools and help all of New Mexico’s children, including those from its sizable Native American population. But there’s a need for more work to ensure equity in early learning for Native children, including training more Native teachers. During the last school year, 10 percent of students in New Mexico public schools were Native compared to 3 percent of teachers, according to the state education department. And this imbalance goes way back. As a result, “many of our children will never see a Native teacher in their entire school career and that’s simply because the pipeline is not there to support Native Americans as they come out of high school,” said Rep. Derrick Lente, D-Sandia Pueblo, who has sponsored bills to improve education for Native children.
One of the people who’s also advancing this goal is Candida Hunter, senior director of tribal affairs for First Things First, an Arizona government agency that supports programs statewide through grants to community groups that serve young children and their family members. Read her profile this month to learn how she helps ensure effective relations between her agency and the state’s tribes to foster the provision of early childhood care in culturally responsive ways. The partnerships she forms with tribes allow Native people to have the say they deserve in the formation of their future leaders.
“And a priority for the tribes is to train their own people to teach young children,” Hunter explains. “So, we fund programs that provide scholarships for early childhood teachers and support CDA® training in local high schools.” Many of these CDA students, as Hunter has seen, go on to get their BA, then come back to teach in their tribal communities.
We need more teachers like this, according to Native advocates for children. One of them is Wilhelmina Yazzie, who sued New Mexico in 2018 and won a judgment saying the state must improve its public schools for students who are Native American or English language learners, who come from low-income homes or are disabled. They’ll all benefit from more funding for public schools, Yazzie acknowledged after the passage of the recent ballot measure. “I got emotional,” she revealed, “because this is a big step for our children. And this is what we’ve been fighting for, for so long.”
The Council has also joined the fight to advocatefor children, as our CEO, Dr. Calvin Moore, explains. This month you can read about his efforts to give young children the teachers they need by standing up for men in ECE and urging Congress to expand the reach of the CDA. “The Council is not new to the advocacy arena,” he tells us in his latest blog. “We’ve been battling for the ECE profession since our nonprofit began in 1985. What has changed is that we’re now using our own voice to tell our own story and advocate for the CDA as a way to relieve the current child care crisis and raise the status of our profession.” Having more qualified teachers, like those who’ve earned a CDA, will help ensure that all our country’s cherished little ones get their sacred right to a quality early education.
Happy Native American Heritage Month,
The Council for Professional Recognition
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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.
Janice Bigelow
Chief Financial Officer
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 Alexandria VA with her husband and dog.
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