Join us in a ‘space of dialogue and human action’

Introduction

The field of Early Childhood Education, which in the United States typically includes children from 3 years of age to 7 or 8¹, is today rife with pressures, contradictions, challenges and resistance in the form of local organizing, grass-roots movements, transformational practices and critical analyses and projects. It is a time when destructive neoliberal policies, promising and problematic government legislation and the contested implementation of national curriculum standards have resulted in a panoply of standardized and other tests² used to (mis)label young children and rate their teachers in order to determine their salaries in the name of ‘accountability’. It is a time when the historic failure to educate many children of Color, children from low-income communities and emergent bilinguals³ has inspired an outpouring of deficit rationales, parent-blaming and … more testing as well as anti-racist projects and culturally relevant and bilingual curricula that foreground children’s strengths and prepare them for valued school literacies and beyond. Advocates for these disruptive projects and curricula point to discrimination as systemic and demand not only diversity but equity and justice. It is a time when calls for a renewal of play and developmentally appropriate practices have been, on the one hand, drowned out by an emphasis on ‘teaching to the test’ and ‘college and career readiness’ while, on the other, they have been critiqued as culturally situated and grounded in White, middle class, English-only norms that privilege such practices as ‘universal’. It is a time when the status quo is challenged by new technologies, new literacies, transformative and critical practices and perspectives and innovative programs for children and for teachers and teacher candidates that engage them with families, while teacher deprofessionalization, privatization and funding challenges consume energies.

This special issue of Early Years is a small effort to generate conversations about what is happening in our field in the US, to analyze critically where we are and to help us chart where we might go and what we might do. It is also an opportunity to share some counternarratives to the dominant narratives promulgated by many politicians, education officials and so-called education reformers and accepted by some, convinced that narrow norms of appropriate practice, testing, accountability and the curtailed school achievement of children of Color, those from low-income communities and emergent bilinguals are just ‘common sense’. These counternarratives are shared in the articles collected in this issue, some about transformational analyses and projects that have created innovative perspectives and practices and some detailing critical analyses and projects that have gone beyond to explore issues of power, to contest perspectives and practices ‘disprivileging’ some children and families (Willis et al. 2008, 5) and to supplant them with ones that are more equitable and democratic.

Taking seriously Greene’s call to ‘move beyond through the creation of a space of dialogue and human action’ (2001, 78) and the assertion of Boutte, Nieto and others that action is long overdue (Nieto 2015; Boutte 2016; Long, Souto-Manning, and Vasquez 2016), I hope that sharing this selection of informative and insightful articles will generate productive exchanges among Early Years’ international readership as well as action in classrooms for young children and teacher candidates. I do so with humility, emphasizing that the articles represent a limited picture of some ongoing work in a complex country, selected by one person with a specific perspective (see below). In addition, it must be recognized that the perennial, though declining, problem of US hegemony (and resistance thereto) can make conversation among equals challenging (Dahlberg, Moss, and Pence 1999). For example, though the articles in this issue are embedded in relevant literature, much of this literature has been produced in the US, suggesting the limits of our knowledge and the urgency of engaging with others around the world to listen as well as share our work and perspectives.

That said, this Introduction will provide an overview of the contemporary context in the US, weaving in some important recent developments in Education and Early Childhood Education. While it may seem a tedious digression to be discussing societal trends in this issue about Early Childhood Education, the following description of these trends bolsters the argument that they are evidence of economic/political/social systems that weigh heavily on our field and that permeate even the relationships we have with children. While helping us make sense of our experiences, identifying these trends also clarifies the importance of the transformational and critical stances taken by the authors as they strive to analyze circumstances and/or make change locally as well as critique the systemic inequities they challenge.

My own perspective has been honed by work as an early childhood teacher, researcher and teacher educator interested in the languages and literacies of bilingual children (Gregory, Long, and Volk 2004; Long et al. 2014; Lytra, Volk, and Gregory 2016; Volk 2013). I am White, an English speaker who also speaks Spanish, Professor Emerita of Early Childhood Education from a state-supported, public⁴ university in a large US Midwestern city. I have lived and taught in Latin America and conducted ethnographic research in the homes of Latino families in the US and in bilingual and English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms. Along the way I have attempted to make visible and valued the strengths of the children and families with whom I work while struggling to critically reflect on my own biases and on research as a colonizing project (Saavedra 2011).

The US context: narratives that frame our work

Our work in Early Childhood Education is dominated by official narratives that shape our beliefs and practice and reinforce the status quo at the same time that many educators develop counternarratives and advocate for and implement change. This section describes several inter-related dominant narratives and counternarratives that are particularly relevant to an understanding of our field in the US today and which provide a backdrop for the articles in this issue. These narratives include the negative trajectory of neoliberalism, the legacy of enslavement of Africans and the ongoing realities of racism and the challenge of diversity and quest for equity and justice, as well as some contradictory and contesting narratives about education. Together they are interwoven in the complex system that defines our contemporary world.

The dominant neoliberal narrative: connecting the dots of our experiences

While neoliberal ideologies and economic practices dominate and define the status quo in many countries, the following focuses on neoliberalism in the US as the central motivating force for the ongoing, destructive redefinition of Education in general and Early Childhood Education specifically. Understanding it helps us tie together the many disturbing elements of contemporary education that we may experience as problematic but unconnected.

Since the 1980s, neoliberalism–the dominant ideology underpinning political, social and economic policies and practices in the United States–has been developed and imposed by multinational corporations, banks and organizations; individual philanthropists including venture capitalists and hedge fund managers; foundations and think tanks; and politicians of varying allegiances (Davies and Bansel 2007; Baltodano 2012; Hatch 2015). Arguing that the needs of the business marketplace are primary and supercede attention to the common public good and the nurturing of citizens to participate in democracy, neoliberals advance competition, efficiency, privatization, deregulation, individualism and individual responsibility for success or failure, choice as a form of freedom, accountability, anti-unionism and entrepreneurial and consumer concerns as the foundational values and hallmarks of the reforms needed to spur the economic growth necessary for advancing contemporary societies (Davies and Bansel 2007; Steger and Roy 2010; Baltodano 2012). Conversely, attention to community and to mutual responsibility for the well-being of all citizens, in particular those from marginalized communities, are critiqued as old fashioned, not viable and even dangerous in this globalized world. Such out-of-favor, progressive programs and legislation were once devoted to, for example, supporting families, protecting voting and other civil rights and providing equity through multicultural and bilingual education and the education of people with disabilities (Ryan and Grieshaber 2005; Davies and Bansel 2007; Baltodano 2012).

Today, in contrast, education is treated like any other service or product (Davies and Bansel 2007), with many lamenting the decline of a public commitment to education (Baltodano 2012; Hatch 2015). Evidence provided includes the development of charter schools (non-profit as well as for-profit schools and chains of so-called ‘public schools of choice’ that receive public money but are exempt from many regulations); voucher systems that allow parents to take the public funding for their child to a private or religious school; a shift in funding, and consequently control, from federal to state and local entities and private sources that may weaken attention to quality and equity; accountability schemes that tie teacher salaries in part to students’ test scores; scripts for teachers that standardize and regulate classroom talk; the elevation of standardized tests–given on multiple occasions–as the most accurate and valuable assessment tool; an emphasis on outcomes, standards and quantitative targets; rewards and sanctions for teachers and children who perform to those standards or do not/cannot; and the attempted promulgation of challenging national curriculum standards in a country that has historically enshrined local control of education as one of its fundamental values (Hatch 2015; Downey 2016) . The neoliberal precept that individuals make their own choices and are free to create their own futures, absolves education as a social institution of the obligation to be responsive to the histories and funds of knowledge of families and communities or to stand against racism and for equity (Grieshaber and Ryan 2005).

Specifically in Early Childhood Education, neoliberalism has meant the increasing imposition of paper and pencil tasks as a part of ‘college and career ready expectations for all students’ (Ohio Department of Education 2015); the defunding or cutting back of programs at a time when many families are suffering economically, and now the promise of new federal funding–albeit only as preparation for the future; and the frequent use of standardized and other tests. It has meant the narrowing of the curriculum to address select academic content standards and functional skills leading to employment that often exclude social, emotional and physical learning and development and value outcomes over process, rote learning over inquiry (Baltodano 2012). As part of national, potentially positive efforts to increase the level of difficulty of what is required of children, standards and standardized curricula have resulted in a one-size-fits-all approach. For-profit chains, non-profit organizations and multinational corporations provide quick ways to train (not educate) teachers, to assess their pre-determined competencies and those of their students. Many focus on placing teachers in ‘high need’ schools where they often last only a few years (Baltodano 2012). Together, these forces undermine the authority of teachers, children and families (Davies and Bansel 2007; Baltodano 2012) and create obstacles to questioning, critiquing, innovating and reflecting, as well as to traditional aspects of Early Childhood Education such as nurturing relationships, play and active learning and to the critical interrogation of those aspects (Grieshaber and Ryan 2005).

It must be noted that neoliberalism is not a monolithic phenomenon. Describing neoliberalism ‘is easier said than done’ given that the ‘various institutional policies and instantiated practices labeled as neoliberal, are conflicted, contested and contradictory…’ (Chun 2017, n.p.). Our contemporary US context is complex, multilayered and rife with contradictions as well as benefits, amazing efforts and practices challenging the status quo. Nonetheless, neoliberalism is a force that frames our work; understanding it helps us connect the dots of our experiences.

It must also be noted that the neoliberal agenda has not accomplished its stated goal of improved achievement. The scores of US students on the international PISA assessment have not shown much improvement over the last 10 years and university completion rates are lower than average for countries tracked (Little and Ellison 2015). On the other hand, profits have been made while income inequality has sharpened in the US (Stiglitz 2013) and unintended consequences have resulted. Cheating-on-test scandals have rocked whole cities while parents–sometimes with teachers’ approval–have been galvanized to create the Opt-Out movement in which they keep their children home on test days. Responding to widespread concerns about federal mandates, over-testing and the continued failure to educate many children from some ‘subgroups’ (for example, African-Americans, emergent bilinguals and children with disabilities), the federal Department of Education, in the latest iteration of a federal education bill made changes while working to maintain the neoliberal agenda.

Despite these advances, setbacks and contradictions, education continues to be touted by neoliberals as a good investment where money can be made. In his recent book, charging public school educators to ‘reclaim the teaching profession’ Hatch (2015) shares a commentator’s quote from a prominent business magazine: ‘I want all entrepreneurs to take notice that [public education] is a multi-billion dollar opportunity’ (94). Notably, Goldman Sachs, the multinational financial firm, has seized this opportunity. In one of the most egregious and contradiction-laden examples of the instantiation of neoliberalism, Goldman Sachs teamed with an entrepreneur’s ‘Early Childhood Innovation Accelerator’ to provide a $7 million Social Impact Bond (SIB) to the United Way (a national organization of local charities) of Salt Lake City, Utah to expand their ‘high quality preschool program’ (Alden 2013; Glen, Pritzker, and Bayle 2013). This loan made it possible to provide places for 600 additional children ‘at risk for starting kindergarten (as 5–6 years olds) behind their peers’ to participate in the program’s ‘structured curriculum’ (Glen, Pritzker, and Bayle 2013; parentheses added). The intent: to save taxpayers’ money at a time when government funds are tight and to prevent children from needing special services in future years. Worthwhile goals, certainly.

Though the effectiveness of SIB projects has yet to be proven, this project declared that, after the first round of testing, 95% of the children entered school ‘ready to learn’ and would not need remediation (though it is likely they were already learners and an unknown number might not have needed remediation despite their ‘at risk’ label). The benefits, besides the not inconsiderable provision of services and the apparent ease children experienced moving from a structured preschool to a structured kindergarten: a return of the principle to investors plus 5% interest (calculated as the money saved when children did not need special services) and a public relations coup for Goldman Sachs. The costs: How can we calculate the cost to children who did not experience a rich curriculum that might have provided more long-lasting and self- and community-affirming education? How can we calculate the cost to our field when educators and communities are disempowered, deficit labels and practices perpetuated, public commitments weakened and private entities profit from the education of young children?

The narrative of enslavement and the ongoing realities of racism

Many outside the US question our ‘preoccupation’ with race. But for many of us, this is not merely a preoccupation but the recognition of the history and reality of our twenty-first century society. After more than two and a half centuries of enslavement of Africans for economic gain as well as social and political control, the Civil War and then Reconstruction period characterized by moves toward justice and violent resistance, another century of Jim Crow laws that relegated African-Americans to second class citizenship, a Civil Rights movement in the 1960s which birthed many reforms, we find ourselves in an era of growing activism, violence, pain and hope. People of Color organize and make demands in communities and on campuses–often under the banner of #Black Lives Matter–while antiracist organizations coalesce as the legacy of the past and the ways it permeates the lives of people of Color and those who are White are more recognized outside communities of Color (Alexander 2011; Boutte 2016; Edelman 2016). Nonetheless, White supremacy and its powerful enactment in everyday life continues to destroy the well-being of children and families of Color and too frequently end their lives, in cases now brought to the attention of the White majority day after day by social media (Kendall 2013; Castagno 2014; Coates 2015). Alexander (2011) has documented in searing detail the origins and dreadful consequences of the criminalization and mass incarceration of African-Americans and the ‘school to prison pipeline’ that entraps most in a discriminatory system that can begin when 3 and 4-year olds–predominantly African-American boys–are suspended from their preschools and can continue long after leaving prison.

In education, the ongoing reality of racism is reflected in what is referred to as the achievement gap (the distance between the school achievement of White children and children of Color) or what some call the opportunity gap or education debt to highlight the failures of the education system not the children (Milner 2013). The Children’s Defense Fund (2014), a prestigious national organization that advocates for all children, reports that:

In 2013, 66% of all fourth grade children were below grade level in reading while 55% of White children, 81% of Latino children, and 83% of African American children were below grade level.

In 2013, 26% of all children were judged to be ready for college, while 33% of White children, 14% of Latino children, and 5% of African American children were deemed ready.

In 2009–2010, more than 1 in 6 African American children received at least 1 out-of-school suspension compared with 1 in 20 White children.

What is more, in a 2016 study of implicit bias (Gilliam et al. 2016) researchers found that preschool teachers who were asked to look for challenging behaviors in video clips of African-American and White boys and girls displaying nonchallenging behaviors, spent most time watching African-American children, especially the boys, identifying them as needing most attention. White teachers had lower expectations of Black students while Black teachers held higher expectations. In a similar study (Todd, Thiem, and Neel 2016), pictures of African-American boys as young as 5 evoked thoughts in participants of guns and violence.

Poverty impacts negatively on all children but strikes particularly at children of Color. Communities of Color, proportionately (though not numerically) more likely to be poor and recipients of public services, are especially impacted by neoliberal policies that favor privatization, deregulation and the abandonment of community support. As the Children’s Defense Fund (2015) reports:

Despite six years of economic recovery, new Census data released in September [2015] reveal that children remain the poorest age group in America with more than 15.5 million children (21.1 percent) living in poverty in 2014 – 70 percent were children of color who will be the majority of children in America in 2020. They continue to be disproportionately poor, with 37 percent of Black children and 32 percent of Hispanic children poor, compared to 12 percent of White non-Hispanic children. The Black child poverty rate increased 10 percent between 2013 and 2014, while rates for children of other races and ethnicities declined slightly (1).

Despite the financial need and in the absence of a public commitment to universal preschool education, federal government spending has fluctuated. Between 2011 and 2012, federal spending on preschool programs decreased by 12%. In 2012, Head Start, the federally funded program for 3–5-year olds from low-income families, received funding to enroll only 41% of the 2 million eligible children (Children’s Defense Fund 2014). The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) (Barnett et al. 2015) reported that state funding for prekindergarten programs (for 3–4 or 5-year olds, often referred to as pre-K) increased in some states in 2014. But this was not enough to make up for the previous cuts to spending. Enrollment increased modestly, up to 4% of 3s and 29% of 4s, barely making up for the previous reduction in available slots. Significantly, the NIEER reported that ‘the vast majority of children served in state-funded pre-K are in programs where funding per child may be inadequate to provide a quality education’ (6).

In this context, state and locally funded ‘universal prekindergarten programs’ or UPK, have been initiated in some states. While the intent is to enroll children from all income levels, such programs usually focus their energies on children from low-income communities, reinforcing hierarchies within the early childhood community and, simultaneously, providing desperately needed education and care that may be unavailable in those communities. Some UPK programs enlist community input and strive for quality as defined by the standards of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC, the primary professional organization in the field) while balancing ubiquitous mandates for kindergarten preparation.

The diversity narrative and taking action for equity and justice

Genishi and Dyson (2009) argue that this is a time ‘when children are diverse and practices are not’ (vii). It is a time when many teachers enact, consciously and unconsciously, the pervasive racist, linguicist and classist perspectives embedded in our national discourse about children of Color, emergent bilinguals and children from low-income communities. Ill-prepared to engage with children who are in some ways different than they are, teachers may automatically question the abilities of ‘at risk’ children and blame parents for not preparing them. Few teacher education programs help teachers unpack such perspectives and practices, reflect on their biases, identify the systemic nature of discrimination, value the strengths and resources of children from marginalized communities and become agents for change (Adair 2012; Long et al. 2014; Milner 2015). The surging privatization of teacher education by reformers funded by corporations, aligned with neoliberalism and endorsed by the US Department of Education (Anderson and Zeichner 2016) suggests that transformational and critical projects such as those described in this issue must work hard to explicitly challenge the status quo while documenting and disseminating information about their effectiveness.

The diversity of US children referred to by Genishi and Dyson was projected to reach a milestone in 2014 when the population of 5–17-year olds in public schools (in kindergarten through 12th grade) was estimated to become ‘majority-minority’, that is, when children of Color (historically labeled ‘minority’; primarily Latino, African-American and Asian American in that order) would account for more than 50% of the school population (Maxwell 2014). In 2015, the US government reported that 22% of the kindergarten through 12th grade school population spoke a language other than English at home (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Department of Education 2016a), while approximately 10%, an estimated 5 million children, were emergent bilinguals, officially designated as ELLs (English Language Learners) and in need of special services. Of the ELLs, 3.8 million or about 76% speak Spanish at home, with Arabic and Chinese the next most common languages, each about 2% of the total (Mitchell 2016). Emergent bilinguals continue to be the fastest growing segment of the student population. (Genishi and Dyson 2009; Maxwell 2014).

While bilingual education programs in which children begin learning in their home language and transition quickly to English were once a central component of government policy (officially preferred over programs that maintained the home language), anti-immigrant movements over the last 20 years have undermined this qualified advance. Voters in three states have approved bills restricting bilingual education in favor of English-only programs such as ESL while the national focus on testing in English has led many worried school administrators to abandon learning in other languages. Dual language programs that bring together children learning English with more privileged White, middle-class children learning Spanish or Chinese, for example, have become more prevalent and officially sanctioned (Bale 2016).

In order to address the reality of a school population that has always been racially, culturally and linguistically diverse and is increasingly so and the reality of a kindergarten through 12th-grade teacher corps 84% of whom are White women (National Center for Educational Statistics 2011) educators have taken action for equity and justice by theorizing culturally relevant teaching (Gay 2010) and creating projects that foreground the cultural and linguistic funds of knowledge of children, their families and communities (González, Moll, and Amanti 2005; Boardman et al. 2014). Such projects have long been known to promote achievement, especially for children typically underrepresented in curricula (Ladson-Billings 2009; Delpit 2013; Dyson 2015) and primarily at the high school level (Kinloch 2010). More work is needed in Early Childhood Education to understand how to develop innovative classroom practices, create critical understandings of systemic inequities and develop ways of working that challenge inequitable and Eurocentric practices and institutions. (Souto-Manning 2013; Boutte 2016). Teachers are positioned as agentic, as learners from families who are experts on their own lives, and as researchers and leaders.

Multiple and conflicting narratives in education: where do we stand today?

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (which replaced the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001) is an effort by the US Department of Education to maintain the neoliberal agenda while responding to public concerns. Beginning in 2017, states must continue to use nationally standardized tests annually in reading and mathematics for grades 3–8 (see endnote ii) and must disaggregate data to show how subgroups are scoring. A chosen few states can devise their own tests and all can add areas to assess. A wider range of indicators can be used to determine teacher and school effectiveness, though students’ test scores have to be part of the mix. In addition, states can use the nation-wide Common Core State Standards (applicable for kindergarten through 12th grade) or create their own ‘challenging’ ones. The legislation also supports Competency-Based Education in which children work online individually and are continually assessed for mastery. And for the first time, there are provisions in the bill for increased, permanent funding for preschool education, primarily as preparation for future schooling and careers. Funds will be dispersed by state and local officials to providers using state-developed early learning standards (First Five Year Fund 2015; McDermott, Robertson, and Krashen 2016; Ujifusa 2016).

As a consequence, a mandated model with national standards is being replaced with a system that, according to official statements, allows for local ‘flexibility with strong civil rights guardrails’ (Ujifusa 2016, 3). Advocates worry this new legislation may not address the needs of children from marginalized communities in states with less funding and/or commitment to education and equity. Deficit discourses about ‘at risk’ children remain unchallenged at official levels and continue to perpetuate inequities.

While this legislation applies to schools and centers receiving public funding, the existing system for the education and care of infants, toddlers and preschoolers extends beyond that and is provided by a patchwork of facilities; some public, some private; some secular and some religious; some part-time and some full-time, some local and some part of national organizations and chains; some nonprofit, some for-profit. Children under 5 may be at home, cared for by a parent, grandparent, or nanny, or attend day care centers, state-licensed or unlicensed family child care in individual homes, nursery schools, independent preschools or preschool classrooms in public schools or the federally funded Head Start for low-income families. Standards for these settings vary by state and can be minimal and, except for Head Start, there are no national mandates about curriculum or care though the new legislation promises ‘quality’. Of concern: many preschool teachers’ salaries fall below the official poverty level and qualifications in about half the states are limited to a high school diploma, though efforts to improve both are underway (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Department of Education 2016b).

While the NAEYC has long advocated for the voluntary adoption of developmentally appropriate practice or DAP (practice that is keyed to children’s individual, age-related and cultural characteristics) (Copple and Bredekamp 2009) as the standard, many early childhood teachers experience the tension between their commitment to DAP and pressures to conform to the neoliberal agenda. As a result, many provide curricula that are geared to ‘college and career readiness’ that favor test prep in the form of paper and pencil tasks. Standards, meant to raise the level of challenge, often become a deterrent to heterogeneity (Katz 2009). Play and emergent curriculum are often limited. ‘Intentional teaching’ (Epstein 2015) is now widely advocated in which teachers are instructed to plan with goals in mind, a potentially positive approach that can keep teachers aiming for prescribed and universal results.

Educators grounded in Piaget’s developmental theory critique the status quo and argue for a return to play and the importance of educating the ‘whole child’, including social, emotional and physical aspects, as the essence of Early Childhood Education (Copple and Bredekamp 2009). Educators using Vygotsky’s theory foreground culture, while others working from critical (Lewison, Flint, and Van Sluys 2002) and reconceptualist (RECE 2016) perspectives go farther, exploring issues of power and privilege. They point out that play can take different forms in different cultures and is most often found in privileged preschool settings for children from professional and wealthier families. Lack of available, affordable settings in low-income neighborhoods limits the choices of families with scarce financial resources. They also critique the reliance on developmental theory and argue that the concepts of DAP and quality represent universal guidelines that identify culture as mere background and privilege the values and practices of White, English-speaking, heterosexual families (Blaise and Ryan 2012; Long, Souto-Manning, and Vasquez 2016; New 2016).

Many educators go on to take a proactive stance, advocating for and implementing practices that are both grounded in and interrogate Early Childhood Education, challenging the institutions, universals and practices that profile some children by judging, stereotyping and labeling their language, developmental trajectories and families’ composition and practices as ‘inappropriate’ (Ryan and Grieshaber 2005). They expand notions of quality in order to prepare children with knowledge and skills to achieve in school and life and on mandated tests that determine futures with single scores. They highlight families’ expertise and integrate them into decision-making (Grieshaber 2008; Howes 2010; Delpit 2013). Critical educators advocate for critical literacy for all children–and teachers too–which nurtures their ability to think and act critically, question assumptions, explore diverse perspectives and issues of privilege and take action (Lewison, Flint, and Van Sluys 2002; Vasquez 2014). They advocate for early childhood teachers to engage with urgency in anti-racist work.⁵

New technologies are integrated into the curriculum not just to assess or to teach functional skills necessary for employment, but as tools for inquiry and experimentation in projects and play (Marsh 2005; Wohlwend 2013). Such projects are based on the assumption that children use new technologies in their everyday lives and bring skills into the classroom. Children and teachers are envisioned as active agents who investigate, inquire, critique and assess collaboratively (Blaise and Ryan, 2012; Dyson 2015).

Articles in this issue: proposing counternarratives/asking questions

The authors in this issue are teachers, teacher educators, researchers and program administrators who are engaged in creating counternarratives to the neoliberal agenda and to deficit perspectives grounded in racism, linguicism and class bias. They take critical and transformational stances, reflecting distinct early childhood perspectives, while troubling common assumptions, providing insights and critiques and moving beyond rhetoric to put innovative practices into motion. Many focus on literacy understood as a cultural practice and, more specifically, on the multiple literacies in which children engage in their varied worlds, as central to their learning and expertise.

It should be noted that many of the stated goals of the neoliberal project (e.g. insuring teachers’ accountability for educating children; testing to make certain learning occurs; demanding higher levels of performance from children; making curriculum more consistent throughout the country) are hard to deny and seem like common sense. But the articles’ authors use critical and transformative approaches and, as a consequence, they use different language to advocate very different routes to similar-sounding goals. They speak of teacher ‘responsibility’ to children, families and communities instead of ‘accountability’ as a tool for granting rewards and sanctions, use many authentic assessments as well as well as standardized tests; develop programs and curricula grounded in local resources that provide for inquiry; educate children as family and community members not just as individuals, and involve teachers, children, families and community members in decision-making. As a group, these authors create counternarratives that envision an Early Childhood Education that is more life-long, democratic and committed to public education than the one that many teachers, children and families are experiencing now. The authors would agree with Sonia Nieto (2005), an early childhood teacher educator and leader in the struggle for social justice when she asserts

Although for over a century, our nation has advanced the ideal that a high-quality and excellent public education is the birth right of all children, our schools cannot fulfill this ambitious and noble purpose unless all of us–parents, policy-makers and the general public–commit ourselves to sustaining education as a public trust and a promise to future generations (1).

Seven articles/Seven perspectives

The first article by Erin Miller builds on her work preparing pre-service or teacher candidates to teach children of Color and describes her innovative investigation of the developing racial identities of the White female students. After a useful review of the field of White Teacher Identity Studies, Miller explores the ways racial identity intersected with other aspects of identity on the road to becoming a White Female Teacher. She raises important questions, including: If the fundamental identities of white teachers rest upon gratitude that they are not people of color, how will it ever be possible to truly build meaningful and deep relationships with students they categorize as being a part of a group they feel fortunate to not belong in? Her work suggests another question: How must we address issues of identity with our students and ourselves as we transform teacher education programs to prepare teachers to work effectively with colleagues, children and families from backgrounds different than their own?

The second article by da Silva Iddings and Reyes shares highlights from a longitudinal study of the design, implementation and sustainability of their innovative early childhood teacher education program that nurtures teachers as advocates to ‘promote equitable education for all children, and especially for young immigrant children’. Using critical-ecological and funds of knowledge approaches, their work reflects a commitment to teacher candidates learning with families through relationships that value family literacies and stories grounded in historical local knowledge. They ask: How can we promote a paradigmatic shift in early childhood teacher education and make significant movements toward an asset-based orientation regarding young culturally and linguistically diverse students? How do we understand families’ multiple linguistic and cultural resources and how do we draw on these resources to leverage them in their children’s schooling?

In the third article, Glover, Harris, Polson and Boardman describe the Professional Dyads and Culturally Relevant Teaching (PDCRT) project in which teacher–teacher educator dyads collaborated to implement culturally relevant, early childhood teaching practices as they deepened their analysis of systemic inequities. The authors discuss their critical approach, highlighting their work together in the dyads and challenges faced as they explored their own powers and those of others, upset binaries and grappled with oppressive school settings. Their work begins to answer the following questions: What is culturally relevant teaching and how might it be relevant as a tool for advancing equity in other schools and countries? What can be learned from the participants’ experiences with the PDCRT dyad model for creating innovative school-university partnerships and professional development for teachers?

Wohlwend describes findings from her study using mediated discourse analysis of ‘play-based media literacy curricula’ in preschool classrooms in the fourth article. Advocating for play as a ‘participatory literacy’ and the use of new technologies, she describes literacy playshops that build on children’s inventive engagements with popular media, understood as cultural capital in peer culture. Wohlwend argues for the preparation of teachers ‘to mediate children’s play in ways that develop critical awareness of popular texts while encouraging their media passions as literacy resources’. This work prompts many questions, including: Is play a literacy and, if so, can the advocacy of literacy playshops be a tool for advancing the cause of play in early childhood classrooms? How can teachers work with children to critique the stereotypes and inequities embedded in contemporary popular media?

The fifth article by Medina, del Rocio Costa and Soto describes their critical literacy inquiry curriculum in a third grade classroom in Puerto Rico guided by theories of critical literacy, multimodalities and popular literacies. Building on the children’s interest in and knowledge of telenovelas, soap operas on Spanish language television, the teacher and two teacher educators investigated telenovelas with the children who then created and dramatized their own, as they together disrupted dominant discourses. Among other questions, they ask: How can we help develop an emergent early childhood critical literacy curriculum that integrates the popular culture imaginaries of Puerto Rican children? What are the challenges when teachers and teacher educators collaborate to develop critical literacy experiences and how might they be addressed?

In the sixth article, Dorman, Anthony, Osborne-Fears and Fischer describe the history, implementation, and evaluation of the Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) Program in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Innovative aspects of this program include the participation of multiple community stakeholders, the inclusion of state-licensed day care homes giving families a range of options and the emphasis on local planning for quality and family engagement. The authors discuss successes and challenges, exploring the universal status of UPK, quality, fees, long-term effectiveness and the evaluation of process vs. product. Relevant questions include: Is the ‘universal’ identification of UPK programs aspirational and what obstacles must be overcome to be truly ‘universal’? How can programs provide for and evaluate local control and variability as well as quality?

The last article by Graue, Ryan, Nocera, Northey and Wilinski analyses the complex implementation of early learning standards in state-run prekindergarten programs in two states, one that was highly regulated and one that was primarily locally controlled. Their findings suggest that the integration of the programs into the kindergarten through third grade system and its accountability-for-teachers, outcome requirements and school readiness focus led to the imposition of an academic curriculum, rather than the standards themselves. The tensions felt by teachers as they navigated child-centered approaches while contending with accountability pressures are explored. Graue et al. ask: Are early learning standards refocusing the early childhood curriculum toward academic instruction? And we might ask: To what extent are these developments the successful, intended outcomes of neoliberal policies?

In summary …

Despite the challenges of these times, my intent is that reading these articles will convey hope and the understanding that the authors are ‘part of a swelling movement of people telling different stories about early childhood education’ (Moss 2016, xv) about disruptive theorizing and long over-due action. Their work generates many questions, just a few shared above. Please join the conversation, add your own questions and join us in challenging the status quo and creating more equitable, transformative, critical and democratic Early Childhood Education.

Notes

1. While programs for infants and toddlers are included within the remit of early childhood education, the majority of programs for preschoolers work with 3 and 4–5 years olds.

2. National, standardized tests are mandated to be given annually in grades 3 through 8 (for 8–13-year olds) and once in high school (14–17-year olds), but schools typically subject children, including those in preschool through third grade, to a variety of tests, standardized and not; for readiness, formative or summative assessments; developed by schools, school districts and states. According to one teacher educator, second graders in a colleague’s school were subjected to 13 tests in one school year (S. Osorio, personal communication, June 30, 2016). This is not atypical.

3. These three overlapping categories are frequently used in the US to refer to ‘diverse children’ from communities that are marginalized by race, language, culture and/or class bias. Latino and African-American or Black children are the largest groups typically included in ‘children of Color’ (‘Color’ capitalized to indicate an anti-racist stance), while Latino Spanish-speaking children make up the majority of emergent bilinguals or dual language learners (recent terms used to describe those officially designated as English Language Learners that emphasizes their bilingualism rather than their deficit as only learners of English). In the US, there are more White children from low-income communities than those of other races, though a larger proportion of Latino and African-American children are from such communities.

4. In the US, ‘public’ means supported primarily by government funding and ‘private’ means funded primarily by sources other than local or state governments or the federal government.

5. See, for example, the Calls for Action (http://www.earlychildhoodeducationassembly.com/)and Resource Lists (http://www.earlychildhoodeducationassembly.com/resources-for-educators-focusing-on-anti-racist-learning-and-teaching.html) as well as the Consultants Network (http://www.earlychildhoodeducationassembly.com/anti-racism-educational-consultants-network.html) developed by the Early Childhood Education Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English.