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Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Should Preschool Teachers Have College Degrees?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There was a huge conference of early childhood education folk in town last week. The sponsoring organization was the National Association for the Education of Young Children, which accredits many Georgia daycares and is a loud and consistent advocacy voice in Washington.
I didn’t have time to drop by the conference, but NAEYC spokesman Alan Simpson came to me and we chatted briefly.
So many issues in this fascinating field.
Among them, should early childhood teachers have college degrees or is it okay for them to have certificates showing they completed appropriate training? If you want your child’s teacher to have a degree, what kind? Two year? Four year? Masters? And in what field? Child development? Elementary education?
And if you want your child’s teacher to have degrees, are you willing to pay more so they can have salaries comparable to those in elementary education? What about childcare centers in lower income areas where tuition could never be high enough to support such high salaries?
Parents, what kind of education experience do/did you want for your children prior to kindergarten? What qualities did you want in your child’s teacher?
