About two-dozen Hoosier childcare providers and advocates overwhelmingly opposed looser statewide staff educational requirements during a Monday public hearing.

“This is a profession. This is not just a babysitting job,” said Hanna Wetzel, the director of the Children’s Learning Center of Posey County.

She spoke to representatives of the Family and Social Services Administration, the state agency overseeing childcare providers around Indiana.

FSSA last month dealing with staffing, meals, sleep and more — which Gov. Mike Braun and agency leaders say will lower costs for providers and families.

The agency plans to adopt the finalized regulations July 13, according to dockets for childcare and . They’re expected to take effect October 11.

The directors of childcare centers would no longer need a bachelor’s or associate’s degree to do the job, according to . They would qualify with two years of experience and a child development associate credential — which is as a career “stepping stone” by the organization that issues them.

Lead caregivers would not need a child development associate credential or other higher education — just a high school diploma or equivalent. And lower-level caregivers wouldn’t need to have completed high school, although they’d still have to be at least 18 years old.

Austin Scales, a lead educator at United Day Care Center in Muncie, said many of the primarily low-income children served there have experienced “severe, significant trauma.”

“Without that education, I would not have been able to serve them,” Scales said. He has a bachelor’s degree in early elementary education and special education.

Multiple people argued the changes would not assuage the industry’s labor shortages.

“The root causes of high director and staff turnover is driven by low compensation and burnout, not by educational requirements. Lowering expectations will not strengthen this workforce,” said Amy Van Bruggen, the senior director of quality and compliance at The Westin School in central Indiana. She has also worked as a childcare inspector and referral provider.

Relaxed standards could lead to a temporary increase in job applicants, according to Erin Kissling, the president and CEO of Early Learning Indiana. But she said educators without early childhood degrees or credentials are less likely to remain in the profession over time, citing a University of Nebraska of eight states.

Other feedback

Several speakers supported “modernization” provisions, including those allowing for electronic records and dropping certain required postings.

Omar Khan, the leader of the Indiana Child Care Business Alliance, spoke in favor of provisions requiring caregivers to keep children within eyesight or hearing range — without using other devices — and within arm’s length around water.

He also applauded a proposed twice-annual active shooter and intruder drill mandate and proposed greater leeway in mixing age groups at opening and closing times.

But Khan and several others opposed relaxed regulations for sleeping and diapering.

FSSA’s draft would allow childcare centers to use sleeping bags, as long as they’re placed on carpet, instead of cots elevated off the floor. It would also broaden diaper-changing table provisions to “surfaces;” eliminate a ban on cloth, lattice or wicker parts; and scrap requirements for sanitizable pads and waterproof paper strips.

“Families deserve to know their children are receiving the highest quality care in safe, developmentally appropriate environments,” said Ashanti Ordone, the owner and CEO of Gifted & Talented Academy in Indianapolis.

Providers also spoke against allowing portable wading pools, citing drowning risks, and lower standards for the materials provided to children. The draft rules delete a list of required activity types, including art, literacy, math, music, science and more.

“Every regulation should be evaluated by one question: Does this help ensure children are safe, nurtured, and given the strongest possible start in life?

“As you consider all these proposed licensing changes, I ask that we do not view quality and accessibility as competing priorities, because Indiana’s children deserve both,” said Beth Wickham, representing Early Head Start programs across the state. “Every regulation should be evaluated by one question: does this help ensure children are safe, nurtured, and given the strongest possible start in life?”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.

Arkansas’ child care system needs additional funding to avoid widespread closures and layoffs due to changes to the state’s financial aid program for low-income families, providers told the state Early Childhood Commission during a Wednesday work session.

A survey of providers found that about a quarter of them, spread out among 50 of Arkansas’ 75 counties, expect 400 layoffs by November, said Shahid Sheikh, owner of four Northwest Arkansas child care centers. Sheikh was among several child care providers and experts invited to the commission’s work session for discussion.

Eighty of the 250 facilities who responded to the survey are likely to close in the next 60 days, and many of them are located in low-income communities where child care is already scarce, Sheikh said.

Sheikh and other child care providers have in recent weeks about the Arkansas Department of Education’s proposed changes to the . In September, the agency announced a new reimbursement structure and a sliding-scale copayment structure, with the goal of reducing the four-digit child care waitlist and making the program more financially sustainable.

Child care advocates said the changes would create for families in need. The education department responded to the pushback by delaying cuts to providers’ reimbursement rates until Nov. 1, but moved forward with participant co-payments on Oct. 1 as planned, according to the .

The reimbursement rate cuts are expected to cost providers statewide $727,000 per week, according to the survey. That adds up to $37.8 million in lost revenue for local economies, Sheikh told the commission Wednesday.

“We stand to lose more money by not investing in [child care] than we do by investing, so while this may be a budget problem right now, in a year’s time, it’s going to be a budget disaster for the state,” he said.

Education department officials are “going through our budget with a fine-toothed comb” in search of solutions, said Stacy Smith, deputy commissioner for the department’s Division of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Families who are working or enrolled in school with income at or below the state poverty level will not pay a copayment for children before kindergarten, and families above the poverty level will pay a copay scaled to income and the age of the child, .

Providers said their concerns about the copays being too expensive have come true.

“The amount that we’re asking families to pay is unreasonable for most of them, especially as such a quick ask,” said Jenny Castillo, who owns five Spanish language-immersion child care centers in Northwest Arkansas. “For it to be so fast, they have no time to prepare, to pivot.”

Castillo said she hopes the state finds a way to ensure that families pay no more than 7% of their household income for child care, a national recommendation.

The increased copayments as of Oct. 1 have already forced some Arkansas child care centers to close because parents could not afford to pay anymore, Sheikh said.

“We’ve already heard from some who have essentially [said], ‘It’s easier for me to quit my job and get on SNAP and have food stamps cover me than for me to go and work’” to try to afford child care, Sheikh said.

The School Readiness Assistance Program is funded by the federal . Education department officials are currently unable to seek help from the federal government regarding the program because of the ongoing government shutdown, Smith and Education Secretary Jacob Oliva both said.

The might force the department’s Office of Early Childhood to lay off federally-funded staff, Smith said.

The state Legislature will meet in April for its regularly scheduled fiscal session, but child care providers said Wednesday that they can’t wait that long for financial aid.

State Reps. Denise Garner, D-Fayetteville, and Julie Mayberry, R-Hensley, were the only lawmakers who participated in Wednesday’s discussion. Rep. Kendra Moore, R-Lincoln, and Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock, were also present at the work session.

Mayberry said she appreciated the input from the providers, particularly the data, and said a special legislative session might be necessary to address the problems presented. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is responsible for calling a special session, and Mayberry urged providers and the education department to involve Sanders’ office in discussions of next steps.

Garner, a member of the commission, said she hopes the discussion will soon create “action items.”

“The things we need to know as legislators are what pots of money we actually have…how much money is that and where to pull money from the rest of the state budget and put it into early childhood [education],” Garner said.

The commission is scheduled to meet again at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

Child Care Providers United — the union that represents about 60,000 family child care providers in California — has reached a tentative deal with the state after its contract expired July 1.

Under the , childcare providers in the union will get $90 million in one-time stabilization payments and $37 million a year for cost-of-living adjustments. They’ll also continue getting retirement and healthcare benefits, and be paid by enrollment rather than attendance.

Max Arias, chair of Child Care Providers United, said many home-based educators have had to  in recent years.

“ The rates are so low right now that providers are literally receiving $7 to $10 an hour after all the expenses are paid based on the amount of hours they work, and that is the crisis that we’re seeing so having some support right now was very important,” Arias said.

The fight for higher pay

In 2019, home-based childcare providers in California who get subsidies from the state to care for lower-income families  to collectively bargain with the state.

Child care providers are some of the  in the country — a recent report found that the .

Arias said the new one-time stabilization payments would amount to roughly $300-$400 a child, and that the union will continue working for a new rate system to boost the amount providers get reimbursed — which they had originally expected this year. He said the union has a commitment by the state to reach an agreement on a new rate structure by the next budget cycle. 

Historically, the reimbursement rates have been paid on “market rates,” which  because they’re based on what families pay. Experts call the child care industry a “broken market” — where the costs are too high for families to pay, but workers themselves are making too little to get by.

Arias said a new rate structure would allow for providers to get paid the  real cost to provide care.

“Then there will be true stabilization in the sense that people can actually then afford to be able to stay open,” he said.

This was originally published on .

The parents come at all hours of the day and night.

A nurse drops off her kids before starting a 12-hour day at the hospital. A father picks his kids up in the dead of night, after his warehouse shift ends at 1 a.m. Another mom sometimes needs childcare at 4 a.m. so she can make it to work.

Whatever the time, Leidy Bernasconi’s child care in Palmdale is open.

In an area considered a , Bernasconi said she feels obligated to keep her home-based business running for families in the neighborhood. But lately the cost of operating weighs on her. Her Costco bill has almost doubled due to inflation, and she had to sell the van she used to take kids to and from school.

“ Gas is going so high,” she said. “We keep cutting the transportation service because I cannot afford it.”

As Bernasconi battles her checkbook every month, a bigger fight has been playing out in Sacramento. Child care providers and their union want the state to significantly boost the subsidy rates it pays them for caring for low-income children. Facing a growing deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom has not included higher pay for them in the state budget.

“ Currently, the rates that we have only cover half of what it costs to cover for the children,” said Max Arias, the head of Child Care Providers United. “We’re saying we need the full cost of care now.”

The union’s contract expires at the end of the month, and Arias said some of the  The state and home child care providers have yet to make a deal. A spokesperson for Newsom’s office declined to comment on ongoing bargaining, but his office has been adamant that California needs to “.”

Where do negotiations stand?

The heart of the conflict between California and home child care providers is the rates the state pays in subsidies for low-income families.

Historically, those payments have been determined by market rates in the county where a child care provider operates. Market rates are low because  and families typically can’t pay the true cost of caring for their children.

The state has agreed to transition to a new, single rate system and to develop a new methodology to determine the cost of childcare. But the governor’s  does not include rate increases for providers.

According to the governor’s office, the number of providers receiving subsidies grew significantly from 2020 to 2024 — by more than 50%. Child care slots have grown, too.

The need for affordable child care is still gaping. According to the California Budget & Policy Center, most families eligible for subsidized care in the state weren’t receiving it as of 2022.

What does a child care provider budget look like?

While negotiations over the state’s budget continue, Leidy Bernasconi poured over her own expenses this week with tears in her eyes.

She said she brings in an average of $20,000 a month for serving 22 children. That’s mainly from state subsidies that pay for most of the families she serves.

That money goes quickly, and most of it goes back into her small business. She pays four employees between $19 and $25 an hour. After childcare expenses, her mortgage, and her family’s health insurance, she said she had around $2,500 leftover most months to provide for a family of four. Her husband used to help with the business, but had to look for new work to supplement their income.

“ I don’t know for how long I can be in business,” she said. “I believe if I go and I work as a teacher, I will be able to get paid better.”

She has her eye on July 1. That’s when the contract with the state is up.

This was originally published on .

Chris Riback: Brigid, thanks for coming by the studio.

Brigid Schulte: Oh, it’s so good to be here.

Chris Riback: Let’s start this conversation by going back about five years, the care report and the care index…

Brigid Schulte: Yes.

Chris Riback: … what were they? What did you find?

Brigid Schulte: So you’ve got to think, a couple of years ago, there really wasn’t a whole lot of conversation in the national media, in the national consciousness about an early care and education or childcare system, everything was very atomized. People felt like, “I’m out here, I’m on my own,” they had their own internal struggles with childcare for parents trying to afford it and there really wasn’t much of an understanding why it was so expensive. I mean, I’m a reporter and so I would hear things like, “I’m sure that the owner of my childcare center, they must own a private jet because they charge so much.” And I was just like that can’t possibly be right. So there was a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of confusion out there, there wasn’t a sense that there was a system. And so that’s what we really sought to do.

There had been a number of reports that talked about the cost of childcare and comparing it in different states, but what we wanted to do was really bring forward the idea that the childcare in this country should be a system and we wanted to try to paint as clear a picture of what that system looked like as we could.

And so we looked at sort of the three pillars that you would need for a high-quality, universal, early care and education system. We looked at cost, quality, and availability, and then we worked with Care.com, they were our partners on this, so we were able to use their proprietary cost data. And in that way, we were also able to capture not just childcare centers, but also family homes and also nannies and in-home care because we do have a variety of different kinds of care as you know…

Chris Riback: Right. [crosstalk].

Brigid Schulte: … and in our sort of patchwork system.

And then we came up with metrics. It’s certainly not perfect because one of the big findings is we don’t have a lot of really great data. So with that caveat, based on what we knew, we came up with metrics to measure those cost, quality, and availability in all 50 states, and then we wanted to rank them. But honestly, with such little data, we ended up coming up with another framework, which is we grouped them into quartiles so you could say, “These are the best states, these are sort of the second-best, these are not doing so great.” And what we found, I think the big takeaway, is we were really able to paint this large picture and show that nobody’s doing it well, not one single state did cost, quality, and availability well.

And so what I think our real value add was that we were able to show that the system A.) it’s not a system, it’s a patchwork, it’s broken, it’s not working well for anyone, and that really, when we think about it, we need to begin thinking about early care and education the same way we do about K through 12 education, that this is a public good that the private market isn’t and can’t solve on its own. And the reason why it’s so expensive, it’s not because childcare providers have private jets, it’s because it takes a lot of people to do well so that the labor costs are high. And so when we say we don’t subsidize early care and learning in this country, we do, but we subsidize it on the backs of early care and learning educators and childcare workers…

Chris Riback: Through their wages.

Brigid Schulte: … through their wages. They earn poverty wages.

Chris Riback: Or lack of wages.

Brigid Schulte: Exactly. And so I think that was the other big, big thing that we were able to do is just really put it out there in a very comprehensive way using data and story, video storytelling, narrative storytelling…

Chris Riback: All the tools.

Brigid Schulte: … all the tools, and really begin to help people see it’s not working, it’s not working for anyone, you’re not alone, and we need to work together to make it work better.

Chris Riback: So you pulled together this data, you told the story, you showed the stories, what was the reaction?

Brigid Schulte: Well, initially it was amazing, it just got picked up, a lot of press wrote about it.

Chris Riback: I remember.

Brigid Schulte: It really had a resounding impact at the time, which is great. What have we learned over time though?

Chris Riback: Yes, that was my next question.

Brigid Schulte: So how have we acted upon it? I would argue we really haven’t and I think that’s the next challenge. And I think through COVID, if you didn’t know it was a broken system before, you do now, and there’s a growing chorus of voices from business leaders, policymakers, certainly within the early care and education system that are all saying it can’t, this is unsustainable. And everybody’s hurting from it, from children and families, but also businesses.

Chris Riback: Yes. Yes.

Brigid Schulte: It’s incredibly disruptive, and so we need to solve this together.

Chris Riback: So I don’t mean this as naively as it sounds, what’s the problem? I mean, you are describing something that we all recognize, I think we all care about, I think everyone wants children to do better. I mean, I really do believe that. It’s super naive, but where are the barriers? What are the obstacles?

Brigid Schulte: Yes, it’s not super naive. Listen, if it were we’d know the answer and we’d be, we’d be able to move across the finish line to really get…

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: … what we need. What it really is, again, comes down to mindset, really understanding that 0 to 5, we need to think about it like K to 12. And so what I always say…

Chris Riback: Do people kind of write it off? Is that what you find?

Brigid Schulte: Yes. They think about it as like, “Oh, it’s just babysitting,” or we get into a lot of the gender roles like, “Well, moms should be home,” or people will at least say, “A parent should be home,” without recognizing that the majority of children in this country are being raised in families where all available parents work. So Mom at home didn’t really work in the 1950s, that was not the sort of the family [crosstalk].

Chris Riback: Well, I’ve seen sitcoms that showed that it worked very well.

Brigid Schulte: Yes. Well, those are sitcoms, right? It’s fiction. So even in the 50s, for families of color, that was never the case. And there was really only two decades after the second world war that enabled sort of the family wage. But that was really only two decades out of our entire history. Women and mothers have always worked, whether it was back in the middle ages and they brewed beer or [inaudible] self to help their families.

Chris Riback: Yes. Yes.

Brigid Schulte: But mothers have always worked and we’ve never expected them to do as much on their own as we do right now. But if I could finish that point about thinking about it at like K to 12… So we have decided as a society that education is a public good and that we can’t expect parents to foot the bill for an entire public education system. And so we invest as a country about $12,000 or more per student, K through 12, per year. We don’t expect families to pay $12,000 per student per year, 0 to 5, we do. And so that’s the difference. It takes more people, it’s really expensive, it’s more expensive in some cases than K to 12, and you’re asking parents to pay for that cost. Parents foot the bill…

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: … of more than 60% of the system, that’s what people don’t really understand, businesses pay between like 1 and 4%, depending upon which study you look at, and they are ones that benefit from it. Government pays about 40% through the subsidies for the very poor and that only covers 1 in 6 eligible children so it’s not working. And when you look at what needs to happen, we need an awful lot more public investment, thinking about it like it’s a public good like public education. When you compare the United States with our OECD peers or other peer competitive countries, we are at the bottom in terms of what we invest in early care and education and that’s what needs to change.

Chris Riback: You know the old line, of course, “Never waste a good crisis.”

Brigid Schulte: Right.

Chris Riback: Is COVID-19 potentially the crisis that we won’t waste?

Brigid Schulte: I really hope that’s true. I really do. I got to tell you though, when you look at the early days of the pandemic…

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: … Delta Airlines, one company got more in an early stage bailout money than the entire early care and education system did. Now there were other investments, and that’s a really good thing, it’s a start, but you know what then began to happen, you started to see it very early on, businesses would say, “Everybody back in the office…”

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: “… we’re going to get back to normal,” so to speak. And this is when schools were still closed, childcare centers were closed and who knows if they were going to reopen again. We’ve lost so many childcare facilities, we’ve lost so many early care educators. There’s really no understanding among the business community that wants to kind of spit spot, get back to 2019.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: So that’s concerning. And then when we look at permanent solutions or long-term solutions, where is the debate about how we’re going to continue to invest and where and how in our care system? So yes, there were some really exciting proposals in the Biden Care Infrastructure, but that’s been stalled.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Brigid Schulte: Will there be smaller parts broken up and passed on their own? I know that’s where the conversation is now, but it remains to be seen if that happens. So I’m cautiously optimistic, but we’re not there yet.

Chris Riback: We’re not there yet. To close, to the extent that you can tell us, what are you working on next on this?

Brigid Schulte: Well, so I’m working an awful lot. What we do at the Better Life Lab, we work on pushing public policy forward and pushing workplace practice forward and really pushing the cultural conversation, the narrative, to really understand that what we’re talking about is work-family justice, it’s really about equity, and we really need to include everyone in these conversations. So I would say we’re pushing forward on all of those levers.

Chris Riback: Thank you for your pushing, thank you for stopping by the studio.

Brigid Schulte: Well, thank you so much for having me, and thank you for having these conversations, this is how we make change.

Here’s why it’s so important. I recently had a conversation with a home-based child care (HBCC) provider who described being invited to a Hill briefing considering new legislation on child care. This provider is a leader among her peers, offering support and guidance, and is well positioned to speak to the provider experience. She was excited to be included but found the event intimidating. Ultimately the legislation didn’t represent her or her peers. This instance is both unique and all too familiar: that this provider was invited to have a voice in this meeting is unusual; that her voice was absent from the resulting legislation is entirely consistent with what we at hear from providers every day.

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Across the country we have observed a troubling trend during the pandemic, that while reliance on home-based child care providers has increased, attempts to support this aspect of the child care sector have largely failed or fallen short. Home-based providers have faced a triple-whammy of challenges: decreased revenue due to enrollment shifts; increased expenses for PPE and sanitation costs; and the inability to substantively access public support to maintain their operations.

Even when institutions seek to address the needs of providers, there are problems in design and implementation that leave providers out. For example, we saw states roll out CARES grants to support providers in re-fitting their facilities and purchasing PPE to continue safe operations. The grants required that providers pay upfront for these goods and services, and then be reimbursed with the grant funds.

On average, most licensed HBCC providers earn about $30,000 per year from their child care operations. During the pandemic, of food, rent and utilities. The requirement that providers spend several thousands on renovations or supplies upfront in order to access this funding meant that very few providers could use this critical resource.

HBCC providers’ inclusion in essential worker categories has varied across the country, meaning so too has their access to free PPE, hazard pay and vaccination prioritization. Even in places where HBCC providers are included, there may be fine-print requirements to show W2s or other payroll documents that providers may not have due to their status as sole proprietors.

The federal government made the Paycheck Protection Program, a forgivable federally-backed business loan, available to struggling small businesses including sole proprietorships to support these critical services during the pandemic. But because the program largely required these operators to have existing business relationships with banks and to show payroll records that HBCC operators do not have. Meanwhile, . This debt is expensive, includes many fees especially for later payments, and defaults can undermine credit scores.

As we have worked with HBCC providers we have heard hundreds of stories of attempts to access supports that are not well suited or simply not available to providers. We also observe a key fact: HBCC providers are not at the table when policies are made or programs designed. Providers are not included in governance structures, do not advise public and private partners, and are not systematically engaged to support program design or system accountability. It’s no wonder that these programs fail to meet providers’ needs — they have not been designed with HBCC providers in mind.

Beyond this, as we work with providers and marshall private resources and encourage public actors to be responsive, we have also observed that providers are finding some support and it is largely from other providers. COVID has crystalized for many providers a clear understanding that they must raise their voices and support one another because as a provider leader in New York City, Gladys Jones, says, otherwise “we are going to go extinct.” Gladys, like many other providers around the country, has started pulling together her peer providers and demanding a seat at the table to share their experiences and to hold systems accountable to meet the needs of providers and the children and families they serve.

Chris Riback: Tonia, welcome to the studio.

Tonia Durden: Hello, glad to be here.

Chris Riback: You have been on the research side of early childhood education. You’ve been on the teaching side. And you are now on the teaching of teachers side.

Tonia Durden: Yes, yes.

Chris Riback: So you’ve got the whole thing down I assume?

Tonia Durden: I have it all wrapped around and still learning because that’s a big part of being an educator at any level is to learn from your students. So I’m also learning from the teachers who want to be teachers as well.

Chris Riback: I’m sure you are. Tell me about them please and tell me about the Birth to Five program at Georgia State.

Tonia Durden: Well, I originally started my career at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which is a predominantly white institution. When I transitioned to Georgia State University, one of the unique elements of Georgia State is that it is one of the leading universities in the country for successfully graduating African-American students. Not only was it my alma mater, I got my early childhood degree from Georgia State’s undergraduate program, but also the Birth to Five program that I run is what I actually helped to start when I was a graduate student there. So, it’s bringing me around full circle.

Tonia Durden: Now the actual students there, about 90% of the students are African-American or Latino students who are interested in pursuing a degree in early childhood and also learning how to teach very young children, birth to kindergarten. What’s unique about that is typically in our field with teachers who are birth to kindergarten, only about 35% are African-American. We have this huge, huge push in early childhood to diversify our workforce with more black and Latino teachers. So I’m really excited to have the opportunity to be a part of that work where we’re actually increasing our diversity in teachers.

Chris Riback: I want to ask you about workforce development-

Tonia Durden: Yes.

Chris Riback: Because it is a big challenge-

Tonia Durden: Yes.

Chris Riback: In early education. But first, what inspired you? How long ago was it that you helped design the Birth to Five program and what inspired you to design it?

Tonia Durden: Very good questions. So this was 10 years ago that we were really interested at Georgia State in developing a degree program where individuals who are interested in working with our youngest citizens had the opportunity to learn competencies and skills and how to teach them. Now we’ve had for over 20 years, elementary ed, secondary ed, middle school teacher certification, but not for birth to kindergarten, particularly birth to age five because that’s always been perceived by the public, and even by professionals, as that’s babysitting or you don’t have to have a certain level of competencies or skills to teach infants and toddlers. So advocates such as myself and researchers and teacher educators were really trying to push legislation in Georgia to think more critically that we do need individuals who are teaching infants and toddlers to be just as competent as those who are teaching fifth grade or seventh grade.

Chris Riback: What changed the perception? It couldn’t have just been, “Hey this would be nice to have.” Was it the research? Was it tied to science of learning and development?

Tonia Durden: There were four main things that contributed to that shift. The first thing was that we had a legislative body that was really seeking ways in which we could improve the economic vitality of the state because more and more parents were entering to the workforce and therefore, needing child care and not just child care but quality child care. The second is there was this huge robust amount of research and the science that was coming behind the benefits of starting early even from the womb and so that was another kind of big incentive. Thirdly, is that we had one of our landmark universities in the state that actually began to pilot the Birth to Five program and saw that there was a huge market. The fourth thing, of course, was all of, I call us giants. The very silent giants in early childhood finally got our voice and said, “We’ve known this all along. We have not only experience but we have the data to prove that we do need quality teachers teaching our very young children.”

Chris Riback: And fifth, of course, your personal entity. Who in government is going to say no to you?

Tonia Durden: Well, that’s one of the things I learned in Nebraska as being an early childhood specialist is I learned how to do these elevator speeches with parents, with policy officials in order to truly get across how it’s very important to start early with young children.

Chris Riback: How does workforce development… Really connect those dots for me. How does it translate into an improved early education experience for the children?

Tonia Durden: That’s very key and I’ll start even from the womb because just from the talking and the conversations and the vocabulary, all of that starts very early of what children are exposed to, their literacy rich environments. If you have one child who has experienced a robust exposure to environment literacy and language and responsive experiences from their primary caregiver, whether it’s a parent or whether it is a grandmother or whether it is an early childhood provider, then it’s a remarkable difference than that child who has not experienced very intentional teaching and learning experiences.

Chris Riback: I love it and I know you put the emphasis there meaningfully. The use of the word intentional.

Tonia Durden: Intentional.

Chris Riback: Because this stuff’s not accidental.

Tonia Durden: It is not.

Chris Riback: It doesn’t happen by chance.

Tonia Durden: That’s why we have to prepare teachers. We have a cadre of teachers that already, “Oh, I love teaching. I love children.” Well, love is just the foundation. You also need to know how to teach children effectively and intentionally and also what’s developmentally appropriate for young children as well. It’s not developmentally appropriate to have children sit in desks for eight hours a day and have this kind of direct instruction learning. They learn through play. They learn through curiosity. They learn through conversations. Then they learn through all types of manipulation as well.

Chris Riback: It’s just so important to keep in mind and, Tonia, to close out, you have an anti-bias book coming out.

Tonia Durden: Yes. We’re so excited, the authors and I.

Chris Riback: I’m sure you are. Give me the thesis. Give me the ideas in the book. What have you found? What do you propose?

Tonia Durden: We have over 30 plus years in early childhood of ways in which to create racially equitable educational experiences for black and brown children. However, we really haven’t seen, even in those 30 years, a market increase in graduation rates, in articulating to higher education and to overall success that we should have seen. What this book does is it really does unapologetically say, “Look, these are the individual issues that we have to address from our microaggressions, our biases, the way that we see children and do or do not affirm the culture, the language, the knowledge that they bring with them to the classroom.” Then we have to look at systems and we have to look at how our systems, our policies, how our educational practices, how our classroom observations do or do not allow children to truly demonstrate their knowledge and their skills.

Tonia Durden: Once we critically examine the systems and the individual framework that impact young children, then we have very specific solutions that we provide to leaders, to educational leaders, to directors or principals, to teachers themselves, to policy leaders and also to those who are responsible for creating these systems. We’re really excited about the book that’s coming out, because it really does do a critical examination of where we are and where we could be if we’re intentional in our work.

Chris Riback: And solutions.

Tonia Durden: And solutions.

Chris Riback: And speaking to the full audience range of the folks who are responsible for early childhood learning in America.

Tonia Durden: That’s right. Because if we have the will, then we truly can create racially equitable education experiences for all children.

Chris Riback: Well, listening to that from you, I believe it.

Tonia Durden: Great.

Chris Riback: Tonia, thank you for coming by the studio.

Tonia Durden: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: Good luck with the book.

Tonia Durden: Thank you.

Chris Riback: Rhian, welcome to the studio.

Rhian Allvin: Thank you so much.

Chris Riback: Congratulations on the event. More than 9,000 people here, and everything has worked flawlessly. I guess that’s got to really compliment management on that, don’t you think?

Rhian Allvin: It has absolutely nothing to do with me. We have a brilliant team, and it’s so thrilling for us to have so many people here.

Chris Riback: So despite your efforts?

Rhian Allvin: Despite me, it’s all gone well.

Chris Riback: The event worked well. Okay. We’re glad we got this nailed down. So beyond the event, obviously you are responsible for guiding the organization’s direction and their strategic direction. That can’t be simple with an organization this size. But then I read the NAEYC mission, which states in part: NAEYC promotes high quality early learning for all children, birth through eight, by connecting practice, policy, and research. That just about describes your whole career, doesn’t it?

Rhian Allvin: It does. It does. And it’s thrilling. It’s so humbling to me to have the opportunity to be the CEO at NAEYC and to work on behalf of early childhood educators across the country, who are truly… What they do matters to every other economic engine in our country. And so to have the opportunity to work on their behalf is such an honor for me.

Chris Riback: And you’re not new to this. You didn’t fall into the being CEO of an early education organization just by chance.

Rhian Allvin: No. I started out in Arizona and worked with… I was in philanthropy for a while and worked with a number of donors in Arizona to put an initiative on the ballot to create a-

Chris Riback: First Things First.

Rhian Allvin: … system of early childhood education in Arizona. So I come to NAEYC having been the CEO at First Things First.

Chris Riback: Tell me about First Things First.

Rhian Allvin: I was at the Community Foundation actually when we conceptualized First Things First, but had some mentors of mine, and donors, and friends say, “We’ve spent our whole life trying to make things better for young kids in Arizona, and we’ve gone about it every way, and it’s just not paying off. What if we went to the citizens, went to the people and said, ‘How about we create a new revenue stream for a system of early childhood education in Arizona?'” So we crafted a ballot initiative and-

Chris Riback: Took it to the vote.

Rhian Allvin: … took it to the voters, who voted in favor of a new tax and voted to tax themselves, which is really important, to create a new revenue stream to create a system of early childhood education in Arizona.

Chris Riback: Yes, I think there’s a lesson there.

Rhian Allvin: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: Going back to NAEYC, the strategic direction that you are helping lead and perhaps even responsible for, describe for me the NAEYC strategic priorities. What are they and how they evolved?

Rhian Allvin: We have two forward facing policy strategic priorities. One is that every single child in this country has access to high quality, developmentally appropriate early childhood education, and that is birth through age eight. And so there are many things that hang under that, but it is making sure that we have the systems and structures in place, that parents have real choices, that all kids have equal access to early learning opportunities. And then the second big area of work that is policy facing is to work on the profession. And we have expended a lot of political capital and energy in organizing a professional field of practice for early childhood educators, because here we’ve got this extraordinary neuroscience about what high quality early childhood education means-

Chris Riback: Science of learning and development?

Rhian Allvin: Absolutely, and it is very clear. I mean you can argue over dosage, you can argue over approach, but you can’t argue the neuroscience. And so you have this extraordinary science, and then you have the conditions that we’ve created, where individuals doing the most important work that we can be doing are earning minimum wage in many instances. You can make more money at Burger King in many instances, and we just have a mismatch in what the science is telling us and what the policies and systems we’ve created are doing.

Chris Riback: We know the impact that the science of learning and development has had on how we think about the structure of learning, from every child having talent to even the physical structure of classrooms. It’s really rewriting the way we think about the act of educating. The professionalism and the professional staff, that also needs a rewriting.

Rhian Allvin: When the National Academies came out with Neurons to Neighborhoods in 2000, that had a catalytic effect on our field. And then in 2015 they released Transforming the Workforce in Early Childhood Education, 700 page document, easy reading. But why it was so important was because it took the science and said, not just the science is important, but the individuals, the practitioners in the classroom who are in these experiences every day, you can’t just pluck somebody off the street and have them have the pedagogical background to be able to get these kinds of returns and the complexity of the connection between language and math, the complexity of the connection between how you think about problem solving and reasoning and, even as we talk about now all the time, the stage we’re setting for embracing equity and embracing classrooms that really are about every child, and every culture, and every family that walks in the door.

Rhian Allvin: That report did a great job of laying the foundation for us as the field to say, “You’re absolutely right. That is the truth.” And so we have to respond to that. And we’re compelled from a policy perspective to say, how do we create a system where we acknowledge that early childhood educators have to have professional preparation to do this work?

Chris Riback: Well, if we’re going to expect excellence on the output side, we better think about the input side as well.

Rhian Allvin: Absolutely, absolutely. And early childhood educators being fully, professionally prepared, and we’re saying at different levels of preparation, will make all the difference in the world. But then we have to create the compensation structures that tie to that. We’ve done a lot of market research and public polling, and this notion that early childhood educators are just passing through or they’re on their way to another career, our research says the exact opposite. People want to go into this profession, they’re compelled by it, but then we dis-incentivize it in so many ways without the right compensation structures, making sure that we’ve got health care, that they have access to retirement benefits. Like we have to be able to create a structure that matches the kind of economic prosperity that early childhood education instigates.

Chris Riback: Well, luckily for you, you’ve left yourself plenty to do in the next year.

Rhian Allvin: That’s right, that’s right.

Chris Riback: So next year in Anaheim?

Rhian Allvin: … put me out of a job. That’s really what we need to do.

Chris Riback: I’m sorry. There’s no going out of a job for you. Next year in Anaheim?

Rhian Allvin: Yes, we are in… Well, we’re at Professional Learning Institute in June.

Chris Riback: You have other events, I understand.

Rhian Allvin: And in New Orleans. If you think Nashville’s fun, you do not want to miss New Orleans. And then yes, we are in Anaheim next year-

Chris Riback: For the annual conference.

Rhian Allvin: … for annual conference. Yes.

Chris Riback: Well, congratulations again on this year’s event. Thank you for coming by the studio.

Rhian Allvin: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Chris Riback: Amy, welcome to the studio.

Amy O’Leary: Thanks for having me.

Chris Riback: Congratulations on the event. A lot of energy here.

Amy O’Leary: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: Have you had a chance to stop and actually take things in? What have you seen or you can’t stop for a moment?

Amy O’Leary: In my travels and it has been so exciting to feel the energy and momentum of over 9,000 early educators, researchers, advocates, equity warriors here focused on what we need to do for young children and families.

Chris Riback: Is there anything in particular that you’ve noticed or heard? Obviously equity, major theme, major issue, teachers and the professionalization.

Amy O’Leary: That’s right.

Chris Riback: Anything that you’re hearing?

Amy O’Leary: I think just the relationship building and the opportunity to network. When I attended my first conference, I could not believe how many early educators I was standing with.

Chris Riback: Yes. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

Amy O’Leary: It really is, and I think the commitment to supporting our educators from classrooms all the way up through administrators to our elected officials. You can feel that here today.

Chris Riback: So a big open ended question before we get to some of the specifics. I think it’s a central one and given your role, your views would be useful. Where is America on early childhood education? Hypocritical, committed, successful, lacking, aspirational.

Amy O’Leary: I would say America is waking up around early education and childcare.

Chris Riback:  That’s a good feeling.

Amy O’Leary: It is a great feeling. I think we are coming close to a tipping point where it’s not if we’re going to do something, but it’s really what are we going to do and how are we going to do it?

Chris Riback: What do you think is the why? What’s driving the awakening?

Amy O’Leary: Our honesty about how expensive it is for families to find high quality early education for the children. I think the economic arguments that we’ve had for a long time and I think growing our workforce. Making sure that we have people who can do jobs that we haven’t even dreamed of yet in the future.

Chris Riback: Do you know what I’m hearing a lot about as well from the folks I’m getting to listen to is, as we all think about and worry about the opportunity gap and the inequality gap later in life, there’s this sense that if we can attack that early on, if we can address equity and quality education.

Amy O’Leary:  Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Chris Riback: We can start to close that opportunity gap later in life by making the investment earlier.

Amy O’Leary: That’s right. Common sense tells us if we invest earlier we’ll have a better chance. But the research tells us that as well. In fact, I was just on a panel with a woman who works in the innovation space and she said the people who are going to be 150, to live to 150 have already been born.

Chris Riback: Wow.

Amy O’Leary: And I said, “And you know what their parents are trying to do right now is find childcare.” So if we are serious about having people who are going to live to be 150, have long, healthy, beneficial lives. We need to think about that right now.

Chris Riback: So turns out you also have a day job.

Amy O’Leary: I do.

Chris Riback: Maybe it’s a night job. Maybe it’s a day and night job. You are director of Early Education For All campaign of Strategies for Children. That campaign seeks to make publicly funded high quality early education available for all Massachusetts three, four and five-year-olds. That sounds like quite a challenge.

Amy O’Leary: It is a challenge, and I think that’s where I get the waking up. We started the campaign back in 2002, and I think to see the shifts we’ve seen with our elected officials, with the policies that they’re creating with the advocacy community coming together. To really think about what it’s going to take to best serve our youngest children. I’ve seen a tipping point. In Massachusetts, they’ve just passed a new education bill to make sure that districts have money to support young children across through 12th grade and full day high quality Pre-K is part of that agenda.

Chris Riback: You see all levels. You see the education environments themselves and the teachers. You see the families, you see the higher education folks trying to bring in the next generation of teachers. You also see the policymakers. Is there a block in progress in any of those areas or do you perhaps see better integration among those areas. And maybe what’s going on in Massachusetts is an example of what’s possible.

Amy O’Leary: I think what we’ve seen our policy makers wanting to do the right thing, but we need to help with some of those solutions. So instead of complaining and talking about cuts, we have seen a shift in people’s thinking about solutions. This is what we need and not being afraid to ask for what we need.

Chris Riback: So I read your personal mission, which is, “to work to empower early educators and help get them involved in advocacy policy and research.” Maybe listening to what you just said, at first glance, one might ask, well where are the children in that? But I bet you have an answer for that.

Amy O’Leary: You bet, I do. I think if we have confident, well-respected, early educators who come into work every day wanting the best for themselves and the children they serve, we’re going to see a trickle down. And if children are in those environments and learning skills like empowerment and sharing and being kind to each other. We know those are the qualities that we want to instill in children early on because the benefits that we get from that later make the difference. So I think early educators are the key determinants of what a program looks like, what it feels like. When parents report, when they’re visiting programs, they want to know how they feel when they walk in the door.

Chris Riback: They’re the linchpin.

Amy O’Leary: That’s right.

Chris Riback: Amy, to close out, this is your last year as an NAEYC president. It ends in June. I know you’re not counting down the days.

Amy O’Leary: No.

Chris Riback: I know you’re not. What do you think your legacy will be? What do you want it to be?

Amy O’Leary: I want it to be, I started as a preschool teacher and sat in many of the seats where people are sitting today, and now I get to be president of our largest membership association dedicated to early educators, children and family. So I want to make sure people know that anything is possible and that there are people and mentors that want to help you along this journey and that we are the linchpin to the future of this country. And we need to invest in young children and educators to see our vision through.

Chris Riback: Well, thank you. Thank you for coming by the studio. Thank you for the work that you have and continue to do.

Amy O’Leary: Thank you so much.

Chris Riback: Rosa, welcome to the studio.

Rosa Marie: Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: What is the Marvelous Mind Academy?

Rosa Marie: Marvelous Mind Academy is an early education platform and we are assisting parents and our young learners, move the needle forward and make great strides toward their goals. So currently we are a childcare service that operates through our local Rochester Museum and Science Center. Our parents meet us there every single day and we are getting ready to launch Rochester’s first 24 hour childcare facility.

Chris Riback: I want to ask you about that because 24 hours is a long time. And to that point, on your website, a couple items caught my attention. One of them was, “Day or night, we’re here for you.”

Rosa Marie: That’s right.

Chris Riback: That’s quite a commitment.

Rosa Marie: It is a commitment.

Chris Riback: Why is that commitment necessary?

Rosa Marie: Because the parents need it. So traditionally the childcare in our area, the centers close 6:30, 7 o’clock. But from my experience as a mom and knowing the community that I’m serving, the work day does not look like that.

Rosa Marie: So parents are going to work from nine to five, but then there are parents who work retail, there are parents who work hospital and they’re working those three to 11 shifts and they don’t have the same high quality options as those who work during the day.

Rosa Marie: So for the reasons of parental mental health, for the reasons of this is just what our community looks like and the needs that needs to be served, for those reasons we are affecting change and moving the needle forward and we want to be able to accommodate families no matter where they are in any stage of life.

Chris Riback: I also couldn’t help but notice the Academy Promise.

Rosa Marie: Yes.

Chris Riback: Would you read it for me?

Rosa Marie: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: It’s right here. I marked it with an arrow.

Rosa Marie: Yes. So, “We commit to respect you and your family. Pursue excellence in everything we do. Maintain a positive mental attitude in all of our dealings. Empower everyone through service, engagement and education. Embrace the occurrence of an unplanned series of fortunate events known as serendipity.” Absolutely.

Chris Riback: What does that promise mean to you?

Rosa Marie: To us, it means trust. It means leaving the door, my favorite part is the serendipity because that’s what led us here. We originally thought that what families needed was more summer camp options. We originally thought that what families needed was more personal care.

Rosa Marie: We originally thought a lot of things, but until we started getting ourselves out into the market, meeting with families, meeting with stakeholders, and what we learned was you actually don’t know what you don’t know. And that’s the serendipity part, right?

Chris Riback: So let’s talk about the 24 hour – Rochester’s first 24 hour childcare facility. How close are you to it?

Rosa Marie: Oh, we’re closer than we were year, put it that much.

Chris Riback: Closer than you were yesterday.

Rosa Marie: Yes. It’s been a learning journey. It really has.

Chris Riback: What are the biggest obstacles? Logistics?

Rosa Marie: Finding a facility that will pass regulations is very, very challenging. When you look at traditional childcare, you don’t need a showering facility, right? We can share space with other facilities. So one of the facilities that we were looking at was a common use facility. But what they didn’t have was the fire safety rating, that was very, very important. And the cost to bring our old buildings up.

Chris Riback: Up to code?

Rosa Marie: Yes, exactly. So those are some of the biggest challenges is meeting those New York state regulations. But hey, we put our hand to the plow and we just keep moving forward.

Chris Riback: So speaking of someone who puts her hands to the plow and pushes forward and helps push a community forward. I had the great privilege of talking with Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren…

Rosa Marie: Yes.

Chris Riback: At a previous event, and one of the things that she told me was, “We needed the community to understand that they had a role to play in making sure that our children were getting the best chance at life by giving them the support that they need early on in life, from zero to third grade.” Do you agree with that?

Rosa Marie: Absolutely. She’s one of our biggest supporters. We love our mayor. Our mayor is phenomenal. And just what she told you then at that event is the same mission that she’s moving forward, even now. She’s helped Marvelous Mind Academy find funding. She’s helped us maybe not directly, but through the initiatives that she ordained or organized and helped move forward. So one of our first round of funding came through a Kiva program, which helps entrepreneurs launch their businesses.

Rosa Marie: The second round of funding we received was from our mapping, through the participatory budgeting process. It was a brand new process that helped us hit the ground running. We would still be this little teeny tiny dot in the map of Rochester, if it wasn’t for these opportunities. She’s doing a great job and we appreciate the work that she’s done.

Chris Riback: It’s surely great to have executive leadership like that.

Rosa Marie: It is.

Chris Riback: And I am skeptical that you, as a little dot, still wouldn’t be making a big impact. The sense I’m getting from you, I think you still would be doing it.

Rosa Marie: Thank you.

Chris Riback: I’m sure that the support from Mayor Warren is terrific.

Rosa Marie: It helps.

Chris Riback: How did you get into this? You sign your emails – I know you know this because I don’t think there’s anything accidental about what you do. You sign your emails with your title, “President and mother of two.”

Rosa Marie: That’s right.

Chris Riback: What drives you to make Marvelous Mind Academy, marvelous.

Rosa Marie: My children. So this is how this started, right? So prior to me having children, my grandmother was my daycare provider, right? So she did daycare in her home for 30 plus years. It wasn’t long I was the weekend babysitter when grandma closed her doors. The parents were asking me, “Rosa, do you want to babysit?” So I just carried that with me and until I had my own child, yeah, sure I understood how to care for children. I understood what they needed, how to keep them safe, things like that.

Rosa Marie: But I didn’t understand the relationship from parent to child until I became a parent. And that provided a well-rounded look at what early childhood education and learning should look like. That has certain expectations for my children above education. It was teaching them confidence. I did that for my firstborn son. When he would fall down, it was get back up. I would give him his daily affirmation. Who are you? I’m an amazing man, powerful beyond measure, able to conquer anything.

Rosa Marie: Three years old, stumbling over his words, but now he’s six and he can recite this like the back of his hand. And what I love about it, he regurgitates it back to me when I’m showing him my authentic self. I’m like, oh, mommy’s so nervous right now. And he’s like, “Remember who you are, mommy? It’s okay to make mistakes.” And so having that reciprocated back to me keeps me going every day. So yes, I do. I sign them and mom of two.

Chris Riback: And mom of two. There are some terrific things – marvelous things – going on in Rochester.

Rosa Marie: Yes.

Chris Riback: Thank you, Rosa.

Rosa Marie: Thank you.

Chris Riback: Thank you for what you do. Thank you for coming by the studio and telling us something.

Rosa Marie: I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you, Chris.

Chris Riback:  Judy, welcome to the studio.

Judy Jablon: Thank you, Chris.

Chris Riback: So could we go right into the controversial stuff.

Judy Jablon: Why not?

Chris Riback: Why not? Why is training not always, or not necessarily, the best way, or the sufficient way to prepare people for the hard and important work of educating children?

Judy Jablon: Equity has been a challenge in early learning from the get go. It’s the challenge that we’ve all been trying to tackle.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Judy Jablon: You know the issues around wages. You know the issues around staff retention. What training does is it immediately sets the situation up where some people are in the know and some people are not. Someone’s the keeper of the right idea, and someone isn’t. And therefore-

Chris Riback: In the club, not in the club?

Judy Jablon: In the club, not in the club. And think about the power dynamics there. What we are trying to do in our work is shape a professional learning model that draws from some of the business sector’s greatest strengths around facilitation, around elevating the wisdom of the group and really creating an inquiry based setting where one person learns from another. And we are seeing, in early results, that as people feel this sense of shared power, they build more trust and the result is that there’s greater buy-in, more motivation, a sense of I can do this, I have a purpose. Most of us have at least 18 years of experience in education, where we experienced a didactic approach.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Judy Jablon: So now we’re asking the people in the lives of children up to five, that period of incredible brain development, we’re asking them to provide experiences for children that many of them haven’t even had themselves. And then the way we’re delivering the methodology is by standing and delivering Power Point presentations. A tenet of our organization is, how we show up with our participants has to in every way model best practices for children.

Chris Riback: Yes.

Judy Jablon: Whether it’s in how we build relationships and form trust with our partners, whether it’s the physical and emotional climate that we create in the learning space and the nature of the learning experiences, they have to be quintessentially mirroring the practices that we’re asking people to do with children. What our participants say is that thy feel almost like they laugh and they say, “So wait a second, we just learned how to shape a learning experience by doing one.” To me that’s a win-win.

Chris Riback: So tell me, how does your program work and who do you engage with? You engage at the state level, local, with the organizations? How does it work? Who do you engage with?

Judy Jablon: With Leading for Children’s approach, we basically enter a community that invites us. And we work either at a state agency level or if it’s a more local level, it’s a large agency that has many programs as part of it. And like Early Learning Nation, we’re building communities. We’re bringing together everybody in the young child’s ecosystem, the van driver, the parent, the cook, the teacher, the director, the coach.

Chris Riback: They’re all part of it.

Judy Jablon: They’re all part of our learning network. And what’s amazing is right from the get go, people say, “I’ve never been in the same room with these people.” And so, this sense of collective endeavor, of shared purpose, we’re breaking down the silos that have yielded competition across roles and really forging partnerships.

Chris Riback: You’re working with communities across the country.

Judy Jablon: We are.

Chris Riback: And I assume that those programs then get evaluated. How do they evaluations look? What do they look like?

Judy Jablon: Well, we’re a new organization. We’re just finishing our third year. Our early impact studies are sort of mind-blowing.

Chris Riback: Wow.

Judy Jablon: Mind-blowing. People are talking about a sense of agency they’ve never had. People are talking about the why of their work with incredible coherence. I’m making this decision for children because it will help them learn. To me, that’s the greatest impact we can have. Program climate is improving because as the adult/adult relationships get stronger, the tenor, the tone in the building is nicer, friendlier and children’s challenging behavior go down. So we’re really cultivating the social emotional skills of the adults. We’re also cultivating them as leaders and their sense of purpose is coming through in our early evaluation material. It’s quite exciting.

Chris Riback: I would like to close by asking you about leadership and you have several frameworks. One of them is the “five commitments of optimistic leadership.” I love that “optimistic leadership.”

Judy Jablon: Thank you.

Chris Riback: Run through the five commitments if you would like – you don’t have to. But overall, what is that concept? What does it mean to be committed to optimistic leadership?

Judy Jablon: Well I think, in my work, one of the things that I know I didn’t learn about in graduate school and in 35 years or more of practice, the word commitment is actually not a conversation. It’s not part of the early learning sector. And yet, all the research on leadership is about being committed and staying committed and in getting others to be committed. So the notion of commitment, to me, feels different from habits. It’s something that we actively do every day and the concept of optimistic leadership is future thinking. It’s not Pollyanna. It’s not positive. It’s really saying if we hang in here, there’s a future for these children that’s unbelievable. Why do I believe that every adult who touches the lives of children birth to five needs to be a leader?

Chris Riback: Yes.

Judy Jablon: Because I believe that the future depends on people feeling a sense of their own agency, their own capacity, to make good decisions and leaders make good decisions.

Chris Riback: And talk about modeling, your point earlier. I would only assume that if that is something that the educators are modeling for the children, that translates. I really hear you talking about the how. How one acts, how one engages, can have as much if not more difference than what one knows or what one does. Is that-

Judy Jablon: At our first convening, toward the end, in Mississippi, one of the participants raised her hand and she said, “In this field, I think we’ve always talked about the what and how, but we haven’t talked about the why.” So we got into a whole discussion and we’ve been really talking a lot about why. But then, in the second convening with the same group of people, they said, “It’s not what you do, it’s how you show up,” and your why drives how you show up.

Chris Riback: There’s a lot there. Judy, thank you. Thank you for coming by the studio.

Judy Jablon: My pleasure.

Chris Riback: Congratulations on what you’re doing and great luck with it.

Judy Jablon: Wonderful. Thank you.