Introduction

As part of the reinvention of NAEYC's accreditation system, the NAEYC Governing Board appointed a 10-member Commission on NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards and Accreditation Criteria (the "Commission") in July 2002. Among its responsibilities, the Commission is responsible for two tasks: (1) developing explicit NAEYC program standards for programs serving children from birth through kindergarten and (2) developing NAEYC's accreditation criteria around each standard, making them more evidence-based and current with the profession's knowledge of best practices. [ See Evidence and Value Based.] A comprehensive literature review conducted by a national contractor has helped confirm that each final draft criterion is evidence based.

Ensuring the quality of children's daily experiences in early childhood programs and promoting positive child outcomes are the heart of NAEYC's current and future accreditation systems. With this in mind, the Commission has developed a conceptual framework for its work with four areas of focus. The primary area of focus is children, with five draft program standards designed to advance children's growth in realms of learning and development.

Excellent early childhood programs depend on an effective support structure. The remaining five draft early childhood program standards are in three focus areas that form a program's support structure - teaching staff; families and communities; and leadership and administration. A support structure promotes program accountability and makes it possible for classroom life to be consistently nurturing and filled with learning opportunities for each child - and for this high level of quality to be sustained over time.

The wording of each draft early childhood program standard and its rationale statement describe the focus of the program standard and the accreditation performance criteria that go with it. Collectively, the ten draft program standards describe early childhood programs that consistently promote positive learning and developmental outcomes for all young children. "All children" truly means all; it includes children with developmental delays or disabilities; children whose families are culturally and linguistically diverse; children from diverse socioeconomic groups; and children with individual learning styles, strengths and needs.

To help make the new criteria even more pertinent to programs, five accreditation strands organize the suggested criteria: one universal strand and four specialized strands tied to children's developmental levels.

Developing the Final Draft Accreditation Performance Criteria

For the past year, the Commission has been working to develop performance criteria for each of the ten draft early childhood program standards approved by the NAEYC Governing Board in July 2003.

The Commission recently approved its suggested accreditation performance criteria as final draft. (So please be sure to discard earlier versions!) This milestone came to fruition with the support and help of nine technical resource teams, composed of a diverse group of early childhood educators, administrators, and researchers, who worked with the Commission to develop accreditation performance criteria for each of the ten draft early childhood program standards.

This work also benefited from the input of over 4000 responses to various iterations of the suggested criteria. Literally hundreds of hours have gone into this work.

Now the accreditation performance criteria and the proposed accreditation assessment instruments will be tested in early childhood programs that reflect the array of program types, auspices, and children served by programs participating in NAEYC's early childhood program accreditation system. After receiving results from these field tests, the Commission will review its work to determine if changes are needed. Its recommendations for NAEYC's new early childhood program standards and accreditation performance criteria will be forwarded to the NAEYC Governing Board in February 2005. The Board will consider the Commission's recommendations at its spring 2005 meeting.

Moving Towards NAEYC's Reinvented Accreditation System

In the new system, early childhood programs seeking NAEYC Accreditation will have to meet each of NAEYC's ten early childhood program standards, a change intended to increase the accreditation system's credibility and reliability. Programs' compliance with the 10 program standards will be assessed by their performance on the accreditation criteria associated with each standard. It is not expected that programs will have to meet every criteria or to be perfect.

At this point in the process, what it means to "meet each program standard" has not been determined. Program compliance with each program standard will be informed by the field test. Questions posed to the field in the November 2003, and January and March 2004 issues of Young Children sought your input on this important issue. Responses to earlier versions of the final draft accreditation performance criteria also are informing the decision-making.

Also yet to be developed are the program improvement and self-study materials that will accompany NAEYC's new accreditation performance criteria. These materials will include introductions to the criteria for each program standard, examples that help further explain individual criteria, a glossary of terms, and other supports for early childhood programs that seek to improve their performance and make it more consistent with NAEYC's early childhood program standards and accreditation performance criteria.

Your input has made a tremendous difference to the development of the Commission's final draft of its accreditation performance criteria. Thank you so very much for your commitment to this process. We wouldn't be at this point in reinventing NAEYC's accreditation system without you!

Staying Informed

You can stay updated on the process for finalizing NAEYC's new early childhood program standards, accreditation performance criteria and field-testing of the new accreditation assessment instruments by frequently checking NAEYC's website, reading Young Children and the Accreditation Update, and making sure you are receiving the Accreditation E-Update, our free monthly electronic newsletter.

View Final Draft Early Childhood Program Standards and Accreditation Performance Criteria