Buell Early Childhood Leadership Program
As the launching pad for lifelong learning, early childhood is prime time for effective education.
That's why it's imperative that administrators working in the field become "stewards of quality," says Virginia Maloney, dean of DU's Morgridge College of Education.
To train these stewards, the
Before the program's summer 2007 debut, Maloney says, "there were no programs for training people to be leaders in the same way that there are programs for training leaders in K-12 and higher education."
Funded with a $360,000 grant from Denver's Temple Hoyne Buell Foundation, the four-quarter, 25-credit-hour, graduate-level certificate program was developed by Morgridge College faculty, the Clayton Early Learning and an advisory board of early childhood experts from across the country.
The Buell grant provides full scholarships for admitted students. The first cohort of Buell Fellows, which began classes in July 2007, consists of 20 working professionals selected from 80 applicants. Students can apply their certificate credits toward an MA or PhD in the Morgridge College's educational leadership program.
The new program strives to transform the early childhood director from a building manager into an instructional leader-one who will share best practices with staff members and catalyze their professional development. For children, this will ensure an educational experience that stimulates language acquisition, develops early math skills and paves the way for subsequent learning.
"We want to prepare a new breed of early childhood leaders to be focused on closing the achievement gap, or eliminating it before it gets started," Maloney says.
In developing the program, DU faculty adapted the best standards from K-12 education with developmentally appropriate practice for, as Maloney puts it, "what we know are the realities of early childhood education."
One of those realities is that preschool and childcare programs are typically isolated from the rest of the education system. Preschool teachers learn a lot about their students' strengths, preferences and development, but they seldom have the opportunity to communicate this information to their kindergarten or first-grade counterparts.
"The fact that there is such poor communication between these systems is a source of real loss, and it puts families under immense stress, particularly our most vulnerable families," Maloney says.
Maloney expects this pioneering program to pique interest among educators nationwide. "I know already that there are other places watching pretty carefully to see what we are doing because there is obviously a national need," she says.