Defending the Early Years Inc
Supporting the Rights and Needs of Young Children
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
When the No Child Left Behind law was passed by Congress in 2001, the focus of all education, including early childhood education, changed dramatically. The law scaled up the federal government's role in holding schools accountable, primarily through frequent testing and holding to national standards. Funding was withheld from schools that did poorly on the tests. Schools began “teaching to the test,” with much more direct instruction and much less learning through play. Also, to prepare children for the tests, academics were pushed down, so that kindergartens looked more like first or second grade and preschools looked more like kindergartens. Classrooms no longer met children’s developmental needs nor taught them meaningful content through hands-on experiences. The result of all these changes? Many young children soon learned to hate school and there were more behavioral and mental health issues. Many teachers knew better but they felt that their hands were tied.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Educating Parents, Teachers & School Admin
DEY’s Primary Goals
To advocate at the grassroots, local, state, regional, and federal levels for education policies based on child development theory and research.
To mobilize the early childhood community to speak up for age-appropriate standards, assessments, and classroom practices that are based on research.
To promote appropriate practices in early childhood classrooms and to support educators in counteracting policies and practices that undermine whole child health and optimal learning.
Where we work
External reviews
Videos
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Defending the Early Years works for a just, equitable, and quality early childhood education for every young child.
We strive to return all early childhood classrooms across the country to teaching young children in a developmentally appropriate way, including learning through play and activity-based, hands-on experiences. In order to nurture children's natural love of learning and to provide opportunities for them to develop imagination, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving skills, we must eliminate over-testing, rote learning, and push-down academics and bring back best practices to the education of our young children. Defending the Early Years aspires to inform teachers, parents, and policymakers about what are best practices and how they can be best achieved. Once appropriately informed, all sectors will be in a better position to speak up with well-reasoned arguments against inappropriate standards, assessments, and classroom practices, take action, and demand that changes be made in the ways that we are currently educating our young children. Finally, we know that the heaviest burden from these inappropriate classrooms and teaching methods falls on children who live in poverty and who attend schools in low-income communities. That is why it is so important that ALL children have access to a just, equitable, and quality early childhood education.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Defending the Early Years provides resources and support to early childhood educators, advocates, and other allies by making available current research about how young children learn best, presented through in our monthly e-newsletter and in our reports, fact sheets, position statements, videos, and our mini-documentary series, Teachers Speak Out. All of these are available, free of charge, on our comprehensive website, www.dey.org. We present current research plus ideas and inspiration for becoming an early childhood advocate at conferences such as those sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the Progressive Education Network, and Network for Public Education and also at our annual Summer Institute. We write op-eds and articles and are interviewed by various media, from time to time. We also provide information about how to become an advocate through our Mobilizing Kit, available on our website. Finally, we offer mini-grants of between $250-$500 to fund advocacy efforts.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Defending the Early Years was able to accomplish a great deal since its founding in 2012 with a core team of four - co-founders Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Dr. Diane Levin and co-directors Geralyn Bywater McLaughlin and Blakely Bundy. Now, with the granting of our 501 c 3 status in 2019, we have added to the core team. Joining the Board of Directors as its Treasurer is Dr. Marcy Guddemi, the former Executive Director of the Gesell Institute at Yale University. Dr. Denisha Jones has been hired as the Director of Early Childhood Organizing and also oversees our Summer Institute. We have also stepped up our PR and marketing efforts, when we recently hired Katherine Fligg as our Marketing Consultant and Nancy Retherford as our PR Consultant. We also have a distinguished group of early childhood educators serving on our National Advisory Board, who write reports, give advice and ideas, and help us when needed. Finally, we closely collaborate with like-minded organization such as Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Progressive Education Network, and Network for Public Education.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
What we have accomplished so far:
- We became a 501 c 3 in 2019.
- We have published seven comprehensive reports, including: "Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose;" "Lively Minds: Distinctions Between Academic versus Intellectual Goals for Young Children;" "Selected Standards from the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Grades K-3: My Reasons for Not Supporting Them"; "Straight Talk about Kindergarten Readiness Assessment;" "Teachers Speak Out: How School Reforms Are Failing Low-Income Young Children;" "The Disappearance of Child-Directed Activities and Teachers' Autonomy from Massachusetts' Kindergartens;" and "Young Children in the Digital Age: A Parent's Guide."
- We have published eight fact sheets and positions statements, some translated into Spanish.
- We have distributed a monthly e-newsletter since 2012.
- We have produced seven mini-documentaries in our Teachers Speak Out series.
- We produced two additional videos, summarizing the finding of two of our reports ("Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little to Gain, Much to Lose" and "Lively Minds: Distinctions between Academic and Intellectual Goals for Young Children")
- We have presented at numerous conferences including: NAEYC, Progressive Education Network, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, the Alliance for Early Childhood Preschool-Kindergarten Summit, Save Out Schools, and Network for Public Education.
- We held our first annual Summer Institute in July 2019.
- We have awarded 17 mini-grants to help fund advocacy efforts across the U.S. and even one in Guatemala.
- We updated and enhanced our website (www.dey.org)
What we hope to accomplish next:
- In production, a video featuring our founders Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Dr. Diane Levin, explaining how children learn best through play, produced by documentary filmmaker Scott Bultman.
- A stepped up annual appeal, starting on Giving Tuesday in December, managed by our new PR and Marketing team.
- An interactive map on our website highlighting what's happening in early childhood across the country. We hope that it will help connect advocates involved in similar advocacy work.
- An enhanced and enlarged Summer Institute, including ongoing webinars with past and future participants.
- A webinar featuring teachers from Brookline, MA who successfully protested the inappropriate kindergarten curriculum, led by Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige.
- An enhanced marketing strategy
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Defending the Early Years Inc
Board of directorsas of 03/04/2022
Nancy Carlsson-Paige
Co-founder of DEY
Term: 2016 - 2024
Diane E. Levin
Wheelock College at Boston University
Geralyn Bywater
Mission Hill School
Kisha Reid
Discovery Early Learning Center
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
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