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High Quality Early Childhood Education

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Socio-Emotional Development Definition There are no federal standards for early childhood education programs, leaving each state to create their own and leaving a wide range of variance between programs and states in terms of requirements (Magnuson & Waldfogel, 2005). High quality early childhood education can be defined using the following benchmarks that were set by the National Institute of Early Education Research (NIEER) and described by Barnett & Frede (2010). The first four benchmarks are dedicated to teacher qualifications. Pre-kindergarten educators ideally have a bachelor’s degree that specialized in early childhood education as well as 15 hours of in-service training per year. Assistant teachers should have at least a Child Development Associate (CDA) or a CDA Equivalent. The next two benchmarks look at the class sizes and student to teacher ratios. Classrooms should have no more than 20 students and with a student-to-teacher ratio of 10:1. Benchmark number seven calls for learning and development standards that should cover children’s physical, social/emotional, motor, and language development as well as approaches to learning, cognition, and general knowledge. Benchmark eight and nine calls for the overall physical and socio-emotional well being of the children. There should be at least one nutritious meal provided per day; vision, hearing, and health screenings should be provided; and parent communication, involvement, and parent education should be

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