Position Statement
DEC's Initial Standards
DEC has worked with CEC’s Knowledge and Skills Committee,
which is overseen by the CEC Professional Standards and Practices Committee, to
revise and validate its standards for preparing professionals for initial
careers in ECSE/EI (birth to age 8). CEC
has a systematic validation process. It begins with each division generating a
set of standards, which for DEC consisted of an examination, evaluation, and
integration of the then current DEC and CEC/EC standards. Subsequently, the representatives
from the division work with the other members of the Knowledge and Skills
Committee to examine potential overlap between the specialty standards of a
division and CEC’s Common Core of knowledge and skills that ALL individuals who
work with individuals with special needs should possess. A Division’s specialty
standards that are perceived to overlap with the Common Core are removed from
the Division’s standards if they are found in the Common Core. The Common Core
standards are, by nature, general in that they are intended to apply to ALL
special educators. Following this process, a division’s standards are sent out
to members of the division and members of other relevant organizations for
survey. In the case of DEC’s standards, members of NAEYC, in addition to DEC,
participated in evaluating the relevance for inclusion of each standard. The
survey results are then reviewed and discussed by the Knowledge and Skills
Committee, with advocacy from the division. The final set of standards is
determined and approved by the committee and sent forward to CEC’s Professional
Standards and Practices Committee. The initial level standards were validated
in 2006, accepted by the CEC Knowledge and Skills Committee in January 2007,
and accepted by the DEC Board in April, 2007.
Individuals who prepare program reports for CEC or NAEYC
accreditation must demonstrate how their programs address personnel standards.
Program reports for EI/ECSE must use CEC’s early childhood standards (i.e.,
DEC’s ECSE/EI standards), in addition to the Common Core. Program reports
focused on preparing individuals to work with typically-developing young
children are submitted to NAEYC and must address NAEYC’s personnel standards.
Programs that prepare individuals to work with BOTH typically-developing and
young children with special needs (i.e., blended programs) must address both
standards.
Download DEC ECSE-EI Initial Standards
DEC's Advanced Standards
In addition to initial-level standards, a workgroup of DEC’s
Personnel Preparation Committee also developed and assisted in the validation
of Advanced Standards that are designed for programs wishing to prepare
individuals to work in leadership positions in ECSE/EI (birth to age 8).
These standards are new, just as the
standards for CEC’s Advanced Common Core are relatively new. The development of
the advanced ECSE/EI standards was based on work on advanced DEC standards
conducted in the late 1990s by members of the DEC Personnel Preparation
Committee. The procedures that were used for the validation were the same as
those used for validating the initial standards. The draft of the advanced
standards was presented and discussed at the April 2007 meeting of the
Knowledge and Skills Committee. They were sent out for survey August/September
2007, and then accepted by the Knowledge and Skills Committee at their late
September 2007 meeting.
Download DEC ECSE-EI Advanced Standards