This winter, Shasta Westaby of Rice Lake received an unexpected email from a familiar name.
State lawmakers were working on a bill related to child care. Given that Ms. Westerby has nearly 15 years of early childhood education experience and runs a daycare center out of her home, a councilor sought her opinion.
Ms Westaby said she was excited to be consulted, explaining that childcare workers often feel left out of discussions about policies that affect their day-to-day work.
Westerby is one of the first eight graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's online master's degree, which focuses on preparing students to advance early childhood policy change. The Early Childhood Education Policy Program launched in 2022 and produced its first graduates in 2023.
“It's a pretty big step forward[for state legislators to reach out to me]. If I hadn't completed this master's program, they would have advised me, 'Jump on this, jump on this program.' I wouldn’t have been in a position to give.’ That’s a good one,” Westerby said.
Although programs like the one Westaby completed are still rare, UW-Whitewater's new degree coincides with a growing national effort to create a new academic field in early childhood education policy.
These programs are gaining momentum as lawmakers across the country grapple with the harsh realities of the child care system, including limited child care options and high costs while childcare workers are underpaid. Wisconsin is no exception. A number of child care bills were introduced this legislative session, but very few made it to the governor's desk.
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“She's a star.”University of Wisconsin-Whitewater program advances new field
Lucy Hymer, a professor at the university and coordinator of the Wisconsin-Whitewater program, calls it a “broad but focused program that covers the history of early childhood education and care, leadership and advocacy, and aspects of the legislative process.” He said that a “focused” curriculum was needed. Strengthen strong policy arguments that create change.
“There are very few programs that help educators and practitioners develop a greater sense of self as agents of policy change,” Hymer says. “People working in early childhood education and care are so siloed and so busy with their day-to-day work that they don't see themselves as champions. through their narratives and stories.”
Since 2018, the Early Childhood Policy Initiative in Higher Education has been working to make “early childhood policy” its own academic discipline and has funded several related degree programs and research centers across the United States.
But the goal of this initiative is broader. Kathy Thornburg, principal investigator at ECPIHE and professor emeritus in the University of Missouri's School of Education and Humanities, said she expects this new field to appear in more degree programs and one day be published in its own academic journal. Ta. development.
As part of its goal to expand early childhood policy programs across the United States, the initiative has created a series of free, open-source online curricula that can be incorporated into existing programs or used to create new programs. There are no data on how widespread this new discipline is nationally.
“We just cast a net and hoped that a great many people would find the material and understand the importance of this field,” Thornburgh said.
The University of Whitewater program is the best example of how the materials are working as intended, Thornburg said. Hymer found the curriculum online and tailored it to the master's program's vision: an emphasis on access and equity. Although UW-Whitewater has not received any funding through the ECPIHE initiative, Heimer said he believes the resources, connections and dialogue between nations it generates will be invaluable.
“She's our star,” Thornburgh said. “She founded it, developed it, and now we have graduates. We are so proud of her.”
Thornburgh said experts across the country are already studying a variety of issues related to early childhood, including education, child development, social work and law. The question is how to link their efforts together as a package to ensure that policies bring about effective change.
“Policies need to be broader to support children during the first few years of their lives, their families, and the workforce that works with them,” Thornburgh said.
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What do program graduates do next?
Students in the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater program have a variety of connections to early childhood in Wisconsin. Some work for the state Department of Children and Families or the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. There are also daycare centers like Westaby.
To create a new academic field, Heimer said it is important to do more than just connect different disciplines. Instead, policy makers need to have a good understanding of the various linguistic, cultural, and financial issues that are inseparable from the problem of developing policies that meet people's needs.
Hymer said respect and consideration for both children and their caregivers must be at the heart of all this policy work. She believes the UC Whitewater program gets this message right.
Westerby is currently running for Rice Lake City Council, and feels she is ready for it now that she has a master's degree. She believes that doing so not only allows her to influence local policy, but also allows people like her with first-hand experience raising children to have a voice in state and even national policy discussions. I'm looking forward to it.
“If I'm in their world, they can't ignore me anymore,” Westerby said. “I want to be able to use my knowledge and voice to advocate for policies that are fair across the board, not only to children and families, but also to the people who work in this work.”
Graduates of other programs are looking to use their new degrees in other ways. Luis Godinez is an educational assistant in the early childhood program at Milwaukee Area Technical College.
He plans to continue advocating for bilingual early education policy, just as he did in the policy project required to complete the UW-Whitewater program.
“There's this idea that if you live in the United States, you should only speak English. I want to change that mindset through policy,” Godinez said.
“For me, bilingual education can only help everyone. It's okay to learn another language to expand your thinking, even if you're not a native speaker of another language.”
Godinez said earning this master's degree opens the door to advancement within the MATC system. I am currently certified as an early childhood education instructor.
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This idea of becoming a “teacher's teacher,” as Westerby puts it, is also a goal that the master's program will help her achieve. Ms. Westaby is inspired by the mentors she has had throughout her various degrees, and she said she hopes to infuse her own experiences into the next generation of early childhood education professionals.
In a way, she has already started teaching other providers. For her project, Ms. Westaby created an advocacy toolkit for home-based child care providers, those who run child care programs out of their homes.
She has already been asked to present the toolkit at the Wisconsin Family Child Care Association conference in May.
“Historically, I don't think there has been as much education (on policy) for childcare providers at the family childcare level,” she says. “So I really want to pass on my knowledge and experience to other family caregivers in a language and process that they understand.”
For more information about UW-Whitewater's Early Childhood Policy master's degree program, visit bit.ly/MSEECEPolicy.
Cleo Kureishi is a Report for America corps member based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, covering higher education, job training, and retraining. To contact her, CKrejci@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @_CleoKrejci. Please support her work with a tax-deductible donation. bit.ly/RFDonation.
Madison Lammert covers child care and early education across Wisconsin, reporting for American Legion members based at Appleton Post Crescent.To contact her please send her email mlammert@gannett.com Or call us at 920-993-7108.. Please consider supporting the journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to Report for America. Visit postcrescent.com/RFA
