Defending the Early Years was founded in 2012 to respond to the new wave of bad reformy ideas and has ever since been a powerful and helpful voice in the world of early childhood education. They have stood up for the littles, the small children who are often overlooked in the midst of various education debates. And now they have announced that they are at the end of their road.
I've brought up their work many times over the years. Early on, they were leaders in responding to the Common Core insistence that we should be jamming more reading instruction into five-year-old brains. In January 2015 Defending the Early Years and the Alliance for Childhood released a report about the use of Kindergarten reading instruction. Authored by Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Geralyn Bywater McLaughlin, and Joan Wolfsheimer Almon, the report tipped its hand in its title: "Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little To Gain, and Much To Lose." The report put some weight behind the conclusion that forcing reading instruction on kindergartners was not a great idea, and in fact was not even a neutral idea, but an idea that could cause actual harm.
When academic pre-K heated up as a growth sector, DEY published a short piece by Lilian Katz that provides a useful framework for explaining and understanding why some approaches to early childhood education are not useful-- "Lively Minds: Distinctions between academic versus intellectual goals for young children." It was brief but great, distinguishing between academic and intellectual growth goals; I liked it a lot.
Looking back through my DEY pieces, I note that part of their evolution has involved responding to increasingly crazy pants ideas. By 2018, states were talking about cyber-preschool-- parking three-year-old's in front of a computer screen. This was a dumb idea, and DEY and their partners said so. This statement from the group captures their passionate protection of littles:
Recognizing the estimated $70 billion a year “preschool market,” an increasing number of Silicon Valley companies with names like “K12 Inc.” and “CHALK" are selling families and policymakers the idea that kindergarten readiness can be transmitted through a screen. What these companies offer is not preschool, but a marketing scheme designed to sell a virtual facsimile of real preschool. By adopting online pre-k, states are selling out kids and families for the benefit of private industry.
All of our knowledge about human development demonstrates that children learn best through exploratory, creative play and relationships with caring adults. As the American Academy of Pediatrics notes, “Higher-order thinking skills and executive functions essential for school success, such as task persistence, impulse control, emotion regulation, and creative, flexible thinking, are best taught through unstructured and social (not digital) play.” By contrast, there is virtually no evidence showing that online preschool improves outcomes for kids.
Online pre-K may expose kids and families to new types of risks. Research shows that screen overuse puts young children at risk of behavior problems, sleep deprivation, delays in social emotional development, and obesity. Extended time on screens diminishes time spent on essential early learning experiences such as lap-reading, creative play, and other social forms of learning.
That was their trademark-- passionate yet professional responses to crazypants ideas most firmly rooted in extracting dollars from state and parents (including responses to bogus studies meant to produce science-flavored marketing).
And when the nation needed information about how the pandemic was affecting education, DEY had that covered, too.
They created training sessions and informative videos. They provided a mountain of resources soi that parents, teachers, and advocates who knew in their gut that something was wrong with a new child-targeting policy had materials they could use to help make their point. They even put me on their facebook page a time or two.
I have met Executive Director Denisha Jones, and she is everything you would want from a person to run an organization like this-- smart, incisive, knowledgeable, and still warmly human. They were lucky to have her.
But a recent announcement on the website tells us that DEY is headed into the sunset.
Though the need for this work has not gone away, we have reached a point where it is time to say goodbye to Defending the Early Years. We recognize that this may feel sudden, but it is a decision we have been grappling with for the past two years. And one we have not made lightly, but one that we believe is in the best interest of the staff and the board. It is well known that securing funding for early childhood advocacy is not easy. Foundations and corporations rarely prioritize early childhood education and care, and when they do, there is never enough to fund everyone who applies. And though we have received many wonderful individual donations over the years, that is not enough to sustain an organization. The reality is that we need a dedicated funding stream to continue being the voice for just, equitable, and high-quality early childhood education and care. And without one in sight, we have decided to bring DEY’s admirable run to an end on June 30, 2026.
Damn. Once again, the tiniest humans, and the people who work with them and stand up for them and raise them-- those folks the short end of the stick. It's a little rage-making-- in the midst of a new wave of moaning about how not enough Americans are making babies, the powers that be still can't figure out how to help the "under-babied" of this country actually raise babies. Is there any country that makes more noise about valuing family and children and devotes fewer actual resources to making life easier for families and children.
But I digress. There is some good-ish news, in that the vast library of resources created and collected by the group will still be available. And if you want further evidence of their reach and impact, a page is set up for messages from friends, supporters, and beneficiaries.
DEY has been an invaluable organization; the landscape surrounding early childhood education will be a bit more bare without them. Thanks to all the folks who worked in the organization; may you all land somewhere that allows you to continue your important work on behalf of education and tiny humans.
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