Rights & Needs of Young Children
Defending the Early Years
DEY’s Mission
approaches to learning informed by child development theory and evidence-based research.
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.
What’s New at DEY?
Day 1: Embracing Equity in ECEC as a Form of Resistance
Day 2: Diversity is Not Divisive: Teaching Truth to Promote Inclusivity in the Early Years
Day 3: Fostering Care For the Environment in Young Children: An Educator’s Approach to Climate Change
We’re thrilled to announce the release of our newest resource for the campaign, In Defense of ECEC: Restoring the Link Between High Quality and Child Development. This advocacy toolkit is a powerful new resource designed to equip early childhood educators, advocates, and leaders with clear, compelling messaging that links what we know about child development to what we do in practice and policy.
Click on the image to download the toolkit and join us on Thursday, May 29th, at 7 pm EDT for an informational webinar.
Do you want to explore the toolkit in depth? Become a monthly subscriber to our Reflective Practitioner Series and join our next course: In Defense of Quality- A Reflective Course on Whole-Child Development in ECEC.
DEY has released a new framework to support early childhood educators, caregivers, and parents in supporting young children’s healthy racial identity development. Fostering Healthy Identity Development in Young Children: Affirming Race, Culture, and Ethnicity in the Early Years is a framework for early childhood educators, caregivers, and parents to understand how racial identity develops and to support healthy development in the early years. Click on the read more button to download the framework.
Did you miss our webinar introducing the framework as part of the 2025 National Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action? You can watch the recording below!
Also check out the DEY 2025 BLMAS Resource List here!
Did you miss our book talk with Jesse Hagopian about his new book, Teach Truth: The Struggle for Anti-Racist Education? You can watch the recording here! Thank you to AFT Massachusetts, Boston Teachers Union, and Haymarket Books for co-sponsoring the event.
Also, be sure to register for the Summer Institute to hear Jesse Hagopian give the Day 2 keynote!
Statement in Solidarity with District 65 and Antiracist Educators Everywhere
We, the undersigned educators, parents, students, organizations, and community members, affirm our unwavering solidarity with Evanston/Skokie School District 65 and the Black Lives Matter at School movement in the face of a politically motivated investigation launched by the Trump administration’s Department of Education.
Denisha talks with Rixa Evershed and Aidn White about applying ECEC values Equity, Truth, and Care to global challenges.
Author Rob Sanders features Book Comes Home: A Banned Book’s Journey for the DEY Banned Book Club.
In this episode, Kisha chats with Rusty Keeler about his unique journey to adventurous play. Rusty offers practical advice on incorporating adventure play into your home or program. From Tasmania to Texas, Rusty Keeler has spent the last 30 years traveling the world designing and advocating for children’s play.
Our puppetry collective Hermafrodita is based in the south of Quito, Ecuador’s capital city, and thanks to DEY’s mini-grant, we were able to provide a full arts program for kids in three underprivileged child care centers across the city. Our program’s primary objective was to validate and nurture children’s freedom of self-expression, creativity, and identity by widening the scope of gender roles through the arts.
DEY seeks to rally parents and educators to take action on policies affecting the education of young children, by encouraging them to speak out with well-reasoned arguments against inappropriate standards, assessments, and classroom practices.
DEY provides mini-grants of between $200 and $500 to individuals and organizations to help foster work in communities across the country. DEY’s first mini-grant, awarded in 2014, resulted in a rally for play that took place in Minneapolis.
DEY
Are you concerned about the direction that education policy is going? We are, too!
Help DEY continue its important work advocating for appropriate education for young children. Please Consider Making a Donation.
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