Book Reviews

Early Childhood Unity: Proceed with Caution

Ready or Not: Leadership Choices in Early Care and Education
By Stacie G. Goffin and Valora Washington

Reviewed by Dennis Schapiro

There is no mention of Montessori education in this small book, but Montessorians are likely to find it fascinating.

It is a call to higher purpose for the field that Goffin and Washington call “early care and education.” As Montessorians continue to struggle to determine the role they should play within the larger field, Goffin, a long-time consultant to early education groups, and Washington, a college professor, offer some harsh insights.

And even those who find some of the characterizations excessive will learn much.

The American early care and education system they describe:

• is “chaotic, uncoordinated and of uneven quality”

• “lacks the capacity to meet the public’s expectations”

• lacks “clarity about its purpose, identity and responsibility”

• is seeing a “widening gap between promises made and promises realized”

• is led by old-timers who are “insular” and “static” and reluctant to turn leadership over to an ill-prepared younger generation

• leaves “too many children are in early care and education programs of mediocre quality”

• has little overall sense of “what individuals affiliated with early care and education need to know and be able to do”

• is open to accusations of malpractice

• has seen “accomplished Asian, Black and Latino professionals repeatedly express a sense of professional isolation and marginalization”
  

Additional funding, they argue, is not likely to help unless these issues are resolved.

At the core of the problem is a field that refuses to define itself and set meaningful standards of preparation and practice.

They point to two other female-dominated professions, nursing and social work, with professional organizations requiring significant levels of education. The National Association for the Education of Young Children, in contrast, is open to anyone concerned about young children’s education.

The authors are convinced the environment is changing, with growing public pressure to embrace early childhood education as the latest social and economic silver bullet. Because of the chaos among early childhood educators, they see leaders in business and governmental poised to define the field and its standards.

Goffin and Washington don’t want that to happen. Advocating a concept called Adaptive Leadership, they think early childhood educators can come together beginning at the grassroots and define their field—including responses to its race and class biases—and assert control.

Like so many educational policy exhortations, its analysis is interesting, its recommendations dreamy.

The authors briefly note, for example, that if the field is to come together in defining itself, “There will be major losses in status, losses in organizations.” The folks who pulled themselves up from poverty through the existing organizations since the early days of Head Start will not accept that easily.

This quick-read book may convince some Montessori educators to continue doing their useful work on the fringes and wait to begin greater engagement with the larger early childhood education community until some of the mess is cleared up.