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The recent release of NAEYC’s Early Childhood Higher Education (ECHE) Directory concludes a two-year project to identify every early childhood degree program in the country and feed them into a searchable directory. The directory is part of NAEYC’s response to the seminal 2015 Transforming the Workforce report which confirmed, among other things, the need for early childhood educators to have specialized knowledge and skills in order to work effectively with young children. The ECHE Directory launches a new resource for current and prospective students who want to advance their early childhood education credentials. It is congruent with other efforts to increase access to early childhood degrees as it raises awareness of the many degree options (in bricks and mortar classrooms and online) available to meet the needs of often-nontraditional early childhood postsecondary students. It also reveals the extensive diversity of the early childhood degree field, and perhaps an opportunity for creating clarity. Continue Reading…