Standards, Assessments, and Accountability
Early Childhood Education
Educational research has repeatedly identified a strong relationship between the quality of early childhood experience and later academic success. Louisiana's Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs are designed to provide children with the foundational experiences to support later achievement of the benchmarks for Louisiana's content standards in language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, physical education, the arts, and technology.
Louisiana's ECE policies are closely aligned with those of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the Division of Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC). Both organizations advocate a framework of instructional practices that have been termed developmentally appropriate practice. Developmentally appropriate practices provide young children with the opportunities needed for learning and development that allow for active engagement and participation in their environment. This means that adults carefully organize the physical learning environment, value children's interests, maximize opportunities for children to make choices, recognize the importance of supporting play for optimum cognitive development, and provide enjoyable experiences with language, stories, and books.
Louisiana, like NAEYC and DEC, has identified inclusion as the preferred service delivery option for most young children with special needs. Many school systems have adopted inclusive practices in their ECE programs. State ECE coordinators are available to provide technical support as other systems make this transition, enabling young children to learn together as members of a diverse community.
An additional goal for the Elementary Standards Section is to facilitate the collaboration of all public and nonpublic providers of early childhood education. The recommendations from several National Research Councils and new Head Start policies call for this collaboration at the state and local levels so that high quality services can be provided to the maximum number of children.
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