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the pushing down of the elementary school early childhood has reached a new peak with the adoption by almost every state of the so called common core standards.” That report also looks at the high rate of preschool expulsions of late. Preschoolers and kindergarteners are now being expelled at three times the rate of K-12 children. How can that be okay? Peter Gray has documented the decline of play and the increase of childhood problems over recent decades in his article “The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescence” (The American Journal of Play, volume 3, number 4; Spring 2011). The increase in the number of young children attending overly-academic preschools and kindergartens is most assuredly part of the problem. An increase in childhood depression and anxiety are some of the results. When our mission should be, at the very least, to do no harm, clearly the children are being harmed. We cannot toss them in the trash like a cake with too much salt or a recipe gone awry (to further Karen’s analogy above). They are human beings, for goodness sake.

Finding ways to stay developmentally appropriate, when many of the tests and assessments are not, is becoming increasingly difficult. And looking critically at the how, what, when and why of testing and assessments which have increased with RTTT, is important work for the early childhood community. If ever there was a time in the USA for early childhood educators to be looking closely at policy and debating the direction of early childhood education, now is the time. As the leading organization of early childhood educators, NAEYC should be at the forefront of advocating for young children – and speaking out against policies that aren’t grounded in what decades of research has proven: that children develop best — socially, emotionally and cognitively — when they have educational experiences that promote creativity, thinking and problem solving skills, and engage in meaningful activities geared to their developmental levels and needs.

Developmentally appropriate practice (or DAP) is a perspective within early childhood education whereby a teacher or child caregiver nurtures a child's social/emotional, physical, and cognitive development by basing all practices and decisions on (1) theories of child development, (2) individually identified strengths and needs of each child uncovered through authentic assessment, and (3) the child's cultural background as defined by his community, family history, and family structure.[1]

Some critics have argued that some reforms such as NCTM mathematics and Whole Language which fully support "Developmentally Appropriate Practices" are believed to introduce students to materials and concepts which may be too advanced for young children, or above their reading levels.[2] On the opposite side, some critics claim that DAP approaches use content and concepts considerably below traditional grade levels. Educators in many states implement DAP approaches to meet learning standards that were established by specialized professional associations, including in the content areas of language arts, math, social studies and science. The National Science Education Standards proposes to teach elementary school students how to construct their own experiments, whereas traditionally high school students and even college students were typically taught how to perform pre-designed experiments, but not to construct their own experiments.

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