Early Childhood Professionals Whom I Admire and Have Learned From:

Renatta Marie Cooper, MA, currently serves as Education Coordinator for the Los Angeles County Office of Child Care. She is also a Pasadena Unified School District Board Member.

Ms. Cooper's expertise in early childhood development and education comes from a career in academic leadership, teaching, research and active participation in organizations related to Early Childhood Education. At Pasadena's Pacific Oaks College, she was founding director of the Jones/Prescott Institute-Hixon Center for Early Childhood Education. She has taught in ECE settings that included work with adolescent parents, abusive parents and their children, and migrant families. She has published and frequently presents on a wide range of topics, including "Play and the Acculturation Process" and "Cultural Sensitivity in Infant and Toddler Care."

Information Retrieved from: Walden University Website

Louise Derman-Sparks, Professor Emeritus, Pacific Oaks College, is the author and coauthor of several books, including Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children (National Association for the Education of Young Children); Teaching/Learning Anti-Racism: A Developmental Approach (Teachers College Press); In Our Own Way: How Anti-Bias Work Shapes Our Lives and Future Vision, Current Work: Lessons from the Culturally Relevant Anti-Bias Education Leadership Project (Redleaf Press), and numerous articles and book chapters. Her most recent book, coauthored with Dr. Patricia Ramsey, is What If All the Kids Are White?: Anti-bias/ Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families (Teachers College Press).

Ms. Derman-Sparks speaks, conducts workshops, and consults widely throughout the United States and internationally. A former member of the Governing Board of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (1998-2002), she currently serves on the National Board of Crossroads Ministry: An Interfaith & Community- Based Anti-Racism Training Organization and on the National Diversity Advisory Council of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.  

Information Retrieved from: Walden University Website

Sue Bredekamp  retrieved from High Scope.org: http://www.highscope.org/Content.asp?ContentId=552 Early childhood education specialist from Washington, DC, who serves as a consultant on topics such as early literacy, curriculum, teaching, and professional development. From 1981-1998, she served as Director of Accreditation and Professional Development at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). She is the primary author of NAEYC’s highly influential and best-selling publication Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs, the 1987 and 1997 editions, and co-editor of the 2008 revision. From 2007-2008, Dr. Bredekamp served on the Committee on Early Childhood Mathematics of the National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences. Her professional development work included serving as NAEYC’s liaison to the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Dr. Bredekamp is author of numerous books and articles related to standards for professional practice and professional development. She served as a consultant to the Head Start Bureau from 1999-2000. Dr Bredekamp holds a Ph.D in early childhood education from the University of Maryland. Her professional experience includes teaching and directing child care and preschool programs for children ages 2 through 6, training child care personnel at a community college, and serving on the faculty of the Human Development/Childhood Education Program at Mount Vernon College in Washington, DC.