About Us
QUEST is the public policy voice of PennAEYC, a network of early chilhood practitioners across the state with membership in the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Our goal is to ensure that every child in Pennsylvania has access to highquality early childhood education programs, and that dedicated practitioners can afford to stay in the field.
We support:
- Early childhood professionals--who lay the foundation that will set our youngest children on a course of lifelong learning---and need to be recognized and compensated for the professionals that they are;
- Parents of young children--who need and want strong partnerships with early childhood professionals;
- Young children--who lose thier teachers to high turnover, who wait and wait to get into subsidized child care, whose parents may not understand the importance of the earliest years or can't find a quality program.
Since 2002, Pennsylvania has made enormous strides in developing an early childhood system that supports quality in early childhood programs, and acknowledges the central role of well-trained and adequately compensated staff. We support the Keystone STARS quality improvement program, Pre-K Counts, and other initiatives of the PA Office of Child Development and Early Learning, while continuing to hold out the goal of full access to high quality early education for every child in our Commonwealth.