about the potential consequences of policy implementation, but NAEYC did not endorse specific policies.
However, a 1976 legislative change led to a new opportunity and a challenge for NAEYC. As Dr. Spodek wrote:
As an organization we have avoided directly influencing public policy. Such actions would have jeopardized our status as a tax-exempt organization. Recent tax legislation has seemingly changed this, and it might now be possible for us to take more direct action to influence public policy. This is something we will be studying as new guidelines and decisions are handed down regarding changes in the Internal Revenue Code.( 3)
He weighed the pros and cons when he stated,“ To become an advocate could create divisiveness. Yet to take no action might make us ineffectual”( 3). He concluded his column with a call for members“ with varied interests and concerns” to provide input as to whether NAEYC should begin to take firmer policy positions( 3).
Later in his career, Dr. Spodek made a global impact when he founded the Pacific Early Childhood Education Research Association( PECERA) and served as its president from 2001 to 2008. PECERA is dedicated to the dissemination and support of research into early education in the Pacific. It brings early childhood educators and scholars in this region together for an annual conference and sponsors publication of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Research in Early Childhood Education, which began in 2007 under Dr. Spodek’ s leadership. Dr. Spodek’ s work with PECERA reflected his dedication not only to national issues in the field, but to global collaborations as well.
Lilian Katz
Dr. Katz was influential on many fronts in early childhood education. Her entry into the field began when, as a mother of three children who attended a cooperative nursery school, she“ got the bug for teaching young children” while fulfilling her weekly contact time at the co-op( Daniel Katz, personal communication, 2025). She then sought formal education in early childhood education, eventually earning a doctorate from Stanford University.
Dr. Katz joined the faculty at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1968, where she also directed the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. This repository, part of the federally funded Educational Resources Information Center, closed in 2003. During her career, Dr. Katz was instrumental in creating Early Childhood Research Quarterly, which NAEYC jointly published with ERIC and Ablex Publishing Corporation. It became one of the leading research journals in early childhood education. Dr. Katz was the journal’ s founding editor in 1986 and served as
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