A degree in early childhood education earned outside the United States does not arrive in US terms.
Before a licensing agency, registry, college or employer can compare it with a US credential, it has to be restated in those terms.
That restatement is a credential evaluation, and an evaluation agency produces it: NACES — the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services — does not evaluate credentials itself; its member agencies do.
Here is how the process works and what to confirm before you order.
Why centers and registries need an evaluation
A diploma earned abroad does not arrive in US terms.
Grading scales, credit systems, program lengths and award names can differ from country to country, so a document that reads as a degree at home may not answer a US requester's first questions: is this a degree, at what level, and in what field.
A credential evaluation is the report that restates your education in US terms, either for the award as a whole or course by course.
Who needs one depends on the job.
Education rules for center staff come from each state's child care licensing agency, and they vary from state to state: BLS lists a high school diploma or equivalent as the typical entry-level education for childcare workers, and notes that some states set no education requirement at all for entry-level childcare positions.
For lead teaching the floors rise — BLS describes preschool teachers, the closest published occupation, as typically needing at least an associate degree, with requirements varying by setting and state rules.
The childcare teacher career guide maps those roles and settings end to end.
Where a degree floor is written into the job, an evaluation is how a foreign degree gets read against it.
Head Start's federal performance standards (45 CFR 1302.91, administered by the Office of Head Start) set the floor: all center-based teachers must have at least an associate's or bachelor's degree in child development or early childhood education, or equivalent coursework, and at least 50% of Head Start preschool teachers nationwide must hold a bachelor's.
BLS adds that those with a degree in a related field, such as psychology, must also have experience teaching preschool-age children.
On August 7, 2026, ACF proposed to rescind and replace these standards (comments close October 6, 2026), so confirm the current text with the Office of Head Start.
Outside Head Start, NIEER's 2025 State of Preschool Yearbook, covering the 2024-25 school year, counted 30 of 63 state-funded pre-K initiatives requiring every lead teacher to hold at least a bachelor's degree.
Two other requesters can enter the picture.
A state early childhood workforce registry, where one exists, holds your education and training records — the workforce registry guide covers what registries record and when joining is required.
And where the requester is a college deciding what to accept, ask it whether it wants a course-by-course report.
One scope note: a credential evaluation is an education document.
It says nothing about immigration or work authorization, and this page does not cover either.
Ask the requester before you order
Course-by-course vs general evaluation
The two report types are named for what they cover, and they answer different questions about the same degree.
| Report type | What it covers | When to ask about it |
|---|---|---|
| General (document) evaluation | Your completed credential as a whole | When the requester only needs to know what level your award equals |
| Course-by-course evaluation | Your transcripts, course by course | When the requester must count specific courses or units against a requirement |
The distinction matters because of who is checking.
A requester that only needs the level of your award may only need a general report.
A requester that counts courses — a college weighing transfer credit, or a credentialing body whose rules are written in units of named subject areas — is the one to ask whether it needs the course-by-course report.
California's Child Development Permit rules are a worked example of unit-based rules: each core course must carry at least three semester units or four quarter units, in the core areas of child/human growth and development, child/family/community, and programs/curriculum.
A foreign transcript does not present its courses in those terms, so ask the credentialing body whether it wants a course-by-course evaluation to apply its rule.
Agencies name and define their own reports, and our research did not verify what each agency's reports contain, so treat the descriptions above as the general forms: read the report description on the agency's site before ordering, and get the requester's answer in writing — which report type, and for what.
Choosing an evaluator: NACES member agencies
NACES — the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services — is not itself an evaluation agency.
NACES does not perform credential evaluations; its member agencies do.
Its member list includes Educational Credential Evaluators, World Education Services and Josef Silny & Associates.
Watch the acronym at the center of this page's subject: in childcare job ads, ECE means early childhood education.
Among evaluation agencies, ECE is also the short name for Educational Credential Evaluators.
If a posting or a form asks for an "ECE evaluation", check which of the two is meant before you order.
NACES publishes its member agencies on its own site, which makes it the place to start a list of candidates.
It does not decide anything for you: which agencies a state registry, a licensing agency, a college or an employer accepts is that body's own decision, and our research did not confirm which agencies each state registry accepts.
Ask the requester which agencies and which report it accepts, then pick an agency from that answer.
Get the requirements in writing first
Getting your ECE coursework counted
A course-by-course report makes your coursework legible, but it does not decide anything by itself.
The college, registry or licensing agency that receives it applies its own rules — how much transfers, which subjects count, and toward what.
Our research did not verify statewide ECE articulation agreements or how associate-degree transfer rules (AA versus AAS) treat ECE coursework, so treat acceptance as a question for the specific institution rather than something the report settles.
Rules like these are written in units and subject areas.
California's Child Development Permit is the worked example again: each core course must carry at least three semester units or four quarter units, across the core areas of child/human growth and development, child/family/community, and programs/curriculum.
Ask the credentialing body whether a course-by-course evaluation is how it wants foreign coursework presented against those terms.
A counted degree is not always the whole requirement, either.
BLS notes that a Head Start center-based preschool teacher whose degree is in a related field rather than early childhood education must also have experience teaching preschool-age children — the evaluation gets the degree read, and the experience completes the qualification.
Education is also only one screen.
Some states and employers require childcare workers to hold a nationally recognized credential — most often the CDA credential, which must be renewed every 3 years.
If your degree lands you in a role that names one, that runs alongside the evaluation, not instead of it.
To see what your foreign award is being compared against, the guide to types of early childhood education degrees compares certificate, associate, bachelor's and master's programs and the jobs each level unlocks.
Cost and timing: what to check before you order
There are no safe numbers to print here: our research did not confirm evaluation prices or turnaround times.
The reliable move is to read the current fee schedule and processing-time page of every agency you are considering, and to treat anything secondhand — including this page — as out of date until the agency's own figures say otherwise.
What you can pin down in advance is the scope: which report the requester wants, which agencies it accepts, and how the report must be delivered.
Those three answers narrow the field to the agencies you should be comparing in the first place.
Timing works the same way.
If a hiring deadline or a college term is driving the calendar, ask the agency how long its processing currently takes and ask the requester when it needs the report — the two answers together tell you whether the plan works, without guessing.
Order early enough that the report arrives before that deadline.
- Ask the requester, in writing: report type, accepted agencies, delivery method
- Read the fee schedule and processing times on each accepted agency's own site
- Check the agency's document requirements for your country before sending anything
- Order early enough for the report to arrive before your deadline
This page is career information, not licensing or legal advice. Education requirements for childcare jobs are set by each state's child care licensing agency, Head Start qualifications by the Office of Head Start, and credential acceptance by whichever body is asking — confirm with that body before you order an evaluation.