While early childhood educators are shaping young minds at a critical part of their lives, they are not rewarded for it with adequate compensation, benefits, opportunities, or even respect.
Michelle Kang
CEO, National Association for the Education of Young Children
Every time I step into an early childhood program, I’m struck by how warm and welcoming the environments are, filled with the sights and sounds of joyful learning through play.
It’s a testament to the pride that early childhood educators bring to their work and the care they take in creating spaces where children will spend formative time learning and growing.
Ninety percent of a child’s brain develops by the age of 5. Yet, while early childhood teachers are helping shape young minds at a critical part of their lives, they are not recognized for it with adequate compensation, benefits, access to professional development, career growth, or even respect. This has led to an early education workforce in perpetual crisis, which puts families and children in tough situations when programs shrink or close. It also puts a significant dent in the American economy.
To pull out of this crisis, we must invest in early childhood educators, both in compensation that reflects the value of the work they do, and in the opportunities to develop their careers so that the workforce behind the workforce can be fully supported in serving children, families, and communities.
Compensation matters
Inadequate compensation is the core of the problem, which has far-reaching consequences for the quality of care and education provided to young children. Early childhood educators often earn poverty-level wages, with nearly half relying on public benefits to make ends meet. This unacceptably low pay contributes to high turnover rates and forces talented teachers to leave the field they love for better-paying opportunities elsewhere.
Early childhood educators must earn a thriving wage that reflects the highly skilled, professional work they do. And addressing the compensation gap is not only about raising salaries — it also includes ensuring access to affordable benefits, such as health insurance and retirement plans.
Access to professional preparation and development matters
Research shows that higher teacher qualifications are positively correlated with higher-quality early childhood education and care, so increasing pathways and equitable access to higher education and professional development opportunities is essential for strengthening the early childhood educator workforce and increasing the supply of quality childcare and early learning.
Educators and organizations from around the country are proud to be part of a collective movement to define and drive investments in a unified, cohesive, diverse, and equitable early childhood education profession that is prepared, recognized, and supported.
Public financing for ECE matters
Quality early childhood education is found in a variety of settings, from family childcare homes to public schools, and the educators in these programs deserve to be compensated equitably. This requires increased and sustained federal and state investments to improve outcomes for children and families.
Costs for higher wages and better benefits cannot be borne by families, whose monthly childcare costs often exceed their rent or mortgage payments, or by providers, who cannot charge less and for whom working with a shoestring budget is the norm, not the exception — a perpetual and demoralizing Catch-22.
Investing in the education and compensation of early childhood educators is the best way to improve the supply and quality of early childhood education programs. When we underinvest in this critical workforce, we undermine the short- and long-term benefits of high-quality early learning, diminishing the return on investment and ultimately harming children and families. And when we invest in this workforce, educators benefit — and so do we all.
