NCSL Virtual Early Learning Workforce Boot Camp, 19 Aug 2021

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From YouTube: Status of Early Learning Workforce

Description

The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment’s Dr. Caitlin McLean discusses the Early Childhood Workforce Index 2020 that provides guidance to legislators and policymakers on policies that require attention.

Explore the full playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrLes3ojwahls8aD_l5FT_kdyNDMb32mS

Visit NCSL.org for more information on this series:
https://bit.ly/2W9Vo1p

A

Thanks to karen, for you know, giving us all that great information on the state funded pre-kindergarten workforce, um but I'm really going to be talking about the broader early care and education workforce. So hopefully that will help with some of that framing and context for for folks with those questions.

A

um But before we jump in um just wanted to say hello again,.

B

A

Dr caitlin mclean um senior research specialist at the center for the study of child care, employment at uc berkeley and our research center is based within a labor and employment research institute.

A

But our center is entirely focused on early care and education, um and so you know you heard in the video earlier today about some of the work that we've done, um especially around our sql survey tool, which really documents that link between you know: early educators, work environments and well-being and quality learning for children.

A

um But today what I'm going to do is talk to you about another area of work that we do, which is our early childhood workforce index and that's our biennial, not annual um 50-state report, that we do that looks at the status, the working conditions of the entire early care and education workforce and then also looks at various policies to prepare this workforce to support them on the job and to make sure that they're compensated.

A

So um before I talk more about that, I do want to be very clear about who we're talking about when we say the early childhood workforce when we say early educators.

A

So we're talking about all of those folks who are paid to educate and care for children from infancy through preschool age, so that zero to five age range, um which would include the the teachers that karen was talking about earlier, um but also you know, kind of the wider workforce, so directors teachers, assistant teachers across settings, including you know, those programs that we tend to think of more as early learning.

A

So head start, no state funded preschool programs, um but also child care programs that are in centers and in homes um in part, because you know sometimes we think about these things as separate. But, as karen mentioned they're, often in the same building, you can have a classroom um where you know the teacher is being funded by state pre-k dollars.

A

You can have a classroom right next door in that same building um where they're getting head start funding, they may be using some head start funding and some child care funding. It's it's uh it's tricky because the system has you know a lot going on, um but you know, even though our our early care and education system is divided in this way, with different programs and funding streams.

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We know that early educators themselves, regardless of where they work, are engaged in nurturing young children and helping them learn in that really crucial early stage of their development.

A

So it's important that we think about this entire workforce and not just those folks in state fund and pre-k.

A

um So who, who are these these women largely um almost entirely women doing this work around 97 98 um about 40 of these early educators are women of color, as you heard in the video, many early educators actually do have bachelor's degrees a little over a third of all early educators and kind of center-based programs actually have a bachelor's degree or higher, and if you're just looking at lead teachers, not including assistance, um a little under half about 43 um actually have a bachelor's or higher.

A

So, even though the standards are hugely variable across states um and can often be extremely minimal, basically nothing um often to work in a child care setting that doesn't mean that early educators don't have these qualifications. Often they do.

A

But that being said, you know because our system remains divided with you know, greater priority and more spending on those services that are perceived primarily as early learning. So you know those public pre-k um services that karen mentioned or head start.

A

um There are really stark disparities in the preparation and the working conditions of early educators, depending on where they work and the divide is, is clear between kind of anybody working in the zero to five range and k through eight, um as you heard, with karen's presentation, but even within that kind of early education space. There are these divides so, um generally speaking, if you're an early educator, who's working in a school, providing publicly funded, pre-k, you're, more likely or you're, most likely at least to be earning pay.

A

You know more in line with elementary school teachers, you're more likely to get similar professional benefits and supports, even though, as karen said, there's often still a gap compared with educators and other programs. And so you know you saw that disparity for pre-k teachers in community-based programs who often get lower, pay few or no benefits, and then it's even worse.

A

For for folks who are providing early care and education, but are not being funded by that state, those state pre-k dollars so folks, working with infants and toddlers or even three to five-year-olds, but you know in child care settings, um so this particular slide is pulled from one of our infographics and it's really showing that even when you're, just looking at early educators who hold a bachelor's degree, there are very meaningful differences in pay, depending on where you work again. It's higher.

A

If you work in a school, it's higher, if you work with three and five-year-olds rather than infants and toddlers- and this is really important to understand, because so much of this revolves around how we fund early care and education.

A

There has been much more sustained public funding for those services that are for three and four year olds compared with younger kids, even though you know, as jenny said, we know how important those early early years are, and it's also important to understand that.

A

Currently those teachers working in those state-funded pre-k programs actually make up a pretty small proportion of the overall early educator workforce.

A

So when you're thinking about how they're, already at a disadvantage to k-12 um they're, actually kind of in the best jobs in early care and education and those jobs, are a small portion of overall, where you could work if you're looking to go into early care and education, so just to make this a little more concrete.

A

If you're, looking at early educators who are classified with in federal data sources as child care workers, they actually hold one of the worst paid jobs in america. We have ranked every occupation in the united states by average pay and every time that we've done. This we've found that only two percent of all of the occupations in the us earn less than child care workers who earn 11.65 an hour on average nationally for preschool teachers and to be clear. This data source is not just talking about those in publicly funded great pre-kindergarten, but really.

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Working with three to five-year-olds- um even here you know again, the pay situation is not much better. You can still see there's a large gap in pay on average with kindergarten teachers.

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So, as you heard in the video this morning, this is a very difficult job to survive on and, to um you know, support your family with, um but we know that you know these women are preparing them, children to be successful in school and later life and for the past year, they've actually been risking their lives and the lives of their families. To continue to provide provide this service.

A

um You know they were worried about their own health, health and their families, but providers really tried to keep their doors open in part to ensure their own financial security. As you know, small business people, but with higher costs fewer children enrolled.

A

This has led to job losses and program closures, and you know we know that the child care industry is still only about 84 as large as it was before. The pandemic began and at least 164 000 employees have lost their jobs.

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So this is really a crisis. um There was a staffing shortage before the pandemic started. The pandemic has just made things even worse for folks.

A

I know that we are a little hello on time um or hey. I was gonna. Do our pop quiz? Is that still fine.

B

I think we may be a bit behind on time, um maybe perhaps at the end of the presentation we could try it out, um but I just I'm not sure.

A

Okay, um all right well I'll, just keep going and then we'll see if we can come back, so um I can kind of wrap up from here, because I would love to to do the poll um the pop quiz, but I just wanted to highlight that these are really just the top level findings from our report that the 2020 early childhood workforce index there's plenty more where that came from.

A

You can use the qr code and I can also drop the link into the chat to explore our report in more detail.

A

These are really our national findings I was talking through, um but we have data for all 50 states and dc, and we have information on wages that I talked about, but also a variety of workforce policies and initiatives. So we look at qualification requirements for educators. We look at scholarship scholarships that are available for different levels of education.

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We look at are folks doing anything to try to raise compensation and we also provide specific policy recommendations on how to improve early childhood jobs.

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So you know again, you can find all of this online. You can use our state explorer to get the national picture for different um for different areas and then you can also click through and see all the information for your home state.