Child Care and Early Education Workforce
Back to Issues in Focus
The Early Care and Education Consortium (ECEC) members operate more than 7,600 licensed child care centers, making ECEC the voice for tens of thousands of child care teachers and directors. These practitioners are among the experts in early care and learning, and they make an enormous difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of children every day.
With more than 2.3 million individuals working in child care and early education, from family child care providers to classroom aides and teachers, issues affecting the workforce are many and often complex.
• How do we recruit and retain the best qualified individuals for this work?
• What is the best way to move toward a professional development system that supports early childhood practitioners at every stage of their career?
• What steps are necessary to raise the profile of the child care workforce and increase the value society places on work with young children?
In 2008, after reviewing industry challenges and the state and federal landscape, the ECEC Board decided to focus on addressing child care workforce challenges, and to help raise the profile of these issues in state and national debates. We are working with other national organizations to explore convening a national summit on the early childhood workforce in 2009.
News and Reports
Congress Passes the Long-Awaited Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act
The final bill includes provisions for loan forgiveness for early childhood educators and grants to states for professional development. Click here for more.
Conference Call Series: A Center Piece of the PreK Puzzle
Transcript and recording
ECEC is partnering with National Women’s Law Center to produce a series of national audio conferences. The second in the series of calls focused on workforce issues child care centers face in operating state preKindergarten programs and featured ECEC Board President Sara Moleski-Rice from the Learning Care Group.
ECEC’s Presentation at NACCRRA’s Annual Policy Symposium
The Early Care and Education Consortium, in conjunction with Bright Horizons Family Solutions, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Pennsylvania Child Care Association, presented a session at NACCRRA’s Annual Policy Symposium on April 2, 2008. The session, “Perspectives on Meeting the Early Childhood Workforce Challenge,” addressed the views of child care providers, system approaches, developments on the state level, and the changing federal policy context concerning the early childhood workforce.
NAEYC’s Early Childhood Workforce Systems Initiative
http://www.naeyc.org/policy/ecwsi/default.asp
Background
T.E.A.C.H. ® Early Childhood Project
http://www.childcareservices.org/ps/teach.html
Fact Sheet on the Child Care Workforce
National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies
Roots of Decline: How Government Policy Has De-Educated Teachers of Young Children
Dan Bellm and Marcy Whitebook (2006)
Center for the Study of Child Care Employment
University of California at Berkeley
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