The State of Early Childhood Workforce Professional Development

1
The State of Early Childhood Workforce
Professional Development

• Achievements and Vision for the Future
• Deb Cassidy,
• NC Division of
• Child Development

2
Relationship Between Formal Education and Quality
(Tout, Zaslow, Berry, 2002)
3
Relationship Between Formal Education with ECE
Content and Quality (Tout, Zaslow, Berry, 2002)
4

• In K-12 teacher education, teacher qualifications
  (education, experience, measure of knowledge)
  account for larger share of variance than any
  other factors.

5

• Specialized knowledge in child development and
  learning as well as quality of interactions are
  critical to quality (Shonkoff Phillips, 2000)
• Nationally, qualifications of early childhood
  workforce are decreasing (Herzenberg, Price,
  Bradley, 2005)
• Inadequate compensation makes recruitment and
  retention of qualified staff extremely difficult
  (Bellm Whitebook, 2006)

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The Economic Impact of Professional Development
7
What Accounts for These Positive Economic
Outcomes?

• Dependent on programs being high quality
• Better trained caregivers/teachers
• Smaller child/staff ratios
• Greater intensity of services (contact hours,
  transition into elementary schools follow
  through, parent education support)
• They began early

8
Better Trained Teachers/Caregivers

• Perry Preschool Project
• Most teachers had B.A. degrees in Education
  paid public school salaries 10 bonus for
  participating in the program 10 teachers filled
  the 4 teacher positions over the 5 years of the
  program

9
Better Trained Teachers/Caregivers

• The Abecedarian Project (N.C.)Teachers were paid
  competitive salaries with public schools (on a
  12-month scale) virtually no turnover most had
  college degrees

10
Better Trained Teachers/Caregivers

• Chicago Parent-Child Centers
• all teachers had Bachelors degrees and were
  certified compensation same as public schools
  staff turnover low

11
Average Education Scores (2006-2009)
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2-5 Star Education/Center Scores
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T.E.A.C.H. Participation 2004-09
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6,528 Certified!

• 6,358 certified for free thanks to funding
  provided by the Division of Child Development,
  Head Start and the Office of School Readiness
• 170 paid for by fees (self, employer,
  partnership)
• 98 counties represented (missing Gates and
  Hertford)
• 51 at Gold levels
• 1,424 self reported More at Four
• 1,023 self reported Head Start

15
Workforce Benefits Today

• Recognition
• Professional Certification
• Tied to compensation for salary supplement
  recipients
• Linking compensation education
• No charge for grant funded certifications
• First in the nation

16
Workforce Benefits Tomorrow

• Ready for anticipated changes (possible
  connections to star rated license, new training
  structure)
• Ready for links to PD initiatives/funding
  (quality enhancement and maintenance)
• Support for increased compensation
• Raise the bar for whole profession

17
Star-Rated License 2005-2009
18
Mean Hourly Wages of Teachers(2007)
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North Carolina Teacher Salaries

• Preschool teachers in NC earn 10.18 hourly
• (ranking 47th nationally)
• Child care teachers in NC earn 8.12 hourly
• (ranking 24th nationally)

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Professional Development Directions in NC

• MORE Compensation
• MORE Education
• Intensity of Services (comprehensive services
  curriculum fidelity)
• Measurement of teacher quality (what does more
  education buy us?)
• Higher quality interactions?
• Warmth, sensitivity?
• Greater academic focus?

21
Alliance for Excellent Education

• If educational attainment of Black, Latino,
  Native American students matched that of their
  white counterparts by 2020, the U.S. would see
  more than 310 billion a year in savings and
  productivitywe know how to do this and step one
  is high quality teachers!
• What if all children came to kindergarten on
  equal footing?