Training People to Work in Early Childhood Education: No Money, Lots of Mouth

Training People to Work in Early Childhood Education: No Money, Lots of Mouth
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Evelyn Williams, right, a teacher in a Pre-Kindergarten class at the Community Day Center for Children, gives Jiren Oliver, 4, a high-five after they played a game of tic-tac-toe during class Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2014, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

RCEd Commentary

If early childhood education is such a great investment, how come we pay people who deliver it so little?

There is no question that many people believe early childhood education is a smart investment -- that a dollar spent on a high quality early childhood education can yield a high rate of return. This sentiment is endorsed by President Barack Obama, where the White House’s early learning site states: “Expanding access to high quality early childhood education is among the smartest investments that we can make.” The key, however, is that it’s not about just providing early childhood education -- it’s about delivering high quality education.

As with many things in education, identifying what creates quality is contentious. Among the factors associated with high quality early childhood programs are staff being “compensated competitively and attractively enough, so that they can grow professionally over time,” M. Caridad Araujo argues in a recent Brookings post on early childhood development.

Unfortunately, evidence from many states suggests that we are investing neither in attractive compensation nor in career lines that will attract high quality staff who can develop professionally. The data presented below come from my work as president of College Measures, which works with states to track the earnings of graduates from postsecondary programs as students complete their studies and launch careers. The data come from merging state unemployment insurance system wage data with student level transcript data that shows area of study, the institution and the year a student completed studies.

Because these data are driven by state policy needs and by variation in the programs offered in different states, there is some variation in what I report. But the pattern is crystal clear: students who have completed programs designed to lead to careers in early childhood education earn less, often far less, than those pursuing other careers.

First, consider Florida, where community colleges offer a “career certificate program” that is specifically designed to train people for careers in early childhood education. Other career certificates span a range of options spanning office work to health care to welding. As the data in Table 1 make clear, students who earn this early childhood education certificate have lower average earnings than their peers who have earned certificates in other career lines. Moreover, even five years after earning this certificate, completers earn no more than the average high school graduate in the state ($26,600). Note, too, that the rate at which these students are on public welfare is around twice the rate found among other students completing career certificates.

Florida is not an exception. Consider next the data from Colorado. One of the most heavily enrolled fields of study in the state’s community colleges is Human Development (the official name for this field of study is “Human Development, Family Studies, and Related Services”) -- one of the key training programs offered by community colleges for students who want to go into early childhood education. Colorado offers at least three different subbaccalaureate credentials in this area of study. Given Colorado’s data system, we can report median earnings 10 years after completion. As a benchmark, the median wage for high school graduates is around $30,500.

The relative low pay for students who complete any of these three credentials in Human Development is evident. By year 10, students with certificates that are designed to take less than one year to attain are earning around 40 percent of what all their peers with short term certificates are earning -- and those with associate’s degrees in Human Development are earning only half of what all associate’s graduates earn. Note that among those students who completed these credentials, only those with longer term certificates at the 10-year mark earn more than high school graduates.

Finally, consider Texas (Table 3), which offers two levels of credentials in Human Development. The benchmark high school median wage is $27,300. The pattern of low pay for students training for early childhood education mirrors that of Colorado -- but since Texas reports the time to degree, we can also see that it takes longer for students to complete these credentials than it takes their peers studying other areas. Longer time to degree coupled with lower earnings is not a very attractive package.

There is a clear disconnect between how important the nation says early childhood education is and its execution in providing decent earnings and advancement to the people being trained for that field. Of course, it might still be possible that we can pay below-high-school-graduate wages to people pursuing postsecondary training to enter the field and still attract high quality workers. But do we really want to bet on that?

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