Undervaluing Our Early Educators

A child’s early years are known to be the most important years for future development. Yet the child care workforce, which is often responsible for setting this early foundation, endures many economic hardships.

According to a report by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley,

Karen Lewis, a family child care business owner in San Francisco, uses gardening to teach children about nature and food.

many adults working in early child care programs make only $1 more than fast food cooks, and make less than animal caretakers. This is also the case for preschool teachers, who make 40 percent less than kindergarten teachers despite the similar amount of work and education or training requirements. Since 1997, the salaries of early childhood teachers and assistants have increased by only 1 percent.

In a survey (conducted for the Worthy Work study) of more than 600 early childhood teachers, almost half said they worry about providing food and housing for their family. The stress caused by the financial struggles of these early educators is enough to negatively impact relationships with their own children as well as children in their care. The study’s authors noted, “links between adversity, stress, and poor emotional-behavioral self-regulation are documented not only for children, but also for teachers, with consequences for teachers’ own physical and mental health, thus their capacity to support the learning and behavioral growth of young children.”

Early childhood workers and the children they care for are caught in a tumultuous cycle. These teachers need better compensation and benefits in order to focus their energy on creating healthy environments for children.

For further reading, check out the full story from The Atlantic here. For additional research, you can check out a study by the Gates Foundation that shows how pre-k education positively impacts childhood development.