Early Education Workforce Study, April 2002
Jones Institution for Educational Excellence conducted a work force study sponsored by PDI, CCPC, KAEYC, and KHSA in the spring of 2001. A statewide random sample child care center directors, staff members and home child care providers answered a comprehensive survey that detailed salaries, benefits, qualifications and educational levels. Respondents also answered questions regarding their philosophy toward caring for children, challenges, rewards and suggestions for improving the industry statewide.
The information gathered by Who Cares for Kansas Children will be used by state and community leaders to plan a quality system of early education.
Broad awareness of the importance of a child's earliest years has not translated to an increase in professional recognition by way of higher compensation, better working conditions, or higher occupational status for the early education workforce. This disconnect is both troubling and serious. Early education programs, including child care, remain woefully under-financed. This directly affects the personnel within the field, chil-dren enrolled in the programs, par-ents in the workforce, business and communities.
The absence of consistent and high standards to guide professional practice, along with inadequate and inequitable funding to administer programs, has undermined early education in our state.
Efforts to ensure an educated and appropriately compensated early education workforce will give Kansas the quality out-of-home early education environments their children deserve.
What We Know:
- High quality early childhood education positively predicts children's language, math, and social skills in kindergarten and early primary grades.
- Children with close relationships with their teachers and care-givers have better thinking and retention skills, better language skills, are more sociable, and show fewer behavior problems.
- High-quality early education programs employ personnel with more formal education, provide better wages and benefits, and experience less turnover.
- Research shows that quality early education is the most cost-effective and efficient way to prepare children to succeed in school.
- Awareness of the importance of a child's earliest formative years has not translated to an increase in professional recognition by way of higher compensation, better working conditions, or higher occupational status for the early education workforce.
- Low wages and lack of benefits undermines the on-the-job morale and commitment caregivers need in their interactions with children and discourages early educators in the field from contin-uing formal education.
Salaries:
Despite the vital role early educators play and the high level of education and training they need to education young children, they are paid less than many professions that require fewer skills and have less responsibility.
Center personnel, both directors and others, receive significantly higher salaries than home providers. The study found distinct regional and program variations.
Highest center director salaries collected in the study range from a low of $22,818 in southeast Kansas to a high of $27,581 in Sedgwick County, which encompasses the Wichita metropolitan area.
Average salaries, as opposed to highest salaries, follow similar regional variations. Center directors' salaries in southeast Kansas average $19,760, in western Kansas, $24,294 in south-east Kansas, and in Johnson County they average $26,229.
In comparison, the average salary for a Head Start director was $42,640 annually and assistant directors average $32,219. Clearly, Head Start programs pay substantially better than their non-Head Start counterparts.
Other center personnel salary levels are much lower. Entry level salary may be as low as $13,582.Average salaries for cen-ter personnel hover between $15,000 and $17,000 in all areas of the state except Johnson County.
Home providers average $8,382 per year in economically depressed southeast Kansas but this figure more than doubles to $19,822 in Johnson County one of the top counties in the entire United States for per capita income.
Paid Benefits to home providers:
The study gathered data about paid benefits offered to the field. The early education industry is notorious for lack of paid benefits. Benefits studied included individual health insurance, family health insurance, dental and life insurance, retirement contributions, fees for continuing education and child care for employees.
Center personnel are not likely to receive much in the way of full or partially paid benefits. Only in the area of continuing education fees did more than 50% of center personnel get some type of paid benefits although 39% only had partial payment of continuing education fees. In most categories, nearly 50% of the full-time personnel received only very limited benefits. Not surprisingly, part-time center personnel had even fewer paid benefits available to them, with approximately 80% of all center personnel having almost no benefits available. Unfortunately, most home providers do not
have much in the way of any benefits and when they do, it is almost invariably someone else (spouse or other) who provides the benefit for them.
Gender:
Not surprisingly, well over 90% of all directors and assistant directors are female.
Age:
Most center directors are over the age of 41, while 50% of home providers are in their 20's or 30's. Assistant directors are under the age of 40 for the most part. Very few directors or assistant directors are under 20. Staff ages were the most even-ly distributed between the 20, 30 and 40 year age ranges.
Household Incomes:
More than 70% of both home providers and center personnel have an annual household income of less than $50,000. Over one-third of all center personnel have an annual income of less than $20,000.
Hours worked:
Over 80% of home providers work more than 40 hours per week to run their businesses. Center personnel are more diverse with only 34.6% working more than 40 hours per week.
Providers' Background:
Statewide, nearly 50% of center directors hold a Bachelor's degree and two-thirds have some type of college degree. Only 25% of assistant directors have a Bachelor's degree. Forty percent of cen-ter personnel have earned a Bachelor's degree, while only close to 18% of home providers hold this credential.
Head Start directors and assistant directors have significantly higher levels of education with 100% of Head Start directors responding holding an Associate or Bachelor degree. Sixty percent of Head Start assistant directors hold one of these two credentials.
Credentials:
Home providers participat-ing in the study have not earned the Child Development Associate certificate nor had participated in continuing educational opportunities beyond associate or bachelor's degree. Center personnel, on the other hand, have worked towards both the CDA creden-tial and graduate degrees.
Continuing Education Hours:
Both center personnel and home providers exceed the required 5 to 10 inservice hours for licensing by a signif-icant percentage. This may indicate that early education professionals in Kansas are interested in the quality of care they provide, and in their professional development. The lack of participation in formal education may also be reflective of the low wages paid to the field.
Experience:
The Kansas early education workforce ranks strong in experience. More than 50% of center directors and center personnel have 6 or more years of experience in child care. Over 78% have had 3 or more years experience. Exceeding centers, two-thirds of home providers have 6 or more years of experience, while 15% have provided child care for 3 to 5 years. Only about 21% have 2 or less years of experience.
Home Provider Previous Experience:
Of the home providers that responded, 28.6% of them had worked at a licensed childcare facility prior to open-ing their own home. Of those who had worked for another facility the average was almost five years of experience before starting their own business.
Recommendations:
- Build a system in which early educators have the appropriate training, education, compensation, and career counseling to pro-vide quality programs for children.
- Increase public and private support in developing, implementing, and sustaining high-quality early education programs that are flexible and responsive to family needs.
- Support the development and implementation of a comprehen-sive career lattice that defines roles, education requirements, pro-motes career advancement for practitioners, and addresses the inequities in qualifications.
- Support and expand professional development and quality improvement efforts.
- Address the disparities in funding and regulatory oversight that contribute to staff turnover and result in poor developmental out-comes for children.
- Address investment in early education and its employees as a workforce development issue.
- Educate parents and the public of the need for early childhood programs to do more than merely protect children from harm. Childcare is early education.
Invest now:
Quality early education during the first years in life is the most cost-effective and efficient way to prepare children to succeed.
In today's world nearly every family in nearly every neighborhood relies on early education programs in order to work and support themselves. Children are enrolled in various types of programs but despite the setting, the most important factor impacting a child's experience is the quality of the adult-child interac-tions. The expertise, passion, and commitment that an early childhood educator brings to the role can transform ordinary experiences into memorable moments that enrich a child's life forever.
Early childhood educators perform essential, highly skilled work that supports the development of young children. Young children need consistent care from experienced, well-trained teachers to help build a solid foundation for future learning. The top indicators of quality programs are having well educated and well compensated employees.
Research strongly indicates that the foundation for children's later success in school and life are based on the early experiences that stimulate brain develop-ment forming critical connections essential for learn-ing. Long-term research reinforces that high-quality early education programs improve life-long outcomes for children. Quality early education during the first years in life is the most cost-effective and efficient way to prepare children to succeed in school and life.
Because of the continuing growth of numbers of children in early education programs concern about the workforce and the need for current data about them has also grown. The Who's Caring for Kansas Children study was conducted to take a comprehen-sive look at the education level, wages, benefits, job satisfaction and job stressors of those caring for and educating our children.
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