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Our nation’s economic recovery depends on strengthening an essential workforce tragically overlooked and under-appreciated for decades: the early learning and childcare educators who enable parents to work and raise healthy, successful children. Read our op-ed in The Hill here.
Our WORK
Our goal is to accelerate progress in the ECE field to professionalize the workforce and ensure early educators have the supports they need to be well-prepared and compensated. Our approach continues to be guided by the need to actualize the recommendations in the Institute of Medicine’s report Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s report Transforming the Financing of Early Care and Education. We further our vision through grants and our other initiatives, detailed below.
Racial Equity RESEARCH
In 2021, The Collaborative engaged Child Trends to conduct a literature review and develop a report to map the history of systemic racism in the U.S. and how it has influenced early childhood education (ECE) policy and practice, with a particular focus on educator pay and benefits, preparation, and workforce stability. The report, Mary Pauper: A Historical Exploration of Early Care and Education Compensation, Policy, and Solutions, articulates a landscape analysis and a set of recommendations for policy, practice, and future research to improve the professional status of early childhood educators. Learn more about this report.
Conducting a Feasibility Study on National Certification
To ensure that every infant, toddler and young child has access to high-quality early education programs led by qualified, well-trained and properly compensated educators, we seek to understand the value of a national certification program that can help the over 5 million people employed in the field be the best at their job. As the first step in understanding the potential for this kind of a system change, we invited the Council for Professional Recognition (CFPR) and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) to conduct a feasibility study, Elevating the ECE Educator Workforce: Feasibility Study on the Viability of a National ECE Lead Teacher Certification. This ground-breaking study focused on assessing the potential of a national level certification amongst key stakeholders to strengthen and transform the ECE workforce.
Supporting Convening Opportunities
Convening leaders in the field helps us share stories of success, learn from one another and grow together. On September 24, 2019, the Collaborative supported a conference hosted by the Alliance for Early Success entitled, Elevating State Policies for and With the Early Education Profession: Taking Stock, Moving Forward, in Milwaukee, WI. The conference brought together state leaders, early childhood educators and ECE organizations to discuss how to better support and advance the profession. In supporting meetings like this, the Collaborative seeks to encourage big systems thinking and uplift early educator voices around strategies and lessons learned. Attendees had the opportunity to discuss key improvements that need to be made and learn more about actionable policy solutions that can lead to more transformative change.
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