Low Workforce Qualifications in Florida’s Expanding Private Child Care Industry, 1980-2004
Stephen Herzenberg, Mark Price, and David Bradley
Introduction
“Parents can’t afford to pay, teachers can’t afford to stay, there’s got to be a better way” goes the lament of professionals in the field of early childhood education (ECE). This report shows that the Florida private sector early childhood education industry has struggled to attract and hold onto a qualified workforce throughout the last 25 years.(1)
The qualifications of early childhood educators matter because, first, high-quality ECE improves long-term academic outcomes for children and delivers benefits to the community that far outweigh the costs;(2) and, second, high-quality ECE programs require educated and experienced teachers (Bowman, Donovan, and Burns 2000).
The briefing paper relies on new data sets that track Florida’s center-based ECE (the vast majority of it in the private sector) for 25 years (see Box). For home-based ECE data are available for 2000-04.
Main Findings
Fewer than one in five center-based early childhood educators has a four-year college degree. The share of Florida early childhood educators (a group including teachers, administrators, assistant teachers, and teacher aides) with a four-year college degree was only 12% in 1980 and remains at or near 13% today. By comparison 25% of early childhood educators nationally had a college degree in 1980 and 17-18% today.
Roughly half have a high-school degree or less. The share of center-based Florida early childhood educators with a high-school education or less was 67% according to the 1980 Census and close to half today.
In the year 2000, less than one in four center-based early childhood educators had a college degree in every one of 12 metropolitan areas. In Pensacola, Melbourne, Fort Myers and Lakeland one in 10 or less of center-based early childhood educators had a college degree. In Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, West Palm Beach and Jacksonville one in five or less had a college degree.
Education levels are similarly low in home-based ECE. In Florida home-based ECE, only 10% of staff members has a college degree or more and 55% have a high-school degree or less.
Low wages and benefits help explain ECE education levels. The low education levels of early childhood educators stems from low pay and benefits. In center-based ECE, for example, median pay remains $8 per hour – less than $17,000 per year for a full-time worker.
Education levels in Florida ECE were low in 1980 and have remained low as the center-based industry expanded from less than 20,000 in 1980 to nearly 50,000 in recent years. Unable to offer good salaries, administrators in Florida ECE often find that they must hire individuals with low education levels and no specialized training in early childhood development.
These data underscore the critical need for Florida’s new voluntary pre-kindergarten program to meet high workforce quality standards. In this program and throughout all of ECE, Florida needs early childhood educators with the skills necessary to help children succeed. This requires high standards for all teaching staff and compensation adequate to retain qualified teachers.
(1) By private sector in this briefing paper we mean ECE that operates outside the public school system. We adopt this terminology for the Florida briefing paper because of its currency in the state.
(2) These benefits include lower costs for subsequent education, increased taxes paid once children mature and enter the workforce, and reduced social costs (Lynch 2004).
Bowman, Barbara T., M. Suzanne Donovan, and M. Susan Burns, eds. 2000. Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers. Report of the Committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy, National Research Council. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. pp. 161-176.
Lynch, Robert. 2004. Net Benefits of Early Childhood Development. Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute.Download the complete report
You can download the complete report Low Workforce Qualifications in Florida’s Expanding Private Child Care Industry in PDF format. The complete report includes important information about the data examined, additional figures, and complete references.