Losing Ground in New York Early Childhood Education:
Declining Education Levels Among Early Childhood Educators, 1980-2004
Stephen Herzenberg, Mark Price, and David Bradley
Introduction
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;(1) and, second, high-quality ECE programs require educated and experienced teachers (Bowman, Donovan, and Burns 2000).
This briefing paper relies on new data sets that track the center-based portion of ECE outside public schools for 25 years (see Box). For home-based early childhood education, consistent data are available only for 2000-04.
Main findings
A much lower share of center-based early childhood educators has a four-year college degree than in the early 1980s. In center-based ECE programs, the share of New York early childhood educators (teachers, directors, assistant teachers, and teacher aides) with a four-year college degree fell from 42% in 1980 to 23% in 2000 and similar levels in the 2000-04 period.
A higher share has a high school degree or less. The share of New York center-based early childhood educators with a high school education or less climbed from 32% in 1980 to 35% in 1990 to 44% or above in 2000 and in the 2000-04 period.
ECE education levels fell in most NY metropolitan areas. The share of center-based early childhood educators with a college degree declined in five of six New York state metropolitan areas between 1990 and 2000, with the largest falls in New York City and Nassau.
Education levels lower still in home-based early childhood education. In New York home-based ECE, in the year 2000 only 10% of the workforce had a college degree or more and 61% had a high school degree or less.
Low wages and benefits help explain ECE education levels. The fall in the education levels of center-based early childhood educators stems partly from median pay that remains about $9.50 per hour—some $20,000 per year for a full-time worker—and a lack of health care and pension benefits.
The story that emerges from the data is that the position of ECE in the New York labor market has changed for the worse since the late 1980s. As the field has expanded from less than 20,000 in 1980 to more than 60,000 today, female college graduates have enjoyed expanding career opportunities in other fields and, in some families, greater economic need (over 95% of the ECE workforce is female). As a result, center directors often find that they must hire individuals with low education levels and no specialized training in early childhood development.
The data examined here indicate that the expansion of universal pre-kindergarten, some of it delivered in community-based programs (and thus in the data sets), has not stemmed the decline in the qualifications of private, center-based early childhood educators, although it has expanded ECE programs with higher educational standards in public schools.
New York and the nation need a comprehensive approach to preparing early childhood educators who can help children succeed. This approach must establish high standards for all early childhood educators. It must also increase compensation to attract and retain teachers who can meet high standards.
(1) 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 Losing Ground in New York Early Childhood Education in PDF format. The complete report includes important information about the data examined, additional figures, and complete references.