Losing Ground in Wisconsin Early Childhood Education:
Declining Workforce Qualifications in an Expanding Industry, 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).
The briefing paper relies on new data sets that track center-based ECE outside public schools for 25 years. For home-based ECE, consistent data are available for 2000-04.
Main findings
A lower share of center-based early childhood educators has a four-year college degree than in 1980. In center-based ECE programs, the share of Wisconsin early childhood educators (teachers, directors, assistant teachers, and teacher aides) with a four-year college degree fell from 32% in 1980 to 25% in 1990 to 18% today.
A higher share has a high school degree or less since 1990. The share of Wisconsin center-based educators with a high-school education or less fell from 37% in 1980 to 26% in 1990 but then back up to 36% in 2000 and even higher by 2000-04.
In the year 2000,about one in five center-based early childhood educators in the Milwaukee area and one in six in the Madison area had a college degree or more.
Education levels are lower still in home-based ECE. In Wisconsin home-based ECE in 2000, only 13% of educators had a college degree or more and nearly half 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 is related to median pay that remains about $9 per hour—some $19,000 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 center-based ECE in the Wisconsin labor market has changed for the worse since 1980. As the field has expanded from 4,000 in 1980 to over 20,000 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.
Wisconsin and the nation need a new approach to preparing early childhood educators who can help children succeed. The new approach must establish high standards for all teaching staff and 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 Changing Course in Wisconsin Early Childhood Education in PDF format. The complete report includes important information about the data examined, additional figures, and complete references.