Report on Early Childhood Education
Posted by on November 11, 2005
[posted from Public Education Network newsblast]
LOSING GROUND IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
Since the early 1980s, there has been a large and unsettling dip in the qualifications of the center-based early childhood workforce nationwide, with 30% of teachers and administrators now having just a high school diploma or less, according to a comprehensive new report authored by researchers Stephen Herzenberg, Mark Price and David Bradley. The report finds that declining qualifications have resulted, in part, from persistent low wages and benefits. As more educated women have enjoyed expanding opportunities in other fields, low pay has made it hard for the early childhood education (ECE) field to hold onto experienced teachers with proper training and educational background. As a result, more teachers are entering ECE without a college degree. The report shows that for the past 25 years, the ECE industry has been living off college-educated teachers and directors who entered the field in the 1960s and 1970s and stayed with it. By 2004, a third of center-based, college-degree holders were 47 or older. But because many other higher-paying opportunities are available in and beyond the field of education, some current ECE workers don’t have a background and skills comparable to their predecessors.
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