As I mentioned previously, I am currently following the website for the Center for the Child Care Workforce. I really like this website because it not only advocates for ECE professionals, but it provides readers with valuable research and a list of ways that you can get involved.
There is a tab on the website labeled Public Policy - State Initiatives. Under that tab there is lots of information that I find relevant to my professional development. There is scholarship information that I find useful, as I can distribute this information to my employees. There is also wage data that I can use to help my school stay competitive, attracting the most qualified teachers.
While surfing the site, I learned that only a small percentage of ECE professionals receive fully paid health care benefits. When comparing pay rates and health care benefits of ECE professionals to public school teachers, ECE professionals fall to the bottom. I believe that ALL teachers deserve to be paid well. We need to increase the pay of our public school teachers and begin to pay ECE professionals on the same pay scale as we do our public school teachers. Paying them all on the same state level I believe will bring recognition and respect to ECE professionals. It will also attract more people to work in our field and in turn, we will receive more educated and qualified teachers.
We learned this week why economists, scientists, and politicians support the ECE field. CCW states the same information under their tab titled Research and Resources - Early Childhood Education Facts. Here is where you will find statistics proving that children that have access to quality early childhood education have higher graduation rates, more economic productivity later in life, and less dependency on welfare later in life. The increased economic productivity is exactly why economists, scientists, and politicians want to invest in ECE.
Overall I gained a lot of valuable information from this site. Unfortunately it is not regularly updated. The latest wage data is from 2010. I'm hoping that I can bring more traffic to this website so that they will continue researching and collecting data, helping ECE professionals everywhere.
That is interesting information about the pay scale. I know in LA that it depends on your education level in some positions. Good info!
ReplyDeleteThis is very informative. Its good to know they have the statistics of children that have access to quality early childhood education rates have higher graduation rates which would help economic productivity later in life.
ReplyDeleteHi Cassie!
ReplyDeleteYou have made a very interesting point, ECE professionals fall short in many areas when compared to other educators. In addition to health care, I learned that ECE professionals do not qualify for student loan forgiveness under the TEACH grant. This is baffling because, we as ECE professionals are required to have undergraduate degrees and generally sit alongside colleagues who have the same coursework but, better gains. I enjoyed your post, it was very informative.
It has always amazed me to look at the pay difference between ECE professionals and primary teachers. We are required to have the same schooling and twice the training but receive a third of the pay.
ReplyDeleteIt interest me also that it depend on your degree or your certification how you get paid. I know in MS it depend on your degree on how you get paid.
ReplyDelete