Quality and Teacher Turnover Related to a Childcare Workforce Development Initiative 385 Quality and Teacher Turnover Related to a Childcare Workforce Development Initiative

Research consistently identifies specialised training and education of teachers as one of the strongest predictors of child care quality, and subsequently more positive child outcomes (Howes et al., 1992: Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes Study Team, 1995; Kontos et al., 1995; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1996; Vandell and Wolfe, 2000). Unfortunately, studies of the early childhood workforce in the United States reveal that the quality of early childhood programs is often compromised by low levels of teacher education and high staff turnover (Cummings, 1980; Whitebook et al., 1989). The reality is that child care employment offers low wages, few job benefits, and limited opportunities for professional advancement (Whitebook, 1999). In fact, the child care profession ranks among the nineteen lowest paid fields from the 700+ occupations surveyed by the Occupational Employment Statistics program in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. These data also indicate that the median hourly wage for a preschool teacher is ten dollars and sixty-seven cents, and for a child care worker, is eight dollars and thirty-seven cents (Center for the Child Care Workforce, 2004). Findings from two evaluations (North Carolina’s Child Care WAGES Project and the Bay Area Child-Care Retention Incentive Evaluation) suggest that financial incentives can strengthen the child care workforce via reduced turnover and increased educational attainment. In particular, North Carolina reported annual turnover rates of sixteen percent for their WAGES participants, compared to thirty-one percent for the state as a whole. Moreover, eighteen percent of the incentive-receiving providers moved “up a level ” on North Carolina’s early childhood career ladder because of ongoing educational attainment (Child Care Services Association, n.d.). Likewise, evaluation data of the Bay Area incentive program indicate that the strongest predictor of participant retention was the amount of incentive received, particularly for those providers with a two- or four-year degree (Hamre et al., 2003)