Section 8: InfrastructureChapters
In addition to meeting high standards of program quality, successful prekindergarten initiatives provide an infrastructure to ensure programs attain and maintain high quality. The four elements of the infrastructure described in this section are essential and often overlooked in the implementation of a state prekindergarten initiative. 8.1 Professional DevelopmentOne of the most important predictors of quality in early childhood classrooms is the nature and stability of the relationship between the teacher and the child. Teachers with more education receive higher wages, experience lower turnover rates, and have better relationships with their students.1 A recent literature review on early childhood professional development suggests that a bachelor's degree and specialized training in early childhood or a related area is important for providing high quality pre-k services.2 Although experts debate how much a bachelor’s degree improves the quality of the classroom experience, they concur that more education for teachers is better than less, and that a bachelor’s degree with specialized training is most likely to produce qualified teachers. The National Research Council’s report Eager to Learn: Educating our Preschoolers recommends that every group of children in early care and education settings have access to a teacher with a bachelor’s degree.3 If a bachelor’s degree with specialized training becomes the professional development standard for quality in prekindergarten, the existing prekindergarten system will fall far short of meeting the standard. Currently, only half of all teachers of three- and four-years-old have a bachelor’s degree, and only 44 percent have a bachelor’s degree (or higher) combined with special training in early education.4 The percentage of teachers with bachelor’s degrees in prekindergarten classrooms is higher, at almost 70 percent,5 but still short of a minimum standard. The current low levels of education among prekindergarten teachers creates an immediate need to raise the level of education, and state efforts to expand existing prekindergarten programs will only increase the demand for better educated teachers. Two immediate challenges to meeting this demand are an inadequate professional development infrastructure within institutions of higher education, and inadequate incentives to build and retain the supply of highly qualified teachers. Building an InfrastructureThe existing capacity of two- and four-year institutions of higher education (IHEs) to train qualified prekindergarten teachers does not meet the growing demand. Only 29 percent of IHEs offer some type of early childhood education program, and less than half offer a bachelor’s degree in this field.6 With this level of access to education, it would take ten years to produce enough teachers with bachelor’s degrees to meet the current prekindergarten demand, ignoring any expansion in programs during that ten-year period.7 Policymakers can address the challenge of expanding the professional development infrastructure within higher education in a number of ways.
Building and Retaining the Supply of TeachersThe second challenge is to entice teachers already working with young children to obtain higher levels of education, and then to retain these teachers in the early childhood education profession. The typical early childhood educator is a full-time working mother earning low wages.12 In September 2002, she earned a median salary of $21,332, less than half that of her kindergarten counterpart.13 During the year, there is a 25 percent to 50 percent chance that she will leave her job (the lower her pay, the higher the chance of leaving), while the turnover rate of public school teachers is less than 7 percent.14 Encouraging early childhood educators to go back to school will require affordable tuition, classes during nontraditional hours, and a promise of better pay when they obtain higher degrees. Georgia, New Jersey, and North Carolina offer examples of how to meet this challenge.
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