Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/early-childhood-professionals-current-status-and-projected-needs/5014345/
Because qualified early childhood staff are so critical to children's development, the national concern about the shortage of professional personnel is well founded. In order to make responsible decisions, policymakers require accurate data about the population and preparation of the nation's teachers and child care providers. This article summarizes what we know about the field's current status and projected needs, including numbers in the workforce, education and training, compensation, and turnover. It presents this data in the context of our research knowledge about what is best for young children, their families, and those who serve them.Current Status
It is widely accepted that well-trained and well-compensated staff are key determinants of early childhood program quality and healthy child development. Eager to Learn, a publication of the National Academy of Sciences (2000), summarizes evidence that "social competence and school achievement are influenced by the quality of early teacher-child relationships, and by teachers' attentiveness to how the child approaches learning" (p. 6). Positive teacher and caregiver qualities are in turn most strongly correlated with their years of formal schooling and their specialized training in early childhood education and development. How close are we to meeting the ideal of a sizable early childhood workforce prepared to ...