Building Back the Early Education and Care Workforce

It’s well established that the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the country’s child care system; impacting not only the cost but also the availability of child care. Indeed, since March 2020, a third of child care centers have been forced to close their doors permanently and, for those that have remained open, 80% have been left understaffed. The question now is: what do we do about it? We are witnessing a long-in-the-making crisis in early education and child care – for providers and for families – that hinges on workforce. We can’t afford to wait any longer to address it.  

Even before the pandemic, the early education and care sector faced a workforce shortage crisis; it regularly saw staff turnover rates of between 30-40% annually. Teacher churn has only worsened as a result of the pandemic. Without staff, early education and care providers are unable to provide programming to parents. Here in Massachusetts, the West Roxbury/Hyde Park community has lost 25 providers just this year, meaning hundreds of kids and families are being denied access to the early education and care they both need and deserve. Program closures are disproportionately impacting economically disadvantaged neighborhoods; parents, especially mothers, are returning to work with a worse child care landscape than before the pandemic hit.

There is no simple solution to building back a strong, robust, well-qualified early education and care workforce – but certain facts are undeniable. Teacher wages must increase, and educators must have access to the academic and professional development programs that enable them to launch careers in early education. Neighborhood Villages has joined a national outcry advocating for significant wage increases for early educators, who currently are rarely compensated with living wages. But the process of policy change is long; we must also seize what opportunities (however limited) we have now to support our educators and shore up the field. That’s why we partnered with Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) and Boston-area community colleges to start Career Pathways for Early Educators, a unique program that supports educators in their attainment of advanced early education and care credentials.  

Career Pathways for Early Educators, launched by Neighborhood Villages in 2019, is a free licensing and credentialing program for early educators. Utilizing a non-traditional approach to higher education, the program provides accessible pathways to attaining educator credentials and launching careers in the field of early education and care. The program is designed with accessibility at its core: community colleges provide courses taught in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, and Mandarin, offer them on weekends and in evenings, and deliver them in manner that aligns with learner success.

Career Pathways has been able to grow rapidly to meet educator demand because it was built on existing public programming and funding. Through innovation and cross-sector partnerships, existing resources were able to be more effectively deployed into the field. Neighborhood Villages could help drive immediate investments in early educators while we continue to fight for the additional policy reform needed to raise wages and increase professional development opportunities for all early educators in Massachusetts.

Here’s how we did it:

A few years ago, EEC founded the StrongStart to Early Educator Career Pathways program, a grant initiative aimed at promoting Massachusetts community colleges’ ability to offer quality, affordable, childhood education certifications and degrees to students around the state. The initiative allows participating community colleges to offer free academic programming dedicated to helping students achieve their Child Development Associate (CDA) credential and launch careers in early education and care. The program, however, faced challenges. Many prospective students held work commitments that weren’t compatible with traditional higher education class schedules, or struggled with adequate child care for their own children during class times. Some lacked the technological resources – from Chromebooks to wifi – they needed to be successful in the program. While StrongStart made taking classes at community colleges affordable, access barriers remained. 

That’s where Neighborhood Villages came in. We identified a unique approach to bringing Career Pathways programs to early education and care educators – in their communities, in their languages, and in accordance with their work/life schedules – and it has made all the difference. For both educators and the early education and care employers who are constantly seeking ways to build the strength of their staff.

“Neighborhood Villages’ role is with implementation and support. We partner with colleges to offer accessible days, times, and locations for the classes. We offer child care to students who need it so they can focus on class without worrying about whether their kids are being cared for properly. We offer food with catered breakfasts and lunches, and supplies like Chromebooks if they need it. Our goal is to make students feel and be successful and support them in doing that,” says Binal Patel, Chief Program Officer at Neighborhood Villages. 

This support doesn’t go unnoticed by students in the programs.

“Going to school can be scary, but Neighborhood Villages helps you do it. Anything you needed, they had. They helped provide lunch and food. Someone was there with computers, printers, Lyft or Uber rides, child care for other mothers, free books — any support you needed to be able to succeed, they were there,” said Christy Bortolotto, a former career pathways student.  

The proof of the Career Pathways model is in the numbers: enrollment in Neighborhood Villages’ Career pathways program continues to grow. Since 2019, more than 300 students have participated and we have a list of more than 1,000 students looking for placements in our upcoming fall session.  

It’s also in how the Career Pathways program sets early educators on a path toward achieving postsecondary degrees and advanced credentials. The Career Pathways program not only provides students with credits toward their CDA, but it also provides students with credits toward a college degree. Participants like Christy Bortolotto have used Career Pathways as a launchpad to Associate and Bachelor’s degrees. After finishing her certification with Bunker Hill Community College’s Pathways program, Bortolotto decided to pursue her Bachelor’s Degree at Boston College. 

“I felt like I was really using my brain. It was something new. Once I realized that I could achieve good grades in school, I decided to apply to Boston College. It’s emotional and exciting to be doing this at this point in my career,” she told us.  

“We need a long-term solution to the child care crisis. This Pathways program allows people who care for children, who genuinely love children and want to do the best they can for them, to get a certificate or degree and fill a need in the industry,” Bortolotto continued. “I was in class with so many child care providers, preschool teachers, of all mixed ages, people of color. This program is filling a need, because we need so many more child care providers. If more people knew about these career pathways, that would help attract more people to the field as a profession.”

In addition to attracting new talent, another goal of the Career Pathways program is to retain the teachers we currently have in the profession. One strategy for doing that is through stacking competencies and credentials and establishing mentoring relationships that help new educators continuously prove their instructional strength. 

“Early education is an on-the-job training program and you need the on-hand experience to properly qualify for the job,” Patel explains. “What we need are programs that pair new assistant teachers with a veteran mentor teacher. This allows the new students to be supervised and ensure they’re meeting competencies, while also letting the veterans share their knowledge to the next generation.”

Addressing child care workforce shortages means fighting for policy change and the public funding that will enable wage increases. However, it also requires capitalizing on opportunities to use public resources currently at hand to invest in educator credentialing, professional development, and mentorship, all of which help ensure that early childhood educators are recognized, valued, and supported.  If we invest in our early education workforce now and give them the resources they need to succeed, we will transform our system for the better – for parents, children, and educators.  

And isn’t it about time we do?