2024 Symposium on Children

Opening Remarks

Dean Donald Pope-Davis, PhD, College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University

Tanny Crane, president and CEO of Crane Group

Early educators are the key drivers of quality in early care and education, playing a critical role in supporting young children’s development and enabling families to work. Despite their essential contributions, early educators in the U.S. face historically difficult working conditions, very low pay, and little support—challenges that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Turnover rates among early childhood teachers are very high and negatively impact working families, children, and the broader economy.

Drawing on lessons from a decade of partnerships between researchers and policymakers, this keynote will explore how innovative policies and practices are making a tangible difference in supporting the early childhood workforce. The presentation will highlight how actionable strategies for providing more equitable support to early educators can contribute to building higher quality early childhood systems.

Dr. Daphna Bassok, professor of Education and Public Policy and associate director of EdPolicyWorks at the University of Virginia

Early childhood educators support young children and their families during the most crucial years of development and hold substantial knowledge, skills, and cultural competency. Yet their compensation reflects neither the value of their work nor the expertise they hold. Early childhood educators (who are predominantly women and 40% people of color) rank only within the second percentile of pay for female wage earners nationally. This under-compensation reflects long-standing patterns of inequity grounded in racism, sexism, and colonialism, which harm early educators, children, and families. For decades, advocates have sought to increase early educator pay to address these inequities and ensure an adequate supply of well-prepared and supported early educators. But many of these efforts foundered due to the chronic underfunding of early care and education or were limited to educators in publicly funded pre-K programs. Recently, however, federal COVID funding and state and local innovations have opened new horizons for equitable compensation for early childhood educators.

This session will explore innovative approaches that the District of Columbia is implementing to recruit, retain, compensate, and build professional advancement opportunities for the early learning workforce, as well as plans for sustainability moving forward. This session will highlight the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund, HealthCare4ChildCare, and postsecondary scholarships and supports for early educators. This session is meant to be interactive and a discussion to share best practices, respond to questions, and think about improvements moving forward.

Dr. Kathryn Kigera, director of quality initiatives in the Division of Early Learning at the DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education

The 2015 report, “A National Snapshot of State-Level Collaboration for Early Care and Education,” emphasizes the importance of collaboration among state early care and education agencies. Several federal and state initiatives recognize this as a critical strategy for creating supportive, accessible, and effective early care and education systems. Within these collaborations, state governments play a vital role, employing various policy levers and forming partnerships to address the challenges faced by early educators and the broader early care landscape.

This session will explore successful examples of state-level collaborations. Participants will learn how New Jersey established a cross-agency structure and vision for early care and education, beginning with the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Grant that continues to offer opportunities to leverage insights on how to build a comprehensive support system. The session will also explore examples of state-level collaborations, such as the potential of utilizing the Registered Apprenticeship program, a legacy of New Deal-era legislation with a proven track record of success in various sectors that can hold promise for early care and education. This session will highlight the critical importance of inter-agency cooperation and lessons learned to inspire and inform stakeholders on how to build more robust and effective support systems for early educators.

Tonya Coston, strategic advisor to the New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development

Moderated by: Dr. Laura Justice