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Advocacy

The importance of Early childhood education and Teachers pay

Cynthia Bruneau

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

November 2022
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Abstract

Advocating is like dealing with conflict. By having a better understanding of change that

may affect conflict resolution, you will be able to address the situation properly. You will also be

able to have a better understanding of each person’s true needs and concerns and be able to

address them together to come to a good solution. It is our job to build awareness of the issues

in our field. It is also our responsibility to make sure that the children in our care are safe from

harm and have a quality program where they can learn and become lifelong learners. We can

do this by making sure that we have staff that are educated and certified to teach in our

centers. We also need to keep up with the continued training of our staff to keep them up to

date on any changes in our field. The strategies that I would use and have used is to write to my

representatives and talk to my staff and families in my center and community. I will write up

surveys for families to take and even ask my local doctors’ offices to see if I can leave the

surveys with them for their families to fill out. I will continue to advocate for change to make

things better and more affordable for all.

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Identify Problem

For a long time now, I have felt that ECE has not received the recognition that it

deserves, and the teachers are grossly underpaid for what they must do. While some may not

hold an actual teaching license, they are teachers none the less. I feel that society needs to change

the way they perceive early childhood education and what teachers are paid. Far too often I hear

people call us “babysitters.” If they only knew what we had to do to educate ourselves and keep

current with state policies and guidelines, I think they would sing a different tune. We are

educators and deserve that acknowledgment. ECE is so important for young children as the early

years are their most informative and impressionable years, helping children to become lifelong

learners and contributors to society.

The goal of early childhood advocacy is to improve the lives of children and families by

influencing legislators' and policymakers' opinions and activities. By advocating for ECE, we are

fighting not only for our teachers, but for our future presidents, doctors, teachers, construction

workers and so on. Having access to high-quality care for young children can help parents

increase their employment and earnings. Parents who have childcare options are better able to

work and to work more hours. If we can invest more in early childhood education, we can create

upward mobility by ensuring that all children can build foundations for long-term success. As a

field, we should better support the education workforce by providing better education

opportunities for teachers and paying them a decent wage, creating a culture of continuous

quality improvement and by building partnerships to support quality. We can also use

observations and assessments to support every child’s needs across all developmental domains,

and we can advocate for the early education of young children. We can advocate for the teachers

and provide opportunities for them to further their education.

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Literature Review

According to the article, “The Effectiveness of Early Childhood Development Programs,”

A systemic review, Early childhood development is influenced by characteristics of the child, the

family and the broader social environment. Having publicly funded, center-based,

comprehensive early childhood development programs as a community resource promotes the

well-being of young children. Early childhood programs are designed to help close the gap in

children’s readiness to learn between poor children and their more economically advantaged

children. The early years of life are the stage of considerable growth and vulnerability.

Comprehensive programs are developed to improve the cognitive and social and emotional

aspects of children’s learning which influences learning in a public-school setting. Systematic

reviews of the scientific literature demonstrates the effectiveness of these programs in preventing

developmental delay, as assessed by reductions in retention in grade and placement in special

education. The article states that 71% of white children entering kindergarten could recognize

their letters, compared to 57% of African American children. If early childcare could and would

be more affordable for all economic levels, more children would be ready for public school. This

would help prevent the consequences of early academic failure and school behavior problems.

“Low Wages + Low Quality Solving the Real Preschool Teacher Crisis” by W. Steven

Barnett states that recruiting and retaining good teachers ranks as one of the most significant

roadblocks to solving the preschool quality crisis facing this country. I couldn’t agree more with

that statement. Low wages and poor benefits that are offered to preschool teachers make it

difficult to recruit and retain quality staff. According to the article, preschool teachers are paid

less than half of what a kindergarten teacher makes. They also make less than that of a janitor or

secretary. How is that fair? It is a proven fact that the significance of early childcare helps
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children to develop their social, emotional, and educational skills. These are advantages that

children receive from high quality early care; but with companies offering poor wages and poor

benefits, children are suffering and lacking in those skills when they enter kindergarten.

Research shows that poor pay and low benefits for teachers directly affect the quality of early

education for children. Preschool teachers’ pay is low compared to salaries in other occupations,

yet they are required to have the same educational qualifications.

James J Heckman states in his article “The Economics of Inequity: The Value of Early

Childhood Education”, that lower-quality early childhood experiences produce lower health,

achievement and life success. I couldn’t agree more. I see students that are in early childhood

education that excel at a faster rate than children who are not. I also see children who may be

struggling academically receive services quicker when they are in an early childhood setting. He

states that a program that combines cognitive and social skills is a more effective program than

one that develops cognitive skills alone. He also states that quality childhood education can

compensate for negative parental and environmental factors. Children that have access to an

early childhood education reduces the achievement gap, the need for special education services

and most of all reduces the overall cost to society. Children who receive early childhood care and

education are children that are less likely to repeat a grade and less likely to be identified as

having special needs. He states that economically, it is wiser to invest in early support than pay

for the far more expensive later remediation services. Children that experience quality early care

and experiences are more likely to be more productive members of society, which in turn

positively influences the economy.

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Approach the Problem

My goal for this project was to bring it to society and the government’s attention by

advocating. I did this by emailing my state representatives and other outreach programs to ask

them how they advocate and what I could do to help. I have also talked with the families in my

care and with my staff about how important ECE and teachers’ wages are and how they feel

about the topic. I also conducted a survey and asked them to fill it out. I did my research on the

subject as well by reading creditable articles. I have signed up to be an advocate through

NAEYC. I joined Mobilize for Early ED through their website, I was able to register to vote and

I was able to read our Federal Policy Priorities to learn why it is important to provide federal

funding that supports children and families. I liked and agreed with the article so much that I

printed it out for my families so that they could see how important it was and that people are

fighting for them to have affordable care and for their children to have quality care and early

education.  By doing this I am not only advocating for families and the community, but I am also

advocating for my staff. I feel that this has shown in my community because I am

communicating with my families the importance of ECE, and they are using word of mouth to

spread the word.

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Plan and Implement Strategies for Change

I emailed Marlo from 4C Helping Communities Help Children telling her that I wrote to

the state representatives and talked with current and potential families. She stated that me talking

with families and reaching out to our representatives was a good start. She then told me that they

were working to improve our advocacy efforts and sharing our voice for the children and the EC

community in our state.  “Here are a few ways we have advocated for ECE and the children in

our state: We participated in Advocacy Day with SFTA (Supporting Families Together

Association) and reached out to local legislators and had them come to listening sessions with

CCR&Rs across the state.” She attached an advocacy letter, and I printed it out and posted it in

the foyer for my families to read. She also stated that they post things on social media as well

and I thought that was a pretty good idea, so I plan to do the same. I am in the process of getting

the approval from my home office to post it on our company social media page. I also plan to

post different ways that families and staff can advocate and get the attention that ECE needs and

deserves. I have also made a binder of resources for my families to use that is located in our front

lobby.

I have also written an advocacy letter to my state representatives and unfortunately only

received one response. Although I only received one response, I did get good information on

how much money is being spent on childcare and how over the years they have increased

funding for WI shares and that $1M was put into Quality Care for Quality Kids, along with

supporting the foster care system as well as county child support enforcement. It was interesting

to find out where the money is going and the fact that the government is trying to improve ECE.

I conducted a survey for my families to take and found that 25% of the families would be happy

with an increase if the increase was going to support staff wages. I also surveyed them asking
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them questions like: Do you have any concerns or questions for me? What communication

channels do you prefer? How do you advocate for early childcare? How would you rate your

satisfaction with the program?

After receiving the results from this survey, I contacted my corporate office to discuss

these results and discussed how we could make these changes by offsetting staff raises with a

slight increase in tuition rates. As this negotiation are still in the works, my future strategies will

be to stay on top of this conversation with my corporate office in hopes to eventually better the

wages for my staff along with continuing to provide quality care and education for students. I

will also continue to advocate with my government officials so that the children in our

communities are able to receive affordable quality care and education. I plan to continue to

advocate for my families and staff. I plan to continue to make it easier for families to have access

to ECE and for my staff and future staff to enjoy coming to work. I hope the changes that I strive

to make and plan to continue to follow through on for the future will make it better for the

community and my staff. Advocating is key to making things better for ECE, our staff and our

community.

I also talked with a staff member Rachel Palazzo and discussed different way of

advocating for ECE and for employee wages. She had some good insights as to what staff would

like and how we could gather more information from the staff so that I could bring it to my

corporate level management to see if we could implement change in the pay tool that we use

when hiring staff or giving staff increases. She suggested that we talk with a few staff members

and some families to get their input on the importance of fair wages for teachers and how by

increasing their pay teacher’s would be more apt to further their education and their work output

would increase because they were feeling valued as an educator.

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Evaluation

After doing this project, I found that there are many ways to advocate for early childcare

and for staff. I have grown in my leadership role by stepping out of my comfort zone and

researching ways on how to advocate for the families in my care and in the community. I also

have learned how to advocate better for my staff. By doing this research I found that families are

more understanding to change if they are included in these changes or informed as to why the

changes are being made. I believe I am a better leader after taking these courses because I

continue to open my eyes to new things and challenges and face them by taking a step back,

evaluating what needs to be done, then moving forward. I believe that I can now be a better

advocator for early childcare and for staff because I have done the research and found different

ways to get the information to my families and the families in the community and to my staff. I

have signed up on different advocacy sites so that I can stay current with the new and changing

events or issues that are ever evolving in ECE.

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References:

Interviews:

Jessie Rodriguez

State Representative

21st Assembly District

Marlo Mielke-Barnes

Executive Director 4C

Rachel Palazzo

Articles:

Barnett, W. S. (2003). Low wages= low quality: Solving the real preschool teacher
crisis. Preschool policy matters, 3(8), 1-8.
Heckman, J. J. (2011). The economics of inequality: The value of early childhood
education. American Educator, 35(1), 31.
Anderson, L. M., Shinn, C., Fullilove, M. T., Scrimshaw, S. C., Fielding, J. E., Normand,
J., ... & Task Force on Community Preventive Services. (2003). The effectiveness of early
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childhood development programs: A systematic review. American journal of preventive

medicine, 24(3), 32-46.

Quality early childhood education - economic impact. First Five Years Fund. (2022, January 18).
Retrieved November 21, 2022, from https://www.ffyf.org/why-it-matters/economic-
impact/

all4kids. (2020, January 2). Benefits of community involvement in early childhood - child abuse
prevention, treatment & welfare services: Children's bureau. Child Abuse Prevention,
Treatment & Welfare Services | Children's Bureau. Retrieved October 20, 2022, from
https://www.all4kids.org/news/blog/benefits-of-community-involvement-in-early-
childhood/

U.S. Department of the Treasury the economics of child care supply in ... (n.d.). Retrieved
November 21, 2022, from https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/The-Economics-of-
Childcare-Supply-09-14-final.pdf

Child care relief funding: Addressing questions and challenges. Child Care Relief Funding:
Addressing Questions and Challenges | ChildCareExchange.com. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13,
2022, from http://www.childcareexchange.com/article/child-care-relief-funding-addressing-
questions-and-challenges/5026222/

Professional development in the early childhood field. (n.d.). Retrieved October 20, 2022, from
https://www.purdueglobal.edu/blog/education/early-childhood-professional-development/

America for early Ed - NAEYC (no date). Available at:

https://www.naeyc.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/user-74/america-for-early-
ed_2019_for_web_0.pdf (Accessed: November 22, 2022).