Strengthening the Early Childhood Education Workforce: An interview with Lauren Hogan

The Economic Mobility Catalog’s Strategy Guide on Early childhood workforce supports provides guidance on how to cultivate, support, and evaluate an effective early childhood educator workforce. It was created in partnership with experts and practitioners in the early childhood workforce field, including Lauren Hogan, a strategic advisor and former Managing Director at National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

In this edited Q&A, Lauren discusses how state and local governments can strengthen the early childhood education (ECE) workforce, highlighting the importance of compensation, investing in professional development, and policies focused on home-based educators to develop a talented and diverse workforce.

What is your background and experience with early childhood workforce supports?

I've been with the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) for nearly a decade, and before that, I was at the National Black Child Development Institute. In both roles, I've focused on a variety of early childhood workforce policies. A lot of our work at NAEYC is informed by what we hear from educators across the country in center, school, and home-based settings through focus groups, our Affiliate networks, and our workforce surveys, all of which then shapes our policy recommendations.

We’ve also worked in partnership with other national and state organizations and early childhood educators from around the country to create a unifying framework for the ECE profession, including competencies, professional development pathways, and compensation structures. The Commission for Professional Excellence in Early Childhood Education, which I help to staff, is now supporting the implementation of that framework by working with states and localities. The Commission also houses some great resources like research briefs and webinars exploring different areas of implementation and support for the early childhood workforce.

What are the crucial components of an effective approach to developing a high-quality early childhood workforce?

It's difficult to start anywhere but compensation. The fact is that low compensation undermines both the supply and quality of early childhood education, and increasing compensation is the key to building a stable, successful system that helps kids, families, and communities. An effective compensation structure accounts for different settings, qualifications, and experience, and includes a pay scale that factors in parity with public schools, the local living wage, and degree attainment. Also, it’s important to acknowledge that compensation isn’t just pay, and strengthening benefits like paid leave and retirement encourages people to stay in the workforce, and in the setting that works best for them.

States and localities also need to think about how professional development is provided and accessed. Our research shows that providing meaningful professional development opportunities can help increase retention, especially among Black and Latino educators. States doing this well partner with higher education institutions, including community colleges, to facilitate articulation and transfer policies, implement credit for prior learning, and offer coursework in multiple languages and at accessible hours for all educators. One "under the radar" support here is having a strong pool of substitute teachers, which are crucial for educators to do things like take time off, or pursue professional development without breaking the required student-to-staff ratios that keep kids and educators safe.

What are best practices for recruitment and retention, beyond compensation?

While directly increasing compensation is fundamental to both recruitment and retention, there are other strategies. One effective recruitment tool, as demonstrated by Kentucky and now adopted by several other states, is to make early childhood educators a priority population for child care subsidies. This addresses the pain point of educators being unable to afford childcare for their own children.

Additionally, access to scholarships, free community college, and loan forgiveness opportunities can help recruitment and retention. It's beneficial for educators to earn the competencies, credentials, and degrees that help them be prepared and supported in their work with children and families, and that further unlock higher wages and better benefits.

For retention, I'm interested to see states that raise compensation also implement "income disregards." This addresses the "cliff effect," where small raises or bonuses can push low-paid educators over income thresholds, causing them to lose public benefits that help them make ends meet for their own families. States can implement income disregards by not counting certain raises as earned income or by deducting money spent on essentials like transportation and childcare from the total income used for benefit eligibility. By “disregarding” these income increases for benefit eligibility, states can increase educators’ financial stability and make wage bumps more impactful.

What are some best practices around credentialing and hiring standards?

When faced with staffing shortages, states and localities sometimes wrongly lower the standards. Instead of lowering the bar, however, research demonstrates that communities can address shortages by making early education a good, supported job with fair compensation, benefits, and professional development opportunities. These are difficult and complex jobs, with children’s health, safety, and development on the line, and people both want to be and need to be good at them! States and localities should attract the individuals who can come into and stay in this job and help their people and their economies grow and thrive.

Regarding credentialing, apprenticeships are a great model, and early childhood educators have historically pursued credentials and degrees while working. The TEACH scholarship model, available in many states, helps ensure access to initial credentials like the Child Development Associate (CDA) and pathways to associate’s and bachelor’s degrees. Improving articulation and transfer policies that allow course credits earned at one institution to be accepted at another, especially at community colleges, creates clear and flexible pathways for people to come into and stay in the early educator workforce.

Who are the key stakeholders that need to be at the table for these conversations?

You absolutely need educators, and not just one type. You need representation from both home-based and center-based staff as well as different age groups (infant/toddler and pre-K, for example). I would also include public schools because early childhood education is from birth to age 8, and building those partnerships benefits children and educators in all settings.

Including input from faculty members is essential, particularly from community colleges as many educators come from these institutions. Also, engage advocates as well as the state regulators, monitors, and policymakers who manage and implement licensing and quality standards.

Additionally, parents - including parents of children with special needs – are such important stakeholders and need to be included as allies and partners in the conversations.

How can supporting the early childhood workforce create opportunities for all?

This is a time for “both/and” strategies – for being inclusive and unified across all settings and ensuring states invest in educators wherever they are so parents can choose the setting that works for them. This means recognizing where we have gaps and designing policies to close them. For example, compensation policies should be designed to include educators working with infants and toddlers and in family childcare homes. A disproportionate number of Black and Latina early childhood educators work in these settings. By designing policies that account for home-based early childhood programs and focus on staff serving infants and toddlers, you are inherently addressing racial, demographic, and linguistic equity.

Accessibility of information is also key. All regulations and licensing requirements should be available in the languages spoken by educators; same for professional development and higher education opportunities. Beyond the educator workforce, you also want to make sure program monitors that go into centers or home-based settings understand and communicate with the staff and communities they serve.

Similarly – and this feels small, but isn’t - grant applications and support materials should be accessible on mobile devices, as many ECE educators primarily access the internet this way. Failing to do so excludes many educators, particularly those in small centers and family childcare homes, from accessing vital information.

How do you measure success for an early childhood workforce model?

A key and often early indicator of success after something like a wage increase is retention, both year-on-year and how many people are staying in the field after 2, 3, or 5 years. Are turnover rates going down? Are educators reporting increased well-being? These are inputs that will help set markers for later outcomes measurement that focus more on children’s success.

Another mark of success is increased program stability across entire communities. To measure this, you can look at the data like the number of program closures or openings per year and, depending on the level of funding, for a reduction in waitlists. Ultimately, if workforce shortages are addressed, more programs should open, and stay open, and more children and families should be served.