Retaining a Diverse Early Care and Education Workforce through Professionalization

Abstract

Advances in the understanding of the potential of early child care to promote healthy child development have been a driving force behind the push to bring the early care and education (ECE) field into a unified system. The field has long been bifurcated, with 'child care´ or 'daycare´ being associated with enabling parental employment and ³early childhood education´ focused on child development (Rhodes & Huston, 2012). With the modern advances in early childhood neuroscience, it is clear that any experiences for a child in their first few years of life are developmental; the issue is whether the development contributes positively or negatively to a child's future cognitive skills, and physical and mental health (Center on the Developing Child, 2007; Shonkoff & Levitt, 2010). Efforts to develop the ECE field into a unified system with a unified set of standards and goals, rather than a hodge-podge of regulations and supports, presents a unique policy making opportunity. The ECE field enters this effort to unify with a key asset that the K-12 education system has struggled to develop: a racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse workforce that reflects the child population.