“It is our duty and your responsibility to participate and to speak up. Your voice is your currency. No one can tell us what our profession needs better than the actual practitioner for herself or himself. We are the experts in this field, we know what we need.” – Jerletha McDonald

 In this week’s GLR Learning Tuesdays session, Jacqueline Jones, Ph.D., of Foundation for Child Development moderated an inspiring and engaging conversation discussing the research around the complexity of the early childhood workforce gap, the history of the compensation issue, and state and local strategies to address these issues. Anna Markowitz, Ph.D., of UCLA School of Education and Information Studies and Caitlin McLean, Ph.D., of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at University of California, Berkeley shared their research findings on the state of the early childhood education workforce, followed by a brief conversation that dove deeper into what the research is showing about the precarity of early childhood professionals. Afterwards, Jenna Conway of Virginia Department of Education, Jamilah Jor’dan, Ph.D., of Illinois Governor’s Office of Early Childhood Development, Jerletha McDonald of National Association for Family Child Care and Tonja Rucker, Ph.D., of National League of Cities shared their perspectives on the real challenges faced in this field, as well as areas of growth and progress.

“This hurts our current employees, hurts our enrollment and can really negatively affect the children who need to build the routine. I need to be able to pay my teachers a livable wage. It’s not fair for them to work so hard but be compensated so little.” – Anna Markowitz, Ph.D.

Throughout the discussion, the message was clear: early childhood professionals are professionals, and the current compensation norms must change to keep people in these jobs and to improve early child care and learning.