Marcy Whitebook / commentary
April 9, 2013

Dr. Marcy Whitebook is the Director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at U.C. Berkeley. LillianMongeau/EdSource Today

Marcy Whitebook. Photo by  Lillian Mongeau, EdSource Today

President Obama's rhetorical plea for universal preschool has even so to be translated into an actionable policy proposal, but nosotros tin reasonably assume that whatsoever expansion of early learning services for young children will create a demand for more preschool teachers. And not just more teachers but trained ones: Xx-nine state-funded preschool programs currently require educators with a bachelor'due south degree, and many of them demand additional teacher certification. Ii days later on the Land of the Union, the president called for programs staffed by "highly qualified, educated" teachers, saying, "This is non babysitting. This is teaching."

Prospective teachers may notice their way to the preschool classroom via multiple pathways, depending on their educational and work experience. Each pathway, nonetheless, will crave specific professional person development opportunities and attendant resources to ensure that teachers, regardless of their road to preschool, can finer promote children's learning. For instance, some teachers currently working in kindergarten and the early elementary grades might cull, or notice themselves assigned to, a classroom of four-year-olds. Considering these teachers would likely only have pupil instruction experience in the elementary (Chiliad-3) grades, additional practice and coursework on early on childhood education and evolution combined with classroom mentoring will probable be in order.

Tardily elementary and secondary school teachers could also observe themselves at the preschool door, depending on country certification policies and wedlock and commune practices, which might include moving less constructive teachers of older children to "not-testing" historic period groups. California, for example, recently raised the historic period of kindergarten entry to five and launched transitional kindergarten to see its obligation to 4-year-olds built-in in the autumn who no longer qualified for kindergarten entry. At that place is no specific preschool training or certification required for transitional kindergarten teachers; however, many districts are initiating professional development projects to ensure that teachers experienced working with 10-year-olds, for example, tin learn how to implement more than appropriate instructional strategies for younger children than the more formal and didactic approaches common in the older grades. Such efforts, and possibly some additional coursework or certification, will be necessary for this population of teachers.

As noted in a recently released study about Boston Public Schools' prekindergarten plan, preschool works to narrow the accomplishment gap when teachers are highly qualified and well-paid. Even so, salaries for teachers of young children are more frequently deplorably low, even for those who take fabricated a considerable investment in their education and preparation. And with poor compensation comes high teacher turnover and low instructional quality, both of which impede children's development and learning. If comparable pay with M-12 teachers, as proposed by the White House, survives the policy process, many current teachers who hold bachelor'southward degrees and are working in Head Start and individual preschool programs (virtually ane-quarter of the current early intendance and education workforce) are likely to stampede toward their new local public preschool and the amend pay and benefits it volition provide.

These teachers, who currently are not required to complete country teacher certification requirements, may exist expected to do so. They are besides likely to need classroom mentoring and other professional evolution opportunities depending on how recently they earned their degrees, and whether or not their degrees included a pedagogical focus on young children. Many former early on childhood teachers pushed from the classroom for financial reasons could also decide to return to preschool teaching if it offers more than a poverty–level wage. They, of course, will demand to update their training and skills depending on how long it has been since they taught.

Another important pathway to preschool teaching will be taken past current kid care and preschool teachers and teaching administration without four-yr degrees who are eager to accelerate their education. In my experience equally a researcher, these teachers are most ofttimes women of colour, many of whom are bilingual, reflecting the languages and cultures of the increasingly diverse population of young children in the U.Due south.; if adequately supported to achieve degrees, they will help to diversify the predominately white, not-Hispanic teacher workforce. New Jersey, for example, offered supports such every bit fiscal assist, academic counseling and tutoring to child care providers and Caput First teachers who wished to teach preschool in the state's public schools. The success of the program demonstrated that low-paid, working adults could reach their educational goals.

Last, but non least, today'south younger higher students could follow a path to preschool education, if jobs awaiting graduates pay salaries commensurate to teachers of older children. If not, college students interested in teaching young children, similar endless others before them, will veer toward older grades because they offer higher compensation and status.

While the focus has been on the president's call for universal preschool, his proposal also includes expanding and improving early learning programs for younger children attending kid intendance and Early on Caput Start and through habitation visiting. Forth with everything that must be done to expand public preschool offerings, we demand to ensure that process doesn't drain well-trained early educators away from the vulnerable population of babies, toddlers and iii-yr-olds whose brains are developing at a dazzling pace. This will be the almost devilish detail to get correct.

Planning and investment in the instructor preparation infrastructure must be a feature of new preschool policy. This should involve both expanding and revamping courses of study to include a focus on younger children, and establishing better programs to ensure the competence of those professionals who will exist needed to train andmentor prospective preschool teachers.

Marcy Whitebook is the director of the Middle for the Written report of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley.

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