Competences & Standards

Early Learning Career Pathways Initiative: Credentialing in the Early Care and Education Field introduces a career pathways framework 4 in use by several federal agencies, provides a national landscape of states’  requirements for ECE staff related to credentialing, highlights five states at various points in the development of ECE career pathways, and shows how early learning system components used in the majority of states align with the Six Key Elements of Career Pathways Framework that other industries use. The elements in this framework are:

Element 1. Build Cross-Agency Partnerships and Clarify Roles: Engage key cross-agency partners at the local and state levels, agree to a shared vision, and gain support from political leaders. Clearly define and formalize roles and responsibilities.

Element 2. Identify Sector or Industry and Engage Employers: Select sectors and industries and engage employers in the development of career pathways.

Element 3. Design Education and Training Programs: Design career pathway programs to provide a clear sequence of education and credentials that meet the skill needs of high-demand industries.

Element 4. Identify Funding Needs and Sources: Raise and/or leverage resources necessary to develop and operate the career pathway system and its education and training programs.

Element 5. Align Policies and Programs: Pursue state and local policy and administrative reforms in order to promote career pathway system development and to support implementation.

Element 6. Measure System Change and Performance: Assess system-wide change and measure performance outcomes to ensure continuous improvement.

Worthy Work, STILL Unlivable Wages: The Early Childhood Workforce 25 Years after the National Child Care Staffing Study offers a snapshot of today's early childhood teachers in the United States. The report takes a look through four lenses:

• Then and Now: Trends in Wages, Education, and Turnover Among Early Childhood Teachers, 1989-2014. A comparison of available evidence reveals the extent of change in center-based teachers’ wages, education, and rates of turnover over the past quarter century.
• Economic Insecurity Among Early Childhood Teachers. New evidence reveals the serious consequences of inadequate compensation on this predominantly female, ethnically diverse workforce.
• The Public Costs of Inadequate Compensation. An examination of how widely early childhood workers and their families use public benefits offers a first look at some of the hidden costs of the low wages endemic to this workforce.
• Policy Efforts to Improve Early Childhood Teaching Jobs. An appraisal of state and national efforts to improve the quality of early care and education in the United States focuses on how adequately these have addressed the low wages of the teaching workforce.

The report also offers thoughts on paths forward and reinvigorating the national conversation on the status and working conditions of teaching staff.

Excerpt

"In the 25 years since the release of the National Child Care Staffing Study, combined developments in science, practice, and policy have dramatically shifted the context for discussions about the status of early childhood teaching jobs, and the importance of attracting and retaining a well-prepared workforce that is capable of nurturing young children’s learning, health and development. Three narrative elements of this changed early care and education landscape set the stage for the new evidence presented in this report:

• A developmental story. Since 1989, we have gained exponentially greater knowledge of the powerful role of children’s earliest encounters with caregiving adults in setting a sturdy or fragile foundation for lifelong development.
• An economic story. There is now a far more widespread appreciation for the wise investment that high-quality early care and education (ECE) constitutes for children, families, and society at large.
• A policy story. For the first time since 1971, when national child care legislation made it all the way to a presidential veto, there is serious debate at the federal level, echoed in virtually every state, about the vital importance of improving the quality of early education, with vast implications for what we expect of the early childhood teaching workforce."

In the United States, cross-sector core competencies for the prenatal through 3-year-old field are currently being broadened to encompass competencies needed for working with children 3-5 years old. The charge of this report was to: 

1. Identify core competencies needed by the P-3 workforce in Los Angeles County;
2. Develop training approaches to support development of these competencies; and
3. Create and field test strategies in selected Los Angeles communities for integrating the core competencies in professional development systems and developing strategies to sustain their use.

This report captures core competencies agreed upon by the workgroup tasked with this report, as well as recommendations regarding the prenatal through three-year-old workforce.

In debates about child care and early education, the voices of providers are often missing. Voices of child care providers: an exploratory study on the impact of policy changes document findings from a study on child care provider perspectives on how regulation and policy changes impact their work.

Researchers used interviews and focus groups with home-based providers and center-based administrators in New York, United States counties. Several themes emerged, including:

• the undervaluation of child care providers;
• challenges faced by providers and the parents of the children they serve;
• regulatory disconnect; and
• discretionary implementation of laws and regulations.

Findings from the study suggest that, excluding input from providers when creating policy, may have unforeseen and even harmful results.

The EC Workforce 2020 Plan sets out a three-year roadmap for a comprehensive professional development system designed to recruit, retain, compensate, develop, and support a high-quality, diverse, early childhood workforce.The first section of this plan outlines the shared vision and guiding principles that underpin the goals provided in the document. Next, the plan details six goals:

• Workforce development
• Recruitment and retention
• Compensation
• Leadership
• Finance
• Data and continuous quality improvement

The plan also highlights key objectives and activities to best support and advance the workforce. 

Early Childhood Policies and Systems in Eight Countries: Findings from IEA’s Early Childhood Education Study  is an exploration of early childhood education (ECE) provision and its role in children's preparation for school and participation in society. In this context, formal early education and provision of care for young children from birth to the age of primary school is described and analyzed in Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Poland, the Russian Federation and the United States. The data was collected by way of a policy questionnaire, which collected basic information about the wider policy context for ECE in the participating countries. This report provides an overview of strategies, as well as systemic and structural results of ECE policy at the national and, where necessary, subnational levels.

This research study, from International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, presents key findings are presented throughout the report, alongside their supporting evidence. 

A workforce development plan for the early childhood care and education sector in Ireland is the culmination of a significant process of research and consultation across the diverse range of stakeholders in the sector. The result is the identification of a number of agreed perspectives on the type of workforce needed to support the development of high quality Early Childhood Education and Care services in Ireland, as well as the main challenges associated with achieving these goals. 

This plan sets out the scope and vision for workforce development in Ireland, presents the main challenges and opportunities, and reveals the implementation strategy.

The Danielson Framework for Teaching is a research-based set of components of instruction. This white paper includes the findings of a research team made up of  researchers from Illinois State University and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. 

The early learning examples in this document align to the 2013 Framework for Teaching and were developed through the shared efforts of early childhood teachers and coaches, school and district administrators, and early childhood policy and research groups to identify those aspects of teaching that are research-based and recommended practices for early childhood educators. Examples align to Danielson's 2013 Framework for Teaching domains/components and critical attributes in Preschool (3 & 4 year olds), and K-3 classrooms. The 2013 rubric with early learning examples is available on for download below, or on the project website.

Preschool teachers education curricula harmonization framework in Serbia, produced under the TEACH project in. This particular work package was titled "Harmonization of Preschool Teacher Training Education in Serbia." The process of curricula harmonization brought together task forces from four preschool teacher education colleges. Each task force was composed of professors, teaching assistants and students. This document lays out the jointly created framework for curriculum harmonization these four teacher education colleges in Serbia.

This Core Competency Framework has been developed for all disciplines, professions and staff groups undertaking a clinical role within NHS Scotland. The twin aims of the framework are
(1) to describe the key areas of child protection work that are common and core across all disciplines, professions and staff groups with a clinical role, and (2) to describe the recommended core knowledge and understanding necessary to support these areas of work. Although this framework will be most appropriate for those with an identified role in relation to protecting children, the information it contains will be of interest to anyone who needs to know how to recognise and respond to concerns about children, in the course of their other, more regular duties.