Early Childhood Leadership Degree Programs: An Emergent Academic Discipline

A woman wearing glasses and a suit is smiling in front of a flag.

Sim Loh is a family partnership coordinator at Children’s Village, a nationally-accredited Keystone 4 STARS early learning and school-age enrichment program in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, serving about 350 children. She supports children and families, including non-English speaking families of immigrant status, by ensuring equitable access to education, health, employment, and legal information and resources on a day-to-day basis. She is a member of the Children First Racial Equity Early Childhood Education Provider Council, a community member representative of Philadelphia School District Multilingual Advisory Council, and a board member of Historic Philadelphia.

Sim explains, “I ensure families know their rights and educate them on ways to speak up for themselves and request for interpretation/translation services. I share families’ stories and experiences with legislators and decision-makers so that their needs are understood. Attending Leadership Connections will help me strengthen and grow my skills in all domains by interacting with and hearing from experienced leaders in different positions. With newly acquired skills, I seek to learn about the systems level while paying close attention to the accessibility and barriers of different systems and resources and their impacts on young children and their families.”

This resource is part of our Research Notes series.

In response to the 2017 release of NAEYC’s Early Childhood Higher Education (ECHE) Directory,¹ Mary Harril, Senior Director of Higher Education at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), raised some important concerns about the complexity of degree programs and pathways for the early childhood education workforce.² She noted that there are over 3,000 early childhood degree programs, with more than 60 different names at certain levels, which may include multiple tracks for each degree, and are housed in a variety of divisions or departments within a college or university. Researchers at the McCormick Center examined the ECHE Directory to determine the prevalence of degree programs for early childhood leaders and posted the results on the L.E.A.D. Early Childhood Clearinghouse website.³They found a similar array of degree names and complexity in the education pathways to program leadership, which suggests a need to define and clarify how ECE leaders—directors, family child care providers, and other administrators—are prepared. As NAEYC facilitates the Power to the Profession initiative, specialization in early childhood program leadership is especially relevant. Greater clarity about the professional preparation of the early childhood workforce, including program leaders, is needed as the Power to the Profession initiative advances. This study is particularly useful in identifying post-secondary education programs that prepare and support early childhood leaders.

METHODS

In the fall of 2016, McCormick Center staff scanned the NAEYC ECHE Directory and identified programs that included early childhood leadership, management, administration, or advocacy in the degree program’s name. It was evident that many degree programs offer coursework in leadership and management; however, for the purposes of this study, it was assumed that if it was not referenced in the degree’s name, it was not the primary focus of the course of study. Then researchers conducted further analysis of the identified programs by examining content on each individual program’s website to verify its focus and to collect additional information. A comprehensive dataset was created that contained the number of institutions, number of programs, type of institution (public or private), duration of the degree programs (2-year or 4-year), degree levels, and learning modalities (in-person, on-line, or blended).

The higher education data were included in the creation of profiles for all 50 states and the District of Columbia on the L.E.A.D. Early Childhood Clearinghouse website. They were also combined as part of a national profile on the status of early childhood program leadership. In June 2017, NAEYC revised the ECHE Directory. McCormick Center staff reviewed the revised site and updated the dataset and information on the L.E.A.D. Early Childhood Clearinghouse website.

FINDINGS

The researchers found 84 higher education degree programs (3% of total ECE programs), at 76 college and university campuses in the United States, with a specific focus on early childhood leadership, management, administration, or advocacy. They were located in 34 states and the District of Columbia. Table 1 shows statistics from the national scan.

It is possible to find post-secondary education in early childhood leadership at all degree levels. Over half of the programs (52%) confer Associate degrees, with 20% and 23% at the Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree levels respectively. There are four doctoral programs (5%) in early childhood leadership in the United States. Most programs (79%) are delivered in-person; however, 15% are offered exclusively on-line and 6% are hybrid programs. Figure 1 shows the number of programs by learning modality.

This study revealed that access is uneven to higher education offerings in early childhood leadership. While programs are available in only 34 states, 13 programs are offered entirely online. Coursework is available for students at multiple levels—associate through doctoral degrees. Geographic presentation of the programs, and links to their websites, is available through maps on the L.E.A.D. Early Childhood Clearinghouse website.

DISCUSSION

The McCormick Center researchers were surprised to learn of 84 early childhood degree programs in early childhood leadership. A comprehensive study of higher education programs with this specialization had not previously been conducted and the substantial number of ECE leadership degree programs was greater than expected. The findings of this study suggest a rapid growth of leadership as an academic discipline in recent decades.

Some of the concerns that Mary Harrill raised in the New America blog also apply to leadership programs in higher education. The naming of degrees is not standardized making it difficult to compare across programs. By examining each individual program’s website, McCormick Center researchers were able to examine how these programs emphasized leadership, management, administration, and/or advocacy. The emergence of early childhood leadership as an academic discipline raises some important questions and considerations for the field, especially during this time of professionalization of the early childhood workforce. One question raised by the Power to the Profession initiative is whether early childhood program leaders—directors, family child care providers, and other administrators—are part of the early childhood education profession. The answer to this question has significant implications for the content of higher education programs designed to prepare program leaders. Additional research is needed about the early childhood leadership workforce and the preparation of individuals pursuing both pedagogical and administrative leadership roles.⁴More information about the nature of leadership preparation degree programs would help guide this emerging specialization.

REFERENCES

NAEYC Early Childhood Higher Education Directory. https://degreefinder.naeyc.org/
Harril, M. (December 1, 2017). Tomayto, Tomahto: What’s in a [Degree] Name? Blogpost. New America: https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/tomayto-tomahto-whats-degree-name/
Closing the Early Childhood Leadership Gap. (January 1, 2018). McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership: http://mccormickcenter.nl.edu/lead/closing-the-leadership-gap/
Abel, M. B., Talan, T. N., & Masterson, M. (2017, Jan/Feb). Whole leadership: A framework for early childhood programs. Exchange (19460406), 39(233), 22-25.

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Examining the Role of Employer Benefits and Turnover in Center-based Child Care

By Robyn Kelton, M.A. • June 27, 2025

INTRODUCTION Turnover rates in child care are among the highest in education, with over 160,000 workforce openings predicted annually (Bassok et al., 2014; Doromal et al., 2022; Joughin, 2021; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). While some turnover is expected and even necessary, the levels of turnover experienced in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) are not only alarmingly high but deeply problematic. In 2021, a national survey conducted by the National Association for the Education of Young Children found that over 80% of child care centers were experiencing a staffing shortage, with the majority of those programs reporting one-to-five open roles, but 15% reporting between six and 15 open roles (NAEYC, 2021). Staffing shortages result in lost revenue, financial uncertainty, and program instability, often forcing administrators to operate below capacity and/or under reduced hours (NAEYC, 2021; NAEYC, 2024; Zero to Three, 2024). Limited enrollment slots and classroom and program closures lead to increased waiting lists (Zero to Three, 2024; Carrazana, 2023). In turn, families are placed in a highly vulnerable position of needing to leave the workforce to stay home with their child or turn to potentially unsafe or unregulated child care. Moreover, increased turnover in classrooms interrupts continuity of care and disrupts the relationships built between children and their educators (Reidt-Parker, J., & Chainski, M. J. (2015). Research has begun to highlight some of the programmatic and personnel characteristics predictive of increased staff turnover in ECEC programs. Low wages are most commonly identified as a strong predictor of turnover (Amadon et al., 2023; Bryant et al., 2023; Fee, 2024; Guevara, 2022; Totenhagen et al., 2016). However, workforce advocates and some researchers have begun to expand conversations on compensation to explore the impact the profession’s general lack of benefits such as paid time off, access to health insurance, and retirement benefits has on retention (e.g., Amadon et al., 2023; Bryant et al., 2023; Fee, 2024; Lucas, 2023). While informative, this body of work has typically approached benefits as binary variables (i.e., have or do not have) rather than reflect the spectrum on which benefits are commonly offered (e.g., the number of days off, the percent of insurance covered by the employer, and levels of retirement matching funds). This Research Note aims to expand on previous work investigating the relationship between benefits and turnover by exploring the possibility of a more nuanced relationship between the variables to determine if the level of benefits offered impacts turnover rates. METHOD This study used data collected via formal Program Administration Scale, 3rd Edition (PAS-3) assessments conducted by Certified PAS-3 Assessors between 2023 and 2025. To become certified, PAS-3 assessors must first achieve reliability (a score of at least 86%) on a test conducted after four days of training on the tool. Next, they must conduct two PAS assessments within three months of reliability training. PAS-3 national anchors reviewed the completed assessments for consistency, accuracy, and completeness. The study analyzed data from 133 PAS-3 assessments collected during the certification process across 12 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Mariana Islands. Measures Data for this study were collected using the PAS-3, a valid and reliable tool used to measure and improve Whole Leadership practices in center-based programs (Talan, Bella, Jorde Bloom, 2022). The PAS-3 includes 25 items, each composed of 2-5 indicator strands and scored on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = inadequate, 3 = minimal, 5 = good, and 7 = excellent). Item scores are averaged to determine a mean PAS-3 score. Of particular interest to this study is Item 5: Benefits. Item 5 measures employee access to health insurance and considers what percentage of the cost is paid by the employer, the total number of paid time off days within the first and fifth years of employment, access to a retirement plan, and the percentage at which the employer will match the employee’s contribution. Last, Item 5 explores provisions made to cover the costs of staff’s professional development. Non-applicable is allowed as a response for indicators related to health insurance and retirement if there are no full-time staff employed by the program. Sample Program enrollment ranged in size from four children to 285, with a mean enrollment of 65 and a median of 55. Total program staff for the sample ranged from two to 44 staff, with an average of just under 14 staff (13.93) and a standard deviation of 8.80. Table 1 below provides a detailed breakdown of staff by role and full-time and part-time status.