Is Early Childhood Education a Profession

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 may seem like a no-brainer but, in reality, this seemingly innocuous question forces practitioners to answer tougher questions first. What does it mean to be a profession? Are those who currently self-identify as early childhood practitioners willing to accept and promote the professional necessity of narrowing the scope of practice of early childhood educators?

Early childhood education is inherently inclusive so that any definition that creates boundaries where some colleagues are in the profession and some colleagues are out of the profession creates discomfort. This discomfort can lead to resistance. Many of us were raised on the story of The Sneetches and received our first lesson in social justice by learning of a society that privileged those born with stars on their bellies and excluded those without.

My first reaction to the NAEYC initiative, Power to the Profession, was one of wholehearted support. I considered myself an early childhood professional and wanted those not in my field of practice to respect, value, and compensate early childhood professionals commensurate with our competencies. But, as it has been pointed out to me, before I can be a professional, there needs to be a profession.

All recognized professions are built on a common purpose and identity, with agreement on the unique roles, responsibilities, and attributes of their members. Power to the Profession, an NAEYC initiative led by a 15-member taskforce (comprised of national associations) and guided by a 30-member stakeholders’ group (comprised of national organizations) has taken on the challenge of establishing early childhood education as a profession:

Members of the Early Childhood Education Profession are responsible and accountable for:

Planning and implementing intentional, developmentally appropriate learning experiences that advance the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development of children
Establishing and maintaining a safe and healthy learning environment
Developing reciprocal relationships with families and communities
Advocating for the needs of children and their families
Advancing and advocating for the early childhood education profession

These responsibilities and accountability are consistent across early education settings including elementary schools, centers, and home-based businesses.

I say Yes! I am responsible and accountable for all of the above. But not so fast. I work in higher education, providing leadership development opportunities to program administrators and other program leaders. Do the above responsibilities really apply to me? What about the program leaders themselves—are they truly accountable for all of the above? Suddenly, I am a Sneetch without a star on my belly and it feels lonely.

But my story, like that of the Sneetches, has a happy ending. I thought long and hard about the development of other professions such as nursing and social work. Each of these caring professions has taken ownership of its work. Nurses and social workers are accountable for their practice; they are also respected and compensated commensurate with their level of competency. There is another important consideration—these professions are closely allied with other professions to best serve the needs of their clients. Nurses work collaboratively with doctors. Social workers partner with psychiatrists. I have come to realize that early childhood program administrators and college faculty that prepare teachers and leaders in early childhood education are allies to early childhood educators. I am not lonely anymore; I am comfortable being an allied professional playing a critical role supporting the early childhood education profession.

< Older Post

Newer Post >

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.