Insufficient wages and unequal pay create challenges in attracting and retaining high-quality early educators, critical for young children's success in early care and education (ECE) programs. While ECE professional wages are already lower than similar workers, there may be wage disparities based on race/ethnicity and gender within the workforce.…

States have begun to incorporate careers pathway programs into their workforce and professional development systems in order to strengthen and support the early childhood workforce. A career pathways approach offers career advancement through a progression of educational qualifications, training, and credentials that build on each other and are…

This summary report is one of five publications from the larger study, "Teaching for a Changing World: The Graduates of Bank Street College of Education." This report focuses on graduates of Bank Street College Graduate School of Education teacher certification programs by examining the quality of their preparation, their teaching…

Although teacher aides are often employed in schools to provide support for students with disabilities and special education needs, there is limited Australian research on their work and employer expectations. This article provides an analysis of advertisements for teacher aide positions, and compares the content of advertisements with role…

Latinos accounted for three in five new workers in Metro Chicago's workforce over the last decade--representing a national trend that will intensify as the growing count of young Latinos in the U.S. comes of age (U.S. Census, 1980, 2010). To address this increasing diversity and invest in the future, Illinois passed a mandate designed to foster…

This article reports on a study, among the first in the United States, to examine staff working in early care and education infrastructure organizations, a growing segment of the workforce. This exploratory study used an online survey of 1,091 staff in three different types of organizations in California that receive public funding--child care…

In 2009, the authors surveyed a population of 1,588 persons who work in three types of early childhood infrastructure organizations in California--child care resource and referral programs, local First 5 commissions and as child care coordinators. All of these infrastructure organizations receive public dollars and at least one of each type is…