Recently in Child Care Workers Category

Source: Erin Johansson, American Rights at Work Education Fund, February 2012

New data reveals how unions benefit communities, consumers, employers, and employees.

As the assault on workers' rights reaches a fever pitch, positive messages about unions are few and far between. To push back against this trend, American Rights at Work Education Fund has produced and funded five new reports revealing that the benefits of workers' collective action extend far beyond themselves--and even beyond their workplace. Topline findings from these reports have been compiled in our latest release, Beyond the Weekend.

Key findings featured in this new publication include the following:

- Frontline union healthcare workers are collaborating with hospital administrators to find real solutions that improve patient care and control costs.
- Partnerships between union-represented teachers and school administrators are boosting student achievement in schools that serve disadvantaged families.
- Union members' pensions are funding public and private projects that create good American jobs.
- Building trades unions are partnering with community groups to create new career paths for veterans, workers of color, and women.
- Childcare providers are gaining new skills and resources through their unions to improve how they care for children of low-income families.
See also:
- Community Workforce Provisions in Project Labor Agreements: A Tool for Building Middle-Class Careers
Source: Maria Figueroa, Jeff Grabelsky and Ryan Lamare, Cornell University ILR School, October 2011
- Partnerships in Education: How Labor-Management Collaboration Is Transforming Public Schools
Source: Abigail Paris, American Rights at Work Education Fund, May 2011
- Creating Good Jobs for Our Communities: Pension Dollars at Work Source: Michael Wasser, American Rights at Work Education Fund, March 2011
- How Labor-Management Partnerships Improve Patient Care, Cost Control, and Labor Relations
Source: Peter Lazes, Liana Katz and Maria Figueroa, Cornell University ILR School, February 2012
- The Impact of Training on License-Exempt Child Care Providers in Washington State
Source: Gary Burris and Allyson Fredericksen, Economic Opportunity Institute, February 2012.

Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO 12-248, February 15, 2012

From the summary:
The paid early child care and education (ECCE) workforce was made up of approximately 1.8 million workers in a range of positions, most of whom had relatively low levels of education and income, according to Census's 2009 American Community Survey (ACS) data. For example, nearly half of all child care workers had a high school degree or less as did 20 percent of preschool teachers. Average yearly income ranged from $11,500 for a child care worker working in a child's home to $18,000 for a preschool teacher. Experts and government officials that we spoke with said, in general, better educated and trained ECCE workers are more effective than those with less education and training. They also noted the need for more comprehensive workforce data--such as on workers with specialized ECCE training. While existing ECCE workforce data provide valuable insight into worker characteristics, critical data gaps exist. For example, these data omit key segments of ECCE workers, such as some caregivers who provide child care in their own homes, and also do not separately identify preschool teachers working in elementary schools. HHS and Education have taken steps to improve ECCE workforce data, such as providing guidance and funding to states to encourage the collection of state-level data and working with federal agencies to improve workforce data collected nationally.

HHS, Education, and the states use training, scholarships, and other activities to improve ECCE worker quality, but program and funding data are scarce. For example, HHS funded online training to help Head Start teachers meet new teacher credentialing requirements. Both HHS and Education have collaborated on initiatives to improve ECCE worker quality, such as the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge Grants. For the most part, however, neither HHS nor Education track expenditures on worker quality improvement. In our survey, states reported that the most common workforce improvement activities were in-service training, coaching, and mentoring for current workers (all 37 state survey respondents) and scholarships to workers enrolled in higher education programs (34 states). Of those who knew funding sources for these activities, states reported relying primarily on state and federal child care funds.

Source: National Research Council, 2012

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings offer an opportunity to provide children with a solid beginning in all areas of their development. The quality and efficacy of these settings depend largely on the individuals within the ECCE workforce. Policy makers need a complete picture of ECCE teachers and caregivers in order to tackle the persistent challenges facing this workforce. The IOM and the National Research Council hosted a workshop to describe the ECCE workforce and outline its parameters. Speakers explored issues in defining and describing the workforce, the marketplace of ECCE, the effects of the workforce on children, the contextual factors that shape the workforce, and opportunities for strengthening ECCE as a profession.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, A-01-11-02503, December 2011

Of the 24 Head Start grantees we reviewed, none complied fully with Federal Head Start or State requirements to protect children from unsafe materials and equipment, and 21 of 24 grantees did not comply fully with Federal Head Start or State requirements to conduct criminal records checks, conduct recurring background checks, document criminal records checks, conduct checks of childcare exclusion lists, or conduct checks of child abuse and neglect registries.

The State requirements varied. ACF could adopt some of the State-specific requirements for background checks to better protect the health and safety of children. Those State requirements included periodic fingerprinting, conducting recurring background checks, and developing an exclusion list to deny employment to individuals who have been convicted of certain crimes.

Source: Jim Hull, Center for Public Education, November 2011

What's the best early childhood education combination communities can provide? Until now, research hasn't had an answer. Although there is a wealth of research on pre-k and on kindergarten, they have been examined mainly in isolation. That research has shown that both high-quality pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten can have significant, often lasting, benefits for children. Therefore, students would benefit most from attending high-quality prekindergarten, and then going on to full-day kindergarten. However, these particular programs are not necessarily required or paid for by many states. Cash-strapped states and districts around the country are being forced to choose how to best spend their dollars, including allocations to publicly-funded pre-k and kindergarten that are both best for students and feasible within current budgets.

Prior to the economic downturn, state investments in early education were growing substantially, driven by research showing its powerful positive impact. That momentum has stopped with the recession, and school leaders are looking for ways to preserve their pre-k and kindergarten services. Around the country, school boards have been asking us:

Are our students better off with a combination of pre-k and half-day kindergarten?
or
Are our students better off with full-day kindergarten alone?

This report looks at the effect of various combinations of pre-k and kindergarten on third grade reading skills -- a key predictor of future academic success -- in order to provide important information to educators and policymakers as they consider how to get the most out of their early childhood programs.

Source: Ken Estey, WorkingUSA, Volume 14, Issue 3, September 2011
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
Worker-owned and worker-managed cooperatives have a long history in the U.S. They pose an alternative to workplaces structured within capitalism that are hierarchical and do not feature collective decision-making. The short history of the cooperative movement in this article sets the context for a study of workers in Brooklyn, who are also immigrants, in the field of child care. These workers face additional hurdles to full empowerment at work as they lack comprehensive labor law protection and must contend with the under-enforcement of existing laws in the U.S. Home-based child care is inherently isolated and does not foster opportunities for workers to organize in traditional ways. These conditions create a compelling rationale for workers to resist their exploitation through self-organization and the creation of worker cooperatives. This article will describe how the BeyondCare child care cooperative in Sunset Park, Brooklyn offers its worker owners control over their labor and unfettered access to their earnings. BeyondCare is a useful case study because it is a worker cooperative made up of immigrant women who have learned from other immigrant worker owners how to create meaningful living-wage labor. The worker owners offer a timely example about the power of immigrant women to reach into a privatized place in the U.S. economy--home-based labor--and to recreate that work into something that works for them.

Source: Zero to Three, September 2011
(subscription required)

Articles include:
Individualized and Effective Professional Development Supports in Early Care and Education Settings by Robert C. Pianta

Integrating Resources and Strategies Into an Emerging System of Professional Development: The Case of PITC in California by Peter L. Mangione, J. Ronald Lally, Janet L. Poole, Alicia Tuesta, and Arlene R. Paxton

Training, Consultation, and Mentoring: Supporting Effective Responses to Challenging Behavior in Early Care and Education Settings by Deborah Hirschland

The Emotional Labor of Early Head Start Home Visiting by Valeri Lane

10 Policy Recommendations to Build a Strong Infant-Toddler Workforce by Barbara Gebhard, Lynn Jones, and Susan Ochshorn

Source: National Conference of State Legislatures, 2011

Click on a state for specific changes to child care, prekindergarten, home visiting and other early childhood that occurred from FY 2010 to FY 2011. The map is based on survey information gathered for the Early Care and Education State Budget Action FY 2011 report. Please see chart below if the map is not viewable.

Early Care and Education State Budget Actions FY 2011 report is based on data compiled from an annual survey of state fiscal decisions in early care and education policy and programs, including child care, prekindergarten, home visiting and other related early childhood programs. The report tracks and analyzes trends in state decisions, particularly aiming to capture state funding choices in these areas. According to survey findings, funding for early care and education across the four areas surveyed remained stable with a slight increase. Click here to download highlights from the survey data findings.

In addition, 50-state profiles of data from FY 2008 to FY 2011 are available. Specific state and category information for Alabama through Hawaii can be found here, Idaho through Minnesota can be found here, Mississippi through Oregon can be found here and Pennsylvania through U.S. Virgin Islands can be found here.

Source: Children's Defense Fund, July 18, 2011

From the abstract:
CDF's new report The State of America's Children 2011 finds children have fallen further behind in many of the leading indicators over the past year as the country slowly climbs out of the recession. This is a comprehensive compilation and analysis of the most recent and reliable national and state-by-state data on population, poverty, family structure, family income, health, nutrition, early childhood development, education, child welfare, juvenile justice, and gun violence. The report provides key child data showing alarming numbers of children at risk: children are the poorest age group with 15.5 million children--one in every five children in America--living in poverty, and more than 60 percent of fourth, eighth and 12th grade public school students are reading or doing math below grade level.

Source: Jenifer MacGillvary and Laurel Lucia, University of California, Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, August 2011

Early care and education (ECE) is an important industry in California, serving more than 850,000 California children and their families and bringing in gross receipts of at least $5.6 billion annually. The industry not only benefits the children who receive care, but also strengthens the California economy as a whole, which is especially important during this time in which California is struggling with high unemployment and a weak economic recovery. This paper discusses the range of economic benefits that the ECE industry brings to California.

Our review of the research finds that the ECE industry benefits the California economy by promoting and facilitating parents' ability to participate in the paid workforce. Research has found that high-quality and reliable child care increases worker productivity and improves businesses' bottom line. Access to ECE reduces absenteeism and decreases turnover. ECE is especially important to the careers and earnings of mothers. Parents' ability to pursue education is also tied to the availability of ECE.