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My sister has a degree in elementary education. Because she lives in a college town that churns out education majors in a dying state in the Midwest, it took her a few years to find a teaching job. In the meantime, she clocked some serious hours as the director of a before- and after-school program. On days like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the regular teachers had the day off. Dana had to be at work at 6 am. The parents who used the program needed to send their kids to school while they worked. Schools may be closed, as are banks and the government, but increasingly people are working in jobs that don’t observe federal holidays or give it to workers as a paid day.
For the past decade, I worked in the child care field, too, but on the fringes of the industry. As a public policy and program person, I’ve had the opportunity to work with informal providers (i.e. - aunts, grandmas, friends, and neighbors who provide care for children while their parents work; it’s the most common method of caregiving), family child care providers (people who run small licensed child care businesses from their own homes), and child care centers. I’ve seen some of the best practices in child care and some places that weren’t fit to look after a stuffed animal, let alone children. Yet in almost every situation, what I saw most were female workers (the National Women’s Law Center reports that 98% of the child care workforce is female) who were underpaid and overworked.
This is true not just of child care workers, of course. The truth is that since the industrial revolution, women have always worked outside the home. Today, more middle- and upper-class women have joined the ranks of the working poor, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes because they are educated in increasing numbers and seek meaningful careers, and just as often, both. Child care providers like my sister are essential to children, families, and the economy. Child care teachers are required to have bachelors degrees at a minimum, just like teachers. Unlike teachers, however, they have no holidays or summers off. The average wage for a child care center teacher is $17,600, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is slightly more than minimum wage. In comparison, a survey by the AFT reports that teachers are finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet on an income of $47,600. In addition, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that across the industry:
Benefits vary but are minimal for most child care workers. Many employers offer free or discounted child care to employees. Some offer a full benefits package, including health insurance and paid vacations, but others offer no benefits at all. Some employers offer seminars and workshops to help workers learn new skills. A few are willing to cover the cost of courses taken at community colleges or technical schools.
Is it any wonder that industry turnover ranges from 25-40% every year? Even teachers with degrees who intended to stay in the early childhood care and education field often take jobs at elementary schools as soon as they can get one; they can’t afford not to do so.
In American society, much kudos are given to school teachers, although there are serious labor issues with this primarily female workforce as well. Yet there’s not nearly as much broad support for the women providing early childhood education. Most parents are grateful for the nurturing and teaching that their child care providers offer, yet many working mothers feel tremendous guilt at leaving their children in the care of others in the first place. In addition, our dysfunctional American society needs women to work, yet scorns them for doing so and takes this hypocrisy out on child care professionals by refusing to acknowledge that they work as hard (if not harder) and provide as vital learning experiences as “regular” teachers do.
Early care and education is even more severely underfunded than public school. The idea that it should be available to all children just as public school is considered a basic right is not accepted and often attributed to socialist plots to take children away from the home and raise them in communes. (Seriously, I hear this more often than I would have ever thought possible.)
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