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Invest in kids by investing in teachers
My View: reader commentary

This week the towns of Cape Cod and the islands will join communities across Massachusetts and the nation to celebrate the National Week of the Young Child. Established more than 30 years ago by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the week provides an opportunity to recommit ourselves to ensuring that all children experience the type of early environment - at home, at child care, at school and in the community - that will promote their early learning.

Massachusetts has much to celebrate in its efforts to better educate young children. Last July, the state Legislature and Gov. Mitt Romney made a historic move in education reform by creating a new board and consolidated Department of Early Education and Care. That board, recently appointed, will choose a new commissioner in the coming days. This is a very positive step for the future of early education in the commonwealth. However, there is still much work to be done to build on this foundation.

This issue directly affects Cape Cod, which has nearly 4,000 children in public and private preschool programs. And many young children are on waiting lists to enter these programs when space becomes available.

Providing quality early-education opportunities is one of the most proven steps we can take to positively affect the future of children. Research indicates children who participate in high-quality early education are more likely to develop better language skills; score higher in school-readiness tests; have better social skills and fewer behavioral problems; and to be literate, employed and enrolled in college.

The research also shows that the main determinants of program quality are the education, training and compensation of the teacher. As the new department takes shape, the leadership must focus on developing the early-education work force and ensuring that educators are being given the tools to make their classrooms meet the highest-quality standards.

A new study by a Wellesley College research team led by Nancy Marshall provides an up-to-date assessment of the early-education work force that indicates there is much work to be done.

Some of the findings include:

Private preschool center teachers with bachelor's degrees in early childhood education earned an average of $16 an hour less than the lowest-paid full-time public school preschool teachers.

Only about 50 percent of current early-childhood teachers have taken college-level course work or hold a higher degree in early-childhood education or a related field.

Turnover among teaching staff in Massachusetts preschool centers is significantly higher than national averages for all employees working in education. Preschool directors reported that 26 percent of their teaching staff had left in the previous 12 months; nationally, the annual turnover rate for 2003-2004 in education services was only 9.8 percent.

Other research has shown that the average salary for a preschool teacher in Massachusetts is $22,640, 40 percent less than the average public school kindergarten teacher salary. More troubling is that the average salary of an early educator on Cape Cod is $19,000.

If we want to improve our students' performance, we must invest in early educators. The data demonstrate that children progress further in areas such as language and math skills, social and emotional development and later academic success when their teacher or provider has more years of college and specialized training in child development. Well-educated early-childhood educators are more effective in guiding and encouraging individualized learning, planning appropriate activities and responding to children's needs.

Teachers' educational levels are also linked to greater gains in children's early writing skills, language and math skills, relationships with peers and later academic success. Adequate wages and benefits help to ensure that early educators stay in classrooms, leading to more stable environments and better results for children.

Massachusetts early educators also face considerable barriers to educational advancement. We need to ensure better coordination among local child-care training programs, community colleges and four-year academic institutions to support the development of a coherent skill set for early-childhood professionals. We then need to guarantee that once the commonwealth and early educators invest in this professional development, there is a corresponding increase in salary.
The Week of the Young Child serves as a call to action, and underscores the need for the commonwealth to embark on a long-term path to ensure every young child arrives on the first day of kindergarten prepared to succeed.

Paul O'Brien is president of the O'Brien Group and former chairman and CEO of New England Telephone. He is the co-chairman of the Early Education for All Campaign and a part-time resident of Cape Cod.

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