Requirements for Publicly Funded Programs

Head Start/

Title I Preschool Through 9/2013: None As of 10/2013: CDA or enrolled in program leading to a CDA or AA/BA Through 9/2011: CDA or AA in ECE or AA with relevant ECE coursework As of 10/2011: AA in ECE or AA with relevant ECE coursework As of 10/2013: At least 50 percent of teachers nationwide have a BA in ECE or BA with relevant ECE coursework

— n.a.

(12 units CD/ECE; 3 units GE; 4 years of experience) California State Preschool and Title 5 Centers 6 semester units of college-level CD/ECE 12 semester units of

college-level CD/ECE AA (or 60 units) with 24 semester units of college- level CD/ECE and 8 units of administration BA or higher with 24 semester units of college-level CD/ECE and 8 units of administration Title 5 Family

Child Care Homes

None — a n.a. More than one

site:

BA or higher with 24 semester units of college-level CD/ECE and 8 units of administration SOURCE: Head Start Performance Standards and Title 5 and Title 22 regulations.

NOTES: All coursework requirements are college-level semester units. AA = associate degree; BA = bachelor’s degree; CD = child development; ECE = early care and education; GE = general education; n.a. = not applicable; dashes indicate not specified.

a _{Licensed family child care home providers are required to complete 15 hours of noncredit training on}

for Regulatory Administration [NARA], 2010).4 _{For licensed centers as of 2008, most} states either did not regulate the assistant teacher position or had no requirements for that role. California is one of three states that required a high school diploma. Just two states (Hawaii and Minnesota) required a CDA for the classroom assistant. Those two states plus three others (Illinois, New Jersey, and Vermont) also required the CDA for the lead classroom teacher. California is one of five states that required credit-bearing coursework for the lead teacher position, and no state required a postsecondary degree as of 2008. For the program director position as of 2008, California was less stringent than the 22 other states that required a CDA, the two states (Indiana and Pennsylva- nia) that required an associate degree, and the one state (New Jersey) that required a bachelor’s degree.

Across the other states, as in California, the preservice requirements for staff in licensed family child care homes as of 2008 were lower than those for center staff, and they were typically lower for staff in small homes compared with large homes (see Table 4.2). California was like most other states that regulate such settings in having no requirements for assistants in family child care homes. The requirement for some form of training in health and safety or other vocational skills for the family child care home owner/lead provider was shared by a handful of other states. Just one state required the provider in a small family child care home to have a CDA, while seven states had that requirement for the provider in large homes.

As part of its Title 22 regulations for ECE staff, California has licensing standards that require modestly more preservice preparation than most other states. However, the state has fallen behind in the trend toward increased educational requirements among staff in child development–oriented programs, particularly those serving pre- school-age children. As noted earlier, educational requirements have been gradually increasing over time for the federal Head Start program. Likewise, as states have initi- ated their own public preschool programs, the educational requirements usually exceed those associated with child care center licensing standards. Notably, as of the 2009–10 academic year, 15 of the 40 states with state-funded preschool programs serving three- or four-year-olds required the assistant teacher to have a CDA credential or equivalent, and 22 states required the lead teacher to have a bachelor’s degree (Barnett et al., 2010). California’s State Preschool program clearly sets a lower standard than that of these other states.

4 _{This discussion focuses specifically on preservice qualifications for staff in licensed centers and family child}

care homes as of 2008, and some states have raised their licensing requirements since that time. We do not take into account how California compares with other states on other licensing requirements, such as group sizes, child-to-staff ratios, and so on. Nor do we consider how California compares with other states in terms of licens- ing oversight and enforcement. For a cross-state comparison of child care regulations and oversight specifically for center-based settings, see the latest evaluation of state systems by the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) (2011). Based on the ten benchmarks for center child care licens- ing requirements and the five benchmarks for regulation oversight used by NACCRRA, California ranked third from the bottom among the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The bachelor’s degree is also the minimum education requirement to teach in public K–12 education in California, as it is for every other state. The California CTC, the same agency that issues CDPs, offers several K–12 credentials that are valid for five years (California CTC, 2010). Teaching at the elementary level requires the Multiple Subject Teaching Credential. In addition to the degree requirement, qualifying for a credential requires passing the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) or an approved alternative, demonstrating relevant subject-matter competence through

Table 4.2

Number of States with Specified Preservice Qualifications in Licensed ECE Settings by Staff Position: 2008

Setting Type and Qualifications Assistant Teacher/Provider Lead Teacher/ Provider Program Director Licensed Centers

Setting type or role not regulated 22 1 1

No preservice requirement 15 13 1

General experience or ECE hours only 7 14 12

High school diploma or GEDa 3 13 8

ECE coursework or vocational programa 2 5 4

CDA or other state credentiala 2 5 22

AAa 0 0 2

BAa 0 0 1

Licensed Small Family Child Care Homes

Setting type or role not regulated 28 7 —

No preservice requirement 20 23 —

General experience or ECE hours only 2 14 —

High school diploma or GEDa 1 2 —

Health & safety or vocational traininga 0 4 —

CDA or other state credentiala 0 1 —

Licensed Large Family Child Care Homes

Setting type or role not regulated 17 12 —

No preservice requirement 21 8 —

General experience or ECE hours only 10 16 —

High school diploma or GEDa 2 3 —

Health & safety or vocational traininga 0 5 —

CDA or other state credentiala 1 7 —

SOURCE: Author’s tabulations based on NCCIC and NARA, 2010, Tables 20, 49, and 75.

NOTES: Cells in bold indicate the qualifications required in California under Title 22. AA = associate degree; BA = bachelor’s degree; GED = General Educational Development certificate. Dashes indicate not applicable.

exams or coursework, and completing a state-approved teacher preparation program and the associated student teaching and performance assessment. While there are pro- visions for internships and other alternatives to teaching in the classroom without a credential (e.g., emergency permits or waivers), as of 2008–2009, 96 percent of Cali- fornia K–12 public school teachers were reported to have the appropriate credentials (Ed-Data, 2010).

Evidence Regarding ECE Workforce Quality

Although we are not able to directly observe the competencies of the ECE workforce, we can gain additional insight into the capacities of the current workforce through assessments of care quality. Although assessments of quality in the past have often focused on structural elements of child care and early learning settings—such features as group sizes, staff-child ratios, and provider education and training—new measures allow researchers to evaluate quality in terms of the nature of staff-child interactions, capturing such dimensions as emotional support, classroom organization, and how staff support language development and learning.

The 2007 RAND California Preschool Study provided information on multiple dimensions of quality for a representative sample of preschool-age children in the state in center-based settings (Karoly et al., 2008a). Notably, the RAND study collected the CLASS through direct observation in center classrooms. The CLASS is a global qual- ity measure that captures elements of process quality, based on observed interactions among teachers and students in the classroom, without regard to the presence of vari- ous materials, the physical environment or safety, or the use of a specific curriculum. Thus, in CLASS, the focus is on how teachers use the materials they have and in the nature of the interactions they have with students. The CLASS is scored on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 or 2 indicates a low score on the construct; 3, 4, or 5 indicates a mid- range score; and 6 or 7 indicates a high level of the construct.

Figure 4.1 reports the results for the four CLASS domains—emotional support, classroom organization, instructional support, and student engagement—reporting the mean scale score for California preschool-age children in center-based settings.5 According to CLASS, center-based caregivers and teachers scored relatively high, on average, in terms of being emotionally supportive and sensitive to the perspectives of children in the room (mean of 5.5 on emotional support) and providing a well- 5 _{The version of the CLASS preschool instrument used in the 2007 RAND California Preschool Study mea-}

sured 11 dimensions that were then aggregated to four domains (Pianta, La Paro, and Hamre, 2006). In the subsequent version of the CLASS instrument, the fourth domain (student outcomes), which consisted of one dimension (student engagement), was no longer included in the scale (Pianta, La Paro, and Hamre, 2008). Figure 4.1 uses the “student engagement“ label for the fourth domain so as not to confuse it with a measure of student performance.

managed and productive environment for learning (mean of 4.9 on classroom orga- nization). Teachers also performed well in terms of the overall level of engagement of children in the classroom (mean score of 5.3).

However, classroom staff scored poorly, on average, in terms of promoting higher- order thinking skills, providing quality feedback, and developing students’ language skills (mean score of 2.6 for instructional support).6

The distribution of the instructional support measure across the score range shows that just 11 percent of children were in classrooms that achieved 4 or higher, while 66 percent were in classrooms that scored below 3. The low average score for this domain is especially noteworthy because, in other studies that have linked CLASS scores to student developmental outcomes, the instructional support component is a strong pre- dictor of gains on cognitive assessments and subsequent achievement tests (Hamre and Pianta, 2005; Howes, Burchinal et al., 2008). Thus, according to this measure, only a small fraction of California preschool-age children in center settings are in classrooms 6 _{Lower average scores for the instructional support domain relative to the other CLASS domains have been}

consistently found in other studies. For example, the level attained in Oklahoma’s successful universal preschool program is 3.2 on average. However, just 24 percent of preschool-age children in California are in center-based classrooms that attain the Oklahoma average. See Karoly et al., 2008a, for further discussion of the CLASS results for California.

Figure 4.1

Mean Scores for CLASS Domains for Preschool-Age Children in California in Center-Based Settings: 2007

SOURCE: Karoly et al., 2008a, Table 4.17, based on RAND California Preschool Study provider observation data.

NOTES: Sample is children in center-based ECE arrangements. Sample size is 615.

RAND MG1188-4.1

Mean score among preschool-age

children in center settings

CLASS domain Instructional support Classroom organization Emotional

support engagementStudent

6 5 4 3 2 1 7 5.5 4.9 2.6 5.3

where the teachers provide language-rich discussions and other activities that support the development of pre-literacy and higher-order thinking skills—capacities that have been linked to success in kindergarten and beyond.

Beyond the quality dimensions recorded in Figure 4.1, the RAND study showed gaps in other important areas of care quality for preschool-age children (Karoly et al., 2008a). Indeed, some of the shortfalls in teacher-child interactions recorded in Figure 4.1 may result from gaps in other structural features of the ECE environment that limit the ability of the ECE workforce to fully exploit their capacity for high- quality care. These barriers can include suboptimal group sizes and staff-child ratios, limits on curricula and other instructional materials, low levels of compensation, substandard working conditions, lack of paid preparation time, limited professional development opportunities, high turnover, and so on. The RAND study showed, for example, that fewer than half of preschool-age children in center settings were in class- rooms that used a research-based curriculum. While more children were in settings that would meet established benchmarks for group size and ratios based on the aver- age of the observed measurements, upwards of 30 percent of children were in settings where the average group size or ratio during the observation period fell short of the quality benchmark, and more than half of children were in classrooms where those benchmarks were not met at least once during the day based on one or more specific measurements (Karoly et al., 2008a).

Unfortunately, we do not have comparable information on the overall quality of care received by statewide samples of infants and toddlers in center-based programs, nor do we have information on the quality of care received by representative samples of children—whether infants, toddlers, or preschoolers—in home-based settings. What little evidence we have suggests that care quality is probably no higher in home-based settings than in center-based settings, and that care for infants and toddlers may be of somewhat lower quality, whether in home-based settings or centers, than care for preschool-age children. For example, Fuller and Kagan (2000), found that centers in San Francisco and Santa Clara counties assessed in 1998 had scores on the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS)—another measure of global quality scored on a 7-point scale—just above 5 on average, whereas family child care providers had scores on the equivalent Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS) just below 3 on average. Likewise, for the 42 centers assessed by Whitebook, Phillips, et al. (2004) in 2001–2003 in Alameda County, the average ECERS score was 5.3, compared with an average score on the FDCRS of 3.1 for the 60 family child care homes in the sample. The two strata of providers were more similar on measures of caregiver-child interac- tions and how children spent their time. Finally, the 1993 Cost, Quality, and Outcome Study, which included center-based programs in California (one of four states studied), found that quality was lower on average for center-based infant-toddler rooms based on the Infant-Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS) compared with the ratings

for center-based rooms serving preschool-age children assessed with the ECERS (Hel- burn, 1995).

Finally, two other dimensions of ECE quality in licensed settings merit mention: training to work with English-language learners (ELLs) and with children with special needs. The ability to work with dual language learners is a key competency, especially for providers in California where upward of half of children under age six are either first- or second-generation immigrants (Karoly and Gonzalez, 2011). In terms of dual language training, the 2004 Child Care Workforce Study showed that three in ten centers had at least one teacher with formal college coursework focusing on young English learners, although upward of four in ten centers employed staff with at least some noncredit training in the subject (Whitebook, Sakai, et al., 2006a). Even fewer providers in licensed family child care homes had such training (Whitebook, Sakai, et al., 2006b). More-recent data reported by lead classroom teachers of three- and four- year-olds in center-based programs as part of the 2007 RAND California Preschool Study show a similar pattern (Karoly et al., 2008). Just over 40 percent of preschool- age children were in centers where the lead teacher reported one or more noncredit hours of ELL training (with 30 percent of children having a teacher with more than six hours of training), while 38 percent of children were in center-based settings where the teacher reported one or more college credits for coursework related to English- language learners (with 27 percent having a teacher with six or more credits). In the 2004 Child Care Workforce Study, it was far more common to have teachers with noncredit training or college credits focusing on working with children with special needs, both in licensed centers and licensed family child care homes. This contrast in preparation to work with special populations—dual language learners versus children with learning disabilities—reflects, in part, the differential availability of education and training opportunities on those subjects (Whitebook, Bellm, et al., 2005). In both cases, there is little information about the quality of the training received and its effect on the quality of the care provided.

Another aspect of ECE quality tied to child outcomes is the degree of stability in program staff, a feature that is positively associated with compensation (Whitebook, Howes, and Phillips, 1998; Whitebook and Sakai, 2004). Here again, the 2004 Child Care Workforce Study provides the most reliable estimates of staff turnover, albeit only for licensed centers. Notably, the survey showed that 22 percent of teacher positions and 26 percent of assistant teacher positions in licensed centers had turned over in the last 12 months, with even higher rates of turnover in centers serving infants. The sta- bility of care arrangements in home-based settings, whether licensed or not, is not well documented.

47