Yes, it is true that nurses went on strike to get the pay increased and so have public school teachers in the past. Hospitals are funded by insurance companies, private pay and medicare or medicaid. Public schools are funded by state and local taxes as well as funding from the Federal Government.
The majority of ECE programs occur in privately owned centers, non-profit programs and faith based programs. Funding for these programs primarily comes from private pay, donations or grants.
Now, let's look at what has happened since the nurses and teachers received their pay increases. All over the United States, rural hospitals have been closing at an alarming rate and insurance premiums have skyrocketed. Funding for medicare and medicaid has not increased over the last several years, as the cost of providing services has gone up. Therefore more doctors and hospitals are no longer accepting Medicare and medicaid patients. Also as operational costs for hospitals has increased, so have the bills that private pay patients receive after they have had received services. Now I am not saying that nurses didn't deserve a pay raise and that those raises surely were not the only thing that caused medical costs to go up, but anytime a business is faced with increased operating costs, those increases are usually passed onto the customer. Ultimately if the business cannot create enough revenue to cover it's increased cost, then it goes out of business, which is what happened to our rural hospitals.
Again with public school teachers, strikes have resulted in some increases in pay over the years and yes public school teachers deserve to be paid more than they are. However, those pay increases have resulted in an increase in class sizes from 22 to 26 or more, especially in the elementary schools. Many school budgets have been cut, which supplies and special programs also get reduced or cut. Federal and State funding for public schools has not increased very much over the last several years and in some cases State funding for public schools has been cut. School taxes continue to increase every year, however parents don't have a real sense of what it costs for their child to got to school 9 months of the year, because they never have to actually write a check to the school.
Both the nurses and public school teachers had strong union groups acting on their behalf which helped them achieve some of their financial goals and that is great. However, when it came time for the hospitals and the school districts to figure how to pay for those increases in wages, the federal and state governments were not there to provide them with more funding and the general public complained that their insurance premiums had gone up and that their taxes were going up.
So yes, ECE teachers deserve to be paid more and we could unionize ECE teachers. Those unions could then go and demand and try to negotiate for higher pay rates, benefits and require higher educational requirements for anyone to be an ECE teacher. Once they succeed in making that happen, what will happen to all of the privately owned, non-proft and faith based ECE programs? Will they be able to survive those changes and will the public and the federal government be willing to fund those increased operating expenses with public money? Will ECE programs have to move completely into the public school arena even for birth to age 3+?
These are questions that have to be answered as we move forward in trying to elevate and change the ECE industry.
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Tim Kaminski
Director/Owner
Gingerbread Kids Academy
Richmond TX
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-02-2020 11:04 AM
From: Nora Krieger
Subject: Wages for Early Childhood Professionals
Let's look at what the public school teachers did - they organized. Each state has a state leader and those state leaders gather the ideas and thoughts of leaders in individual schools, then meeting as a national organization with lobbyists and others who present their needs and demands for themselves and children.
Private school teachers are now also organizing. I know that the school on whose board I sit has a union representing the teachers in that school. Their union is not the teachers' union that is in the public schools. Is that good or bad? I am not sure.
Here is another issue: What is quality in ECE? Do we all see quality the same? What regulations are important? State regulations are there to protect the teachers and children.
Someone mentioned that nurses went on strike to raise their wages. The problem is that the money coming into most childcare centers is low - barely covers the cost of providing what I would define as quality childcare. Who should be bearing the full cost of childcare? Can we ask for salaries versus hourly pay if we are not counted as professionals? What NAEYC is trying to do is to level up everyone in our field to be viewed as professionals.
Thoughts?
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Nora Krieger, PhD
Associate Professor Emerita/Past Chair NJEEPRE
Bloomfield College/NJ Educators Exploring the Practices of Reggio Emilia
Highland Park, NJ
Original Message:
Sent: 12-02-2020 10:47 AM
From: Belen Hernandez
Subject: Wages for Early Childhood Professionals
I agree with you! Too many advocacy groups, it is time to unify ONE VOICE for US! Enough talking! How can we in the ECE field do this? How can the teachers that are most affected by this begin to work on these issues?
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Belen Hernandez
Austin TX
Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2020 03:08 PM
From: Tim Kaminski
Subject: Wages for Early Childhood Professionals
The challenge in speaking as one voice is that there are way too many child advocacy groups both a the State and National level who all claim to be the "experts" on child development and what is "best" for the "industry" or "profession". I have been in the ECE industry for the past 12 years after having been in corporate America practicing in healthcare for 25 years. I have never been involved with such a fractured and disconnected industry that does not appear to have had much significant influence with public policy makers over the past 30 years. In the last 12 years alone, I have heard a lot of talk and hyperbole from the "experts" of multiple organizations about how the industry needs to change, yet know one has put forth a comprehensive plan of what those changes would ultimately cost and how they would be funded. The industry has lived with "unfunded mandates" from both the state and federal governments for years which has ultimately lead to the deplorable financial shape the ECE programs were in prior to the pandemic and the catastrophic shape it will be in post pandemic.
In order for there to be one voice that ultimately has some level of meaningful influence with the policy makers and the public, there has to be some level of agreement as to which ECE Advocacy group is going to be the primary voice of the industry and that the other groups will become secondary to the overall cause of changing and improving the ECE industry.
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Tim Kaminski
Director/Owner
Gingerbread Kids Academy
Richmond TX
Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2020 01:42 PM
From: Nora Krieger
Subject: Wages for Early Childhood Professionals
What you write is true but the entire country is preoccupied with the pandemic and overwhelmed with the havoc it has brought upon us. It would be nice if we could even get people to agree that there are things they should do to protect their health.
When this is over and we have a new administration, everyone who works in this industry - be it public schools or private daycare - should speak in one voice. Other countries support their early childhood programs. We are the richest country in the world and we should be able to figure this out. Even at the K-12 level, parents are saying things that upset those folks who teach older children about how part of schooling is taking care of children while the parents work. There has been so much disruption from the pandemic, we may have an opportunity to reimagine how all of this is financed. Let's hope that the next Secretary of Education is more open to supporting education rather than tearing it down.
We all need to think out of the box and reimagine how we do education in the early childhood years.
I understand your point on private childcare, but back in the day, kindergarten was not universally accessible and was not included in your everyday regular education programs. Today, kindergarten attendance is required in most States. Lyn Kagan wrote a book about how we need to link the private, community programs with the public schools and other public programs to create a seamless, coordinated system. We do not have that now.
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Nora Krieger, PhD
Associate Professor Emerita/Past Chair NJEEPRE
Bloomfield College/NJ Educators Exploring the Practices of Reggio Emilia
Highland Park, NJ
Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2020 01:23 PM
From: Tim Kaminski
Subject: Wages for Early Childhood Professionals
We will not see wages increase for ECE teachers, regardless of their educational level, until there is a way to pay for it. The majority of ECE teachers work in private pay childcare programs. The weekly tuition rates that can be charged in those programs, do not support paying ECE teachers more than $8.00 to $11.00 an hour. Even the current subsidy programs do not reimburse ECE programs enough to justify paying ECE teachers more money. The numbers just don't work out. Unless you run a business and understand the economics of running a business, you can't just throw pie in the sky ideas out there and then complain when things don't change. Increasing the educational level of the ECE teachers is not going to magically make parents want to, or be able to, pay more for their tuition in order for us to pay the teachers more.
100% of the focus of our industry and the advocacy groups should be on figuring out where the money is going to come from to pay for increased wages and benefits for ECE workers and then how will that money make its way into the hands of the centers so that they are able to pay their staff the increased wages.
So far during the pandemic, I have not seen any major public outcry from the parents or politicians that the childcare industry needs to be saved, even while hundreds of thousands of childcare centers have closed permanently over the last 8 months. ECE advocates may be sounding the alarms, but it is still not resonating with the general public. However there are major stories almost daily and weekly about public schools and public school teachers and concerns over restaurants closing.
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Tim Kaminski
Director/Owner
Gingerbread Kids Academy
Richmond TX
Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2020 11:21 AM
From: Nora Krieger
Subject: Wages for Early Childhood Professionals
I agree with you 100%, but unless there is a unified focus on raising the educational level of those who work in the field so they are seen as professionals, this will not happen in the foreseeable future. ECE professionals should not be paid by the hour - that is the first thing. But, if the field does not raise the professional status of the teachers in the field, their pay will remain that of hourly workers.
Another issue that affects changing this situation of low hourly pay and lack of professional status has to do with how ECE is funded. This is a critical issue, which must be addressed in order for the salaries of ECE teachers to change.
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Nora Krieger, PhD
Associate Professor Emerita/Past Chair NJEEPRE
Bloomfield College/NJ Educators Exploring the Practices of Reggio Emilia
Highland Park, NJ
Original Message:
Sent: 11-30-2020 02:58 PM
From: Milagros Neu
Subject: Wages for Early Childhood Professionals
The impact on Early Childhood Professionals has been unbearable for many Early Childhood Educators. The wages need to rise as well as the educational level of those teaching our young students. The only way the early childhood field can be taken seriously in this country is to educate those in field to upgrade their living status to the level of all educators in this needed field. $10.00-$15.00 dollars an hour is not a reasonable four year college graduate in the field should be payed. Yes, essential we are but let's pay the essentials what they are worth. I also wanted to share with others Penn State Extension: Professional Development excellent source for less the cost in this need right now.
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Milagros Neu
Pre-K -K Teacher
Virtual Preschool
Maplewood NJ
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