The Early Care and Education Teaching Workforce at the Fulcrum: An Agenda for Reform

Sharon Lynn Kagan, Kristie Kauerz, and Kate Tarrant

In this important new book, Sharon Lynn Kagan and her colleagues focus on the more than 2 million individuals who care for and educate nearly two thirds of children under age 5 participating in nonparental care in the United States. Providing the most thorough synthesis of current research on the early care and education teaching workforce to date, the authors address frequently asked questions about teacher quality, teacher effectiveness, and the professional development necessary to achieve both. They conclude with a call for bold changes that would transform the early care and education workforce. Relying on empirical data and overviews of dozens of initiatives and programs that support early care and education teachers, the book provides a broad and deep analysis of issues surrounding the early care and education teaching workforce. The book is a “first” in that it synthesizes research and current practice and, based on these, renders highly provocative recommendations.

Book features:

• Practical—guided by research, offers common-sense recommendations to better prepare, recruit, retain, and adequately compensate early care and education teachers.
• Current—synthesizes hundreds of articles and studies to provide the most up-to-date research review.
• Comprehensive—places the issues in a system-based context to examine the entire early care and education teaching workforce in all settings.

Sharon Lynn Kagan is the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy, Co-Director of the National Center for Children and Families, and Associate Dean for Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University. Kristie Kauerz is the Early Childhood/P-3 Policy Director for Colorado Lieutenant Governor Barbara O’Brien. Kate Tarrant is a doctoral student and graduate research fellow at the National Center for Children and Families at Teachers College, Columbia University.

2008/ 192 pp./ Pb., $31.95, 978-0-8077-4827-5, Early Childhood Education Series .

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