I became an early childhood teacher because, like so many others, I dream of making abundant, equitable access to high-quality early childhood education a reality. But a major barrier persists: We don't have nearly enough teachers, and more and more are leaving the classroom every day.

Despite this challenge, the process of becoming a certified early childhood teacher is not nearly as accessible or inclusive as it can be. This needs to change. If it doesn’t, we risk leaving out multitudes of brilliant potential teachers, while trying to expand early childhood programs within an already stretched-thin workforce.

Four out of five child care centers across the United States are understaffed, according to a 2021 National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) survey. The center where I teach is one of them.

Being short-staffed means teachers bend over backward daily to ensure children are cared for and legal ratio requirements are met, at the expense of our own well-being. Staffing shortages make it difficult for us to use vacation, personal or sick days, and when we do, it’s a heavy burden on the other teachers who have to stretch to cover those who are out. And already limited breaks and planning periods are clipped even further at understaffed programs, meaning lesson planning, assessments and paperwork often follow teachers home on nights and weekends.

As a result, early childhood teachers are burning out. In a recent survey of more than 2,300 early childhood teachers administered by Teaching Strategies, a provider of early childhood classroom tools, one in two teachers reported high burnout, and 43 percent said staffing shortages are affecting their stress level. So, it’s no surprise that early childhood teachers are quitting. In the same survey, 20 percent of participants said they are considering leaving their jobs, and of that group, 40 percent cited mental health as the reason.

One of the biggest obstacles to drawing and keeping people in the profession is low compensation. Child care workers are paid on average a third of what elementary teachers make. While many advocates across the country have been working on efforts to rightfully raise early childhood teacher wages — for example, in San Francisco and in New Mexico — there’s significantly more work to be done.

Read the full article about early childhood teacher by Jay Lee at EdSurge.