Building and Sustaining the Early Care and Education Workforce (BASE)

Project

Overview

Project Overview

Quality early care and education can have lasting positive effects on young children, especially those growing up in low-income families. However, there are ongoing challenges in recruiting, supporting, and retaining a qualified, healthy, and stable early care and education (ECE) workforce that reflects the linguistic, racial, and ethnic diversity of the families and children ECE programs serve. Turnover rates, for example, are relatively high in the ECE field, which have negative consequences not only for children, but for teachers and providers.

There are several aspects of ECE work that can inhibit recruitment and retention, such as high stress and burnout, low levels of compensation and education, and limited opportunities for training and professional development. But there is limited evidence on what strategies might improve them and what strategies work best for different types of workers and in different settings.

The Building and Sustaining the Early Care and Education Workforce (BASE) project aims to increase knowledge and understanding in this area by documenting factors that drive workforce turnover in early care and education and by building evidence on current initiatives underway at state, local, and provider levels across the United States. In October 2020, the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded MDRC a contract for the project. The objective is to identify effective approaches to recruiting, supporting, and retaining a qualified ECE workforce.

STATUS: Current

Basics

Issue: P-12 Education, Families with Children, Work and Income Security

Focus Area: Preschool, Child Care and Early Education, Job Retention and Advancement

Population: Children and Schools, Populations with Low Incomes, Families

Focus Population: Preschool Children, People in Low-Wage Jobs, Children 0-5

Seeking Strategies to Recruit, Advance, and Retain Early Care and Education Workforce

The new Building and Sustaining the Early Care and Education (ECE) Workforce project, sponsored by the federal Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, is seeking examples of approaches that aim to build, advance, and retain the ECE workforce. Please submit information by April 15, 2021.

Agenda, Scope, <br> & Goals

Agenda, Scope, and Goals

BASE is a multiyear project (2020-2025) that is being conducted in several phases. Key upfront activities include a comprehensive review of existing research and a scan of current strategies aimed at building and sustaining a qualified ECE workforce. These scans will inform the development of conceptual frameworks, models illustrating the key factors driving turnover and the pathways through which they operate and highlighting connections between potential strategies and key outcomes. The early project activities will identify gaps in the field and promising strategies suitable for evaluation. A review of existing data sources, selected data analyses, and the design of study options will aim to address unanswered questions and inform future research. Final project activities may include case studies and demonstrations to evaluate promising strategies supporting the ECE workforce in Head Start and subsidized child care settings.

The BASE project is guided by several research questions, including:

What conditions and practices drive ECE workforce turnover, and how does this differ by ages of the children served, worker characteristics and roles, program context (that is, Head Start, child care subsidies, and other funding sources and sponsors), and community and state context?
What program- and/or system-level policies, activities, and characteristics support the recruitment and retention of the workforce, both within Head Start and subsidized child care programs and within the ECE field?
What strategies or combination of strategies are currently being implemented to support staff development and retention?
What is the evidence on the effectiveness of various strategies for supporting and retaining a qualified workforce (for example, pay and benefit increases, professional supports, and organizational capacity-building), and do their effects vary by worker characteristics and roles, program context, and community and state context?
What factors (including program administration, funding sources, and policy and community context) influence the successful implementation of promising strategies to support ECE workforce retention?

STATUS: Current

Basics

Issue: P-12 Education, Families with Children, Work and Income Security

Focus Area: Preschool, Child Care and Early Education, Job Retention and Advancement

Population: Children and Schools, Populations with Low Incomes, Families

Focus Population: Preschool Children, People in Low-Wage Jobs, Children 0-5

Seeking Strategies to Recruit, Advance, and Retain Early Care and Education Workforce

Design, Sites, & <br> Data Sources

Design, Sites, and Data Sources

The case studies of existing strategies will be designed to describe how different strategies are implemented and how they are experienced by ECE workers. Data sources may include worker and staff surveys and interviews and administrative records data. The two demonstration studies will be designed to test the effectiveness of various strategies. Each demonstration, one focused on Head Start settings and one focused on other subsidized child care settings, will be conducted as a randomized controlled trial and will include approximately 100 centers, covering 1,000 individuals. Outcomes and impacts will be assessed using follow-up surveys and administrative records and other existing data.

STATUS: Current

Basics

Issue: P-12 Education, Families with Children, Work and Income Security

Focus Area: Preschool, Child Care and Early Education, Job Retention and Advancement

Population: Children and Schools, Populations with Low Incomes, Families

Focus Population: Preschool Children, People in Low-Wage Jobs, Children 0-5

Seeking Strategies to Recruit, Advance, and Retain Early Care and Education Workforce

Funders & <br />Partners

Funders

Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation

Partners

MEF Associates

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago

Decision Information Resources (DIR)

Dr. Juliet Bromer, Erikson Institute

Dr. Debra Pacchiano, Start Early

Dr. Diana Schaack, University of Colorado, Denver

Dr. Daphna Bassok, University of Virginia

Dr. Amy Roberts, Butler Institute for Families

Dr. Aisha Ray, BUILD Initiative

MDRC Staff

Cynthia Miller
Senior Fellow, Economic Mobility, Housing, and Communities
Miller is an economist whose work focuses on policies and programs to increase the employment and earnings of low-wage workers and disadvantaged young adults. She is the project director for the Paycheck Plus evaluation, testing an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit for single workers without dependent children in New York City.
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JoAnn Hsueh
Director, Family Well-Being and Children’s Development
JoAnn Hsueh is the director of MDRC’s Family Well-Being and Children’s Development policy area, bringing expertise in the development of young children, early childhood education.

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Michelle Maier
Senior Associate, Family Well-Being and Children’s Development
Maier’s research focuses on early childhood education and intervention. She has extensive experience in the design, start-up, impact, implementation/field research, and measurement activities for a variety of research projects. Most are focused on early care and education programs that support development and school readiness in children from families with low incomes.
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Alexandra Bernardi
Research Associate, Economic Mobility, Housing, and Communities
Since joining MDRC in 2008, Bernardi has worked on site development, research operations, and implementation data collection and analysis.
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Kelsey Schaberg
Research Associate, Economic Mobility, Housing, and Communities
Schaberg, a quantitative researcher in Economic Mobility, Housing, and Communities, joined MDRC in 2012.
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Frieda Molina
Director, Economic Mobility, Housing, and Communities
Molina has over 20 years of experience providing technical and operational assistance to workforce development service providers, and has worked at MDRC for 17 years on numerous workforce development evaluations.
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Project Director

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Project

STATUS: Current

Basics

STATUS: Current

Basics

STATUS: Current

Basics