To Raise Standards For Early Educators, Look Beyond Pre-K

Efforts to improve quality in early education frequently focus on raising requirements for pre-k teachers—to a BA or certification in early education. That’s a good thing, because teacher quality is key to high-quality early education, and the discrepancy that currently exists between standards for K-12 and pre-k teachers in many states, or between pre-k teachers in different settings, undermines quality early education. But policymakers must be thoughtful in how they implement new early education credential requirements.

Alabama offers a case in point: Governor Bob Riley’s efforts to expand Alabama’s tiny (but high-quality) pre-k program are coming up against an inadequate supply of certified pre-k teachers. Alabama requires pre-k teachers in public schools to hold state certification in “early childhood education,” a credential that allows teachers to work in grades PK-3. But teachers in Alabama usually bypass the early childhood credential in favor of an “elementary education” credential that allows them to teach grades K-6, making them eligible for more jobs than the PK-3 credential does. Result: Too few certified pre-k teachers.

This is a good example of why efforts to raise standards for pre-k teachers can’t just look at pre-k–they have to also take into account the existing state system of teacher certification and licensure, because pre-k and early elementary teachers are part of the same labor market and often work in the same schools. Simply layering a new credential on top of the existing (and already complicated) state credentialing system can lead to problems–as it is in Alabama.

Instead, early education advocates need to work together with K-12 school reformers to improve licensure and certification policies for both pre-k and early elementary school teachers, creating streamlined requirements that are the same for all early educators and based on solid evidence about how young children learn and what effective early educators do. We have the knowledge base in early education to support research-based, competency-based licensure for early educators, and that’s what we should work towards–not just in pre-k, but across the early grades.

Alabama’s experience also demonstrates the desperate need to pair new credentialing requirements with high-quality alternative certification programs. We have called on Congress to create a “Pathways to Pre-K Teaching” program, as part of NCLB reauthorization, that would provide incentives and funding for states, higher education institutions, and non-profit groups to create innovative, high-quality alternative pathways that offer accelerated and streamlined programs to prepare experienced pre-k teachers, recent college graduates, and elementary teachers without early childhood experience, to become certified as pre-k teachers. Such programs would go a long way to helping Alabama and other states address the shortage of qualified early educators.