This is a Completed working group
Child Care Teachers’ Wages
Sought to Answer These Key Questions
- What are the challenges and opportunities Mississippi child care teachers face?
- What kind of infrastructure needs to be in place to provide higher wages and professional development to child care workers?
- How much funding would be needed?
- How do health or retirement benefits factor into this equation?
- What would be needed to ensure that funding is sustained?
Co-Chairs
Connie Clay
Co-Director of the Graduate Center for the Study of Early Learning
Cathy Grace
Education & Training Specialist, Graduate Center for the Study of Early Learning
The survey and report were completed due to the hard work of the Forum For the Future Data team members from the Systems Change Lab of the Mississippi State University Social Sciences Research Center:
Laure Bell Bradley Long
Dr. Heather Hanna Callie Poole
Key Report Findings
- Responding child care teachers reported being overworked and underprepared
- Current child care teacher pay in Mississippi is below “survival wages”
- The Mississippi child care workforce is not stable
- Higher wages and benefits are needed to stabilize the Mississippi child care workforce, incentivize educational advancement, and retain teachers