Raising Teacher Education and Training Standards For Universal Preschool in California

Raising Teacher Education and Training Standards For Universal Preschool in California: Assessing the Size of the Task

The creation of a universal preschool system for California has become the focus of much of the current long-range planning and discussion in the state about the quality and availability of early care and education programs. The California Master Plan for Education places universal preschool front and center, and philanthropic, policy, business and labor organizations – including state and local First 5 Commissions, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a number of state legislators, and several unions – are also focusing their energies in this direction, with the idea of converging many efforts over the next decade to build a universally available, publicly supported preschool system for three- and four-year-old children.

Since universal preschool for California is still in its early planning phase, most of the details remain to be decided, including the scope and structure of the program, whether or not it will be coordinated by the public schools, where it will be housed, whether it will be full-day or part-day (with or without wrap-around care), the extent to which it will include family child care, and whether it will be free of charge or based, at least in part, on parent fees. But the state Master Plan for Education, as well as many proponents of universal preschool, appear to agree thus far that “raising the bar” on the required level of education and training for preschool teachers will be an essential building block of the program.

Proponents of universal preschool are interested in seeking higher standards of education and training for preschool teachers for a variety of reasons:

• Considerable evidence from research has associated BA-level preparation for early care and education teachers with higher-quality care.
• Higher teacher standards could be an important way to link preschool/pre-Kindergarten programs with the K-12 educational system, especially in terms of parity in teacher compensation, and ensuring better transitions for children from preschool to kindergarten.
• The educational requirements currently in place for California’s early care and education workforce are relatively weak compared to other states: both the Title 5 requirements for teachers in State Preschools and state-contracted centers, and especially, the less stringent Title 22 requirements governing other programs.

But there are also a number of concerns about raising standards, despite the advantages of doing so. We don’t know yet how big a task this would be, and there is concern that a new set of standards could simply add another layer of confusion to a system already split between Title 5 and Title 22 regulations. There is currently no preschool teacher credential in place in California, no clearly delineated set of skills and competencies for preschool teachers, and no guarantee that achieving higher standards of education would be linked to earning higher levels of compensation. Within the field, there is also concern that teachers and providers would need significant support in pursuing more education and training to meet higher standards; if not, a number of current practitioners could be left out, especially people of color or those whose first language is other than English. The underlying concern here is that a universal preschool workforce must not only be well educated, but culturally and linguistically compatible with the children it serves.