The Obama administration has pledged billions to support early childhood education. This new emphasis on preschool is prompted, in part, by new brain science…and economic studies. Researchers have shown that for every dollar spend on preschool many more dollars are saved in keeping kids out of special ED and even prison. HPR’s Ben Markus reports that Hawaii, like the rest of the nation, struggles most with recruiting qualified preschool teachers.
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One thing is true of nearly all preschool teachers. They love children. That’s not the problem according to Bob Peters, Head of Hanahau`oli School.
Bob1 (:08) – The early childhood community is populated by very well meaning people who love children, but who are not necessarily trained as early childhood educators.
Dr. Peters is also chair of the State’s newly formed Early Learning Council. He says many teachers lack Bachelor’s degrees. Most have two year associates degrees…and some have no degrees at all.
At KCAA’s “Mother Rice” preschool near King and University hordes of groggy four year olds mill about after their mid-day nap. KCAA’s 7 nationally accredited preschools serve more than 1000 children on Oahu. KCAA President Christina Cox says the lack of qualified teachers in Hawaii has forced her, to, as she puts it, “grow her own.”
Christina2 (:12) – Every single day the children show up on our doorstep from all socioeconomic groups and they deserve the best education that we can give them, so you have to rise to the occasion.
That’s why a couple of years ago along with Chaminade University she started the Virtual Training Institute—which put’s classes online for preschool teachers. The classes are paid for by grants and foundations. But the student teacher commits to work at KCAA for a period of time, or pay the class fees out of pocket. Kamala Cummings is currently a teacher’s assistant at KCAA. She says this works best for her because she couldn’t afford to stop working to go to classes.
Kamala2 (:20) – For me it’s much easier going online then having to take classes at the school because of the fact that, going online you can go on throughout the day where as going to school it’s hard working fulltime and having to make the time and effort to get in your car and get to school and stuff like that, yeah.
KCAA provides students like Cummings with wireless enabled laptops and gives them time each week at work to complete their courses. The process is long and tedious—it will take Cummings 6 years to get a 2 year Associates degree. Bob Peters of The Early Learning Council’s says, yes, it takes a long time, but there may be no other choice since so many preschool teachers can’t stop working to go to school.
Bob4 (:16) – It may take a little longer for somebody in training to get a degree simply because you have to modify a program to a teacher’s needs, there may be ways to provide stipends so a teacher doesn’t have to a full day but can use part of her time to be learning.
In fact half of the students who attend Honolulu Community College’s Early Learning classes work during the day…usually at a preschool. Linda Buck is Coordinator of Early Childhood programs for HCC. She says a lack of adequate pay makes it hard to attract students right out of high school and it’s forcing preschool teachers out of the field altogether.
Linda5 (:14) – So there’s really that constant turnover in the field, it’s not good for children, it’s not good to keep in terms of keeping our preschools stable, so it’s not a happy situation.
The average preschool teacher makes 10-15 thousand dollars less a year that a Kindergarten teacher in the Department of Education. Liz Chun is Executive Director of the Good Beginnings Alliance—an early childhood health and education advocacy group.
Liz2 (:13) – So we’re trying very hard to increase that compensation, and along with that comes increasing the qualifications of the person, in others words the training the degree level having an associate’s degree, moving on to bachelor’s degree.
HCC’s Linda Buck says research suggests children learn best from preschool teachers with Bachelor’s degrees.
Linda7 (:17) – Children deserve well prepared teachers, and teachers who really care about the profession and as a career. And it’s not to say that there aren’t many many teachers out there, it’s just that it shouldn’t have to be so hard, it just shouldn’t.
