All Children Deserve Quality Early Education and Care
Beginning at birth, every child should have the opportunity to benefit from high-quality early childhood education delivered by a diverse, effective, prepared, and well-compensated teaching workforce. (Unifying Framework for the Early Childhood Education Profession)
Successful early childhood educators require the skills, preparation, and compensation needed for the profession. The shared accountability and resources to support the profession include employers, preparation programs, and state and federal governments.
Unfortunately, early care workers can experience challenges in finding the tools and support they need to successfully perform their duties.
Critical Challenges for Early Educators
Below we discuss the top 4 challenges early childhood teachers face in their industry:
- Low Pay
- Lack of Resources
- Teacher Mental Health and Teacher Burnout
- Insufficient Professional Development
Low pay
The childcare and early learning workforce has historically been undervalued and underpaid. While their jobs are crucial to support the learning and development of young children, early childhood educators- mostly women and women of color—are paid low or even poverty-level wages. Most childcare providers cannot afford to raise teachers’ wages because doing so would raise tuition higher than most families can afford. (American Progress)
While the demand for early childhood educators is growing three times as fast as the average growth for all U.S. occupations, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also finds that the average early learning teacher salary is $30,210. That is less than half what K-12 public teachers earn. (Ed Week)
In addition, early childhood educators have a poverty rate eight times higher than K- 8 teachers, which forces many of them to rely on public assistance to meet their families’ needs. In turn, childcare providers report losing qualified teachers to the public school system because they can do similar work but earn more money and receive more benefits. (First Five Years Fund)
Despite praise from parents, administrators, and the community, early learning teachers can feel underappreciated while working long hours and still unable to make ends meet.

Lack of Resources
Many early learning programs struggle to provide the resources needed to support high-quality early education and support services to all children, especially those who are disadvantaged.
Some programs can lack basic resources such as books, educational materials, technology, trained teachers, and appropriate facilities. This can limit a child’s opportunity to engage in activities that promote language development, critical thinking, problem-solving, and social-emotional skills. (Gray Group Intl)
For early childhood educators, this means that in addition to the many challenges teachers face today, lack of resources remains one of the most crucial. To make up for the small budgets set for classroom materials, many early learning teachers resort to spending their own money for supplies to ensure their young students don’t fall behind.
Teacher Mental Health and Teacher Burnout
Early childhood teachers’ psychological well-being influences the nurturing and learning classroom climate as well as their students’ all-around development.
According to Teaching Strategies, an early childcare and education training group, nearly half of all preschool teachers admitted to experiencing high stress levels and burnout.
Research suggests early childhood educators need more support, via mentoring, training, and professional learning groups. These tools help build confidence in teaching and allow teachers to handle the psychological and emotional demands in early childhood classrooms, particularly with children who may have fewer social and coping skills.
Although teaching has always been a high-stress job, since the pandemic, depression among preschool teachers increased. Research shows that the pandemic led to higher physical, emotional, and financial stress for early childhood educators, which lingers today.
Educator burnout affects children as much as it affects their teachers. Preschool-aged children need stable relationships with adults to thrive. When a teacher leaves their job, it can disrupt a child’s social and emotional development. That can lead to missed milestones and future learning gaps.
Insufficient Professional Development
Professional development is crucial to empowering early childhood teachers to succeed in their careers. Professional development for teachers has largely been defined as a “training” or “workshop” that meets once and results in a certificate of attendance. While one-time trainings serve the purpose of introducing professionals to new information, studies have found more effective professional development is ongoing. Ongoing professional learning can include multi-session training, mentoring, technical assistance, book studies, and peer observations. (Yale)
Teaching Strategies found that 7 out of 10 early childhood teachers reported more job satisfaction when they have access to high-quality, ongoing training. And 65% of preschool educators who plan to leave teaching stated they didn’t have access to professional development.
A University of Missouri School of Medicine article states that in a survey of early educators, more than 75 percent desired more training opportunities. Additionally, the majority of teachers surveyed felt that the training they received covered information they already knew.

The study, “Supporting Professional Development Needs for Early Childhood Teachers: An Exploratory Analysis of Teacher Perceptions of Stress and Challenging Behavior,” explains that early childhood development teachers play a major role in the prevention of future behavioral problems in schools, yet they often are not prepared to do so. Without additional training specific to early education, these teachers do not have the tools to help themselves or prepare their students.
Accessing high-quality early childhood professional development is an enduring challenge, and the main hurdles are typically funding and staff schedules. Childcare teachers face challenges scheduling professional development due to conflicting priorities and time constraints. Professional development opportunities must meet the individual needs of the teachers and caregivers in order to make improvements.
Solving Early Learning Educator Challenges
Some state and local efforts to strengthen the early childhood education workforce include increasing wages and benefits, strengthening career pathways and professional development, and promoting health and wellness. (Office of ECD)

Teacher Education And Compensation Helps (TEACH) Services
The national TEACH (Teacher Education And Compensation Helps) Early Childhood program helps address the need for a well-qualified, fairly compensated, and stable workforce. The program offers participants educational scholarships and career counseling. Additionally, TEACH’s Child Care WAGE$ program awards salary supplements to early childhood professionals to combat poor compensation and high turnover rates.
In Texas, T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Texas’s scholarship program helps early childhood educators obtain credentials and degrees. Scholarship recipients can receive:
- Tools & Resources: Supplies to enhance early learning experiences.
- Child Development Knowledge: College-level courses that meet training and credential requirements.
- Financial Support: Funding for credentials or degrees and compensation from T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Texas and employers.
- Networking & Development: Connecting with current and former scholarship recipients and the TXAEYC network
Texas Association for the Education of Young Children (TXAEYC) Services
TXAEYC’s Shared Services Alliance helps early learning programs increase teacher compensation packages by providing employee benefits at a shared cost.
The alliance offers employees a range of options and plans, including healthcare, dental, and vision benefits. The Shared Services Alliance supports early learning programs by offering professional development, HR advising, and business coaching.
TXAEYC provides a range of professional development opportunities to stay current on the latest early childhood education practices, research, and trends. Professional development offerings include conferences, publications, and trainings covering a wide range of topics, including child development, health and safety, and behavior management.
San Antonio Area ECE Services
There are several options in the San Antonio-area for services to support early care educators, including Region 20 Education Service Center (ESC), Alamo Colleges, UTSA, and Pre-K 4 SA, to name a few.
The Region 20 Education Service Center provides individualized support, professional development trainings, and innovative experiences. For a list of upcoming classes, click here: Region 20 Early Childhood Professional Development Opportunities
Region 20 ESC also offers a Pre-K and Early Childhood Education Cooperative (PEEC) designed to provide learning opportunities to meet the diverse instructional needs of young learners for one low cost.
The Alamo Colleges District offers self-paced online professional development courses designed to help educators continue their education on their own time.
The University of Texas at San Antonio’s Academy for Teacher Excellence (ATE) Research Center supports Latino/Hispanic and other ethnically diverse students to overcome financial, psycho-social, and institutional barriers.
ATE works with high school students and aspiring educators to provide college and teacher preparation resources. At the college level, undergraduate teacher candidates can participate in a variety of services in the Teacher Academy Learning Community. These services include professional and student development workshops, textbook lending, educational resources, and informal learning clubs.
For current teachers, ATE provides an online community of educators in the eCommunity of Practice. It allows educators to receive and provide support at any time. Teachers can collaborate and network with peers and colleagues, facilitate mentoring and networking activities, and participate in topic-specific courses and forums. Finally, ATE participants receive support to help them transition to teaching, working to help them navigate through the psychosocial phases of teaching and problem-solve the challenges they can face in their classrooms and their personal lives.
Pre-K 4 SA’s Professional Learning Team includes specialists who mentor and educate early childhood education workers. The program offers workshops that explore role-playing scenarios and brainstorming engaging learning games. The short lecture-based seminars cover varying topics to inspire young students. Additionally, Pre-K 4 SA administers individualized coaching services and on-site visits to address specific areas of need.
Sources
Taylor and Francis- Early Childhood Teachers’ Psychological Well-Being
College Values- 7 Challenges Facing Early Childhood Education Teachers
Ed Week- Challenges for Early Educators as Preschool Growth Halts
First Five Years Fund- The Crucial Role of Early Educators
National Power to the Profession Task Force
Gray Group International- Challenges Facing Early Childhood Education
