In spite of growing demands for high-quality early-childhood programs, preschool teachers still earn roughly half what kindergarten teachers do, according to a report released by the Center for the Child Care Workforce.
Preschool teachers make an average of $10.67 per hour, and child-care workers earn even less, $8.32 an hour. Wages for those working with young children rose just 0.6 percent in 2003, the report says.
“We are never going to achieve the high-quality early-childhood-education system that we know all children deserve if we do not invest in the workforce itself,” Marci Young, the director of the Washington-based center, a project of the AFT Educational Foundation, said in a press release.
The report, “Current Data on the Salaries and Benefits of the U.S. Early Childhood Education Workforce,” also shows that of the 770 occupations the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics surveyed, only 18 have lower wages than child-care providers .
