For better early childhood care, professionalize workforce
September 21, 2024, Published by the Santa Fe New Mexican
My View Kate Noble and Rebecca Baran-Rees
Supporting young children and families is how we change the world, now and for the future. Fortunately, New Mexico is leading the country in building a strong set of early childhood programs. We have been moving to build a robust and comprehensive early childhood system, changing the game for generations to come.
Step One: In 2019, we were the fifth state to create a Cabinet-level Early Childhood Education and Care Department. This department consolidated policy, governance and administration of early childhood programs, streamlining and unlocking the return on investment early childhood can deliver for society.
Step Two: New Mexico established stable funding sources for early childhood with the Legislature’s creation of the Early Childhood Trust Fund in 2020. In 2022, voters also overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to tap New Mexico’s Land Grant Permanent Fund, providing an additional funding source for early childhood. We became the first state to make early childhood education and care a constitutional right.
Step Three is next: New Mexico must build a structure to professionalize the early childhood workforce, creating pathways for early childhood careers, establishing education- and experience-based salary tiers and raising workers’ pay.
Early childhood workers are often neglected, underpaid, underappreciated, even sometimes considered babysitters. In truth, they are brain-builders — creators of the nurturing environments young children need to thrive. They are crucial to our communities and our economy, allowing others to go to work.
Early Childhood Education and Care Cabinet Secretary Elizabeth Groginsky wrote in a recent piece (“For better child care, pay more to teachers,” My View, Aug. 11) that “low wages present the single greatest barrier to building the high-quality prenatal-to-5 system in New Mexico that can lift families out of poverty and secure bright futures for New Mexico children.”
Secretary Groginsky also calls out her department’s efforts to increase pay through a number of innovative mechanisms and the need for greater federal support. And while New Mexico has made incredible progress in recent years, we need a durable solution for the central issue, making early childhood pay competitive in today’s economy.
This is why at Growing Up New Mexico, we hope to see legislation that adopts the tiers of a professional structure in the 2025 legislative session.
Too often, we hear of committed people leaving early childhood for higher pay and easier work. Too often, we acknowledge the work’s difficulties but hope that strong (mostly) women will simply keep at it.
This is why we need the Legislature to establish professional tiers for early childhood teachers, establishing the goalposts for Secretary Groginsky and her team to unify and implement the professional pay structure we need.
Legislation can also set key parameters, including: extra pay for bilingual, tribal and trauma-informed professionals; a robust process for community input on implementation; and use of authentic observation-based assessments so rigid requirements don’t push out excellent workers.
Growing Up New Mexico has heard the aspirations for children in communities throughout the state and listened to early childhood educators, home visitors, early interventionists and teachers, all of whom work with families to raise children and reach developmental milestones. These workers are too few, they are tired, and many leave for easier, better-paid work.
National research shows wages are the strongest predictor of staff turnover. A stable, well-paid and professional workforce supports children to thrive and reach their full potential. We must pay early childhood workers more.
New Mexico has made incredible progress toward building a comprehensive early childhood system. We’ve centralized early childhood programs. We’ve established stable funding. Our next step is to professionalize the early childhood workforce.
Kate Noble is the president and CEO at Growing Up New Mexico, a statewide early childhood organization based in Santa Fe. Rebecca Baran-Rees serves as the vice president of policy and community development.