Education Commons^™

Paths Forward To Salary Parity For New York: National Models For Equity In Early Childhood Education Compensation, Lily Rosenthal, Emily Sharrock

Bank Street Education Center

Pay parity for early childhood educators is critical to reducing turnover, improving job quality, and achieving an equitable child care system. This publication explores compensation reform nationwide and offers ideas for local and state financing options to better support the early childhood workforce and New York families.

A Snapshot Of Ece Apprenticeship Programs, Emily Sharrock, Annie Schaeffing, Lily Rosenthal, Thelma Wong

Bank Street Education Center

This publication offers a closer look at the key features of existing apprenticeship programs across the United States—such as the diversity and range of approaches to credentials, partnership models, funding, and how programs deliver quality mentoring and/or coaching support—to reimagine how program quality can be strengthened to deepen learning for participants.

Technical Report: Listening To Teachers Study, Mark K. Nagasawa

Straus Center for Young Children & Families

This is the summary report for the second year of the Listening to Teachers Study which asks how early childhood educators in New York City (NYC) have been faring through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The study’s purpose has been to seek deeper understandings of what NYC’s early care and education (ECE) workforce has experienced during the Pandemic to inform decision-making about the city's future ECE systems by raising issues for reflection and action-oriented discussion.

The study has followed a multistage, exploratory-mixed methods design, incorporating: 1) ongoing consultation with ECE stakeholders to incorporate questions of interest to them – and their …

A Framework For Coaching In Early Childhood Settings: Drawing On Bank Street College Of Education’S Developmental-Interaction Approach (Dia), Virginia Casper, Milenis Gonzalez, Tarima Levine, Emily Sharrock, Annie Schaeffing

Bank Street Education Center

Coaching helps teachers activate and better articulate their previous knowledge, skills, values, and belief systems, along with new concepts, to construct and continually refine an approach that is meaningful in their everyday work. This framework captures some commonalities of a positive coaching stance across contexts while allowing enough flexibility to make use of these ideas in ways that will serve that setting and teachers best.

Who's There For The Directors?, Mark K. Nagasawa

Straus Center for Young Children & Families

This third report from the Listening to Teachers study’s second year focuses on a subsample of early childhood program leaders (n=113) in NYC. Among the key findings in this report:

• Support from supervisors lowered the odds of survey participants reporting potential burnout.
• However, the odds of program leaders reporting potential burnout were 1.7 times higher than for other respondents.
• The odds of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) respondents being in leadership roles were significantly less than their white colleagues.

While this study's self-selected sample makes these findings ungeneralizable, they do raise the critically important question, What is …

Forgotten Frontline Workers, One Year Later, Mark K. Nagasawa

Straus Center for Young Children & Families

This is the second in a series of reports discussing findings from a June 2021 survey sent to New York Aspire Registry members who work in NYC (n=663). It also follows up on Forgotten Frontline Workers, a report issued last year which focused on family child care (FCC) professionals’ experiences earlier in the pandemic. The results discussed in this report come from a self-selected sample (n=97), and cannot be used to draw conclusions about all FCC professionals in NYC; however, their value comes from recognizing each of these participants’ humanity and the important policy-relevant issues …

Career Pathways And Wage Ladders: A Key Opportunity For Improving Quality, Courtney Parkerson, Annie Schaeffing, Emily Sharrock

Bank Street Education Center

To leverage the possible opportunity the Build Back Better Act presents, this policy brief closely examines the potential of career pathways and wage ladders to serve as the foundation for transformative change for the early care and education workforce.

“Nadie Nos Han Preguntado…” (Nobody Has Asked Us...), Mark Nagasawa

Straus Center for Young Children & Families

This is the latest in a series of reports from the Listening to Teachers Study, which seeks understanding of how New York City's early childhood educators are faring during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study is to use data gathered through surveys (May 2020, n=3355; June 2021, n=663) and in-depth interviews (spring 2022) to prompt reflection and discussion about what a more equitable post-pandemic ECE system could look like.

This report focuses on describing the June 2021 sample and preliminary findings:

1. As in 2020, emotional/mental health support was the most frequently requested need, but professional …

Establishing Early Care & Education As A Public Good, Brandy Jones Lawrence, Emily Sharrock

Bank Street Education Center

This brief outlines a set of guiding principles including tactical policy and advocacy actions needed to move us toward investing in early childhood education as a public good to support all children, families, and society as a whole.

Reconceptualizing Assistance For Young Children Of Color With Disabilities In An Inclusion Classroom, Soyoung Park

Graduate School of Education

In this article, we draw on DisCrit to critically analyze how a group of early childhood educators approached assistance with young children of color with disabilities in a Head Start inclusion classroom. Using examples from data collected over one school year, we demonstrate how child-centered assistance advances justice for young children of color with disabilities who are often subjected to a surveillance culture in schools. We critique assistance that aligns with the medical model of disability and aims to change young children of color with disabilities to conform to ableist, racist expectations of schooling. We offer examples of assistance practices …

Early Childhood Education Throughout The Covid-19 Pandemic: The Experiences Of Arkansas Educators, Sheila Smith, Maribel Granja

National Center for Children in Poverty

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the experiences of young children and their caregivers over the past year. SRI Education and the National Center on Children in Poverty partnered with the Arkansas Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education (DCCECE) to examine early care and education programs throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This brief, which represents the second of two reports, shares the experiences of Arkansas educators who completed surveys and focus groups in spring 2021. It includes information similar to the first report and provides additional information related to vaccination, supports for students with disabilities, and educators’ plans for moving …

Integrating Residencies Into Substitute Teaching, Prepared To Teach, Bank Street College

All Faculty and Staff Papers and Presentations

This one-page document illustrates the possibilities and benefits of having residents take on substitute teaching roles in a district. Dollars previously allocated to substitute teaching can be redirected toward candidate stipends while substitute teaching needs are largely met by the cohort of residents.

Covid-19 And Early Childhood Workforce Emotional Well-Being: An Exploratory Investigation, Mark Nagasawa

Straus Center for Young Children & Families

This conference paper was presented at the 2021 meeting of the American Educational Research Association. It shares findings from a mixed method, exploratory study that sought to understand how New York State's early childhood (ECE) workforce was faring early in the COVID-19 pandemic (n=3,555). This was a project of the New York City Early Childhood Research Network, a research practitioner partnership organized to create evidence-informed early childhood public policy. Among the key findings were high levels of reported stress, for instance those working remotely were approximately one-and-a-half times more likely to rate their emotional well-being negatively than those whose settings …

Centering Values: Building An Equitable Future Through The American Rescue Plan Act, Emily Sharrock, Brandy Jones Lawrence, Karen Demoss, Brigid Brennan

Bank Street Education Center

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) constitutes a significant change in our nation's approach to social policy and offers a new opportunity to imagine positive change in how we value and support human development and learning with a clear focus on equity. This memo outlines Bank Street's recommendations for spending to inspire communities and policymakers as they think broadly about the potential this funding offers to invest in our future.

Realizing The Promise Of Early Educator Apprenticeships, Brandy Jones Lawrence, Emily Sharrock, Courtney Parkerson

Bank Street Education Center

In response to the introduction of the Early Educator Apprenticeship Act in both houses of Congress, this positioning statement outlines recommendations for rebuilding the workforce at this critical moment with quality and equity at the center through apprenticeships, which have been effective in improving K-12 school systems. A national system of robust apprenticeship programs would support rebuilding our supply of care while also ensuring educators receive the high-quality clinical practice and coaching required for the complex task of supporting early brain development.

Family Engagement During Covid-19, Mark Nagasawa

Straus Center for Young Children & Families

This is an infographic summarizing findings from a survey conducted in May 2020 (n=3355) about how the COVID-19 was affecting early childhood educators in New York. Unsurprisingly, the survey responses reflected respondents' multimodal creativity and professional commitment to connecting with children's families. Responses also suggested some underlying tensions, such as school-centric notions of family engagement (i.e., more academically focused) vs. family-centric perspectives (i.e., offering emotional and material support to families). Ultimately the survey's contribution lies in shedding some light on important, difficult-to-resolve issues that must be debated as the world moves towards "post" pandemic life (e.g., services, supports, and accessibility …

Equitable Compensation For The Child Care Workforce: Within Reach And Worth The Investment, Emily Sharrock, Courtney Parkerson

Bank Street Education Center

This brief outlines concrete ideas and innovative strategies to help advance early educator compensation at the local, state, and federal levels and, in turn, support the development and care of our nation's youngest learners.

Forgotten Frontline Workers: A Snapshot Of Family Child Care And Covid-19 In New York, Mark Nagasawa, Kate Tarrant

Straus Center for Young Children & Families

This the third report from the New York ECE and COVID-19 Survey, which focuses on both the unique challenges faced by the family child care (FCC) providers who participated in the survey, as well as their particular resilience. At the time of the survey (May 2020), this group of participants was the most physically open form of ECE and was significantly more affected economically than their other ECE colleagues. Interestingly, several of the survey respondents (in different geographic locations) spoke of organizing efforts for mutual support and collective action, which may be a promising development for reducing social isolation, increasing …

Covid-19 And Online Early Childhood Education, Mark Nagasawa

Straus Center for Young Children & Families

This infographic summarizes some themes from a survey conducted with early childhood educators across New York in May 2020, when 65% of programs reported providing online ECE. While respondents expressed clear needs for support in providing technologically-mediated ECE - including tech support, curricular, materials, and hardware - they also displayed three key components of any ECE, commitments to relationships, flexibility, and creativity. This highlights a critical need to document educators' many creative approaches and lessons learned from the pandemic.

Who Will Care For The Early Care And Education Workforce? Covid-19 And The Need To Support Early Childhood Educators’ Emotional Well-Being, Mark Nagasawa, Kate Tarrant

Straus Center for Young Children & Families

This brief report describes issues and opportunities related to early childhood educators' emotional well-being that emerged from a survey exploring how the COVID-19 was affecting early educators across New York City and New York State (n=3355). Among our key findings were: (1) that mental health support was the most frequently identified need (n=910); (2) professional mental health was the least reported approach to coping (n=216); and (3) how those teaching and caring remotely were approximately one-and-a- half times more likely to rate their emotional well-being as lower than those whose sites were closed (CI 95% 1.157, 1.896). We argue, given …

New York Early Care And Education Survey: Understanding The Impact Of Covid-19 On New York Early Childhood System, Kate Tarrant, Mark Nagasawa

Straus Center for Young Children & Families

This is the first in a series of reports based upon a survey conducted with 3355 early childhood educators across New York City and New York State, which sought to understand how they were faring during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic (May 2020). Among the key findings were: (1) at that time the emotional stress of the pandemic was affecting respondents more than health and financial stressors; (2) Educators’ need for mental health supports exceed other areas of support requested; (3) approximately 70% were engaged in remote instruction in New York City and half were providing remote instruction …

Investing In The Birth-To-Three Workforce: A New Vision To Strengthen The Foundation For All Learning, Emily Sharrock, Courtney Parkerson

Bank Street Education Center

This report asserts that every child—regardless of race, income, or opportunity—should have consistent access to high-quality learning experiences from birth and provides a roadmap toward change at scale, including the development of residency programs and improved compensation for the infant/toddler workforce.

Maximizing Every Child's Potential In The First 1,000 Days Of Life: A Landscape Analysis, Emily Sharrock, Courtney Parkerson

Bank Street Education Center

This report features a series of findings, supporting evidence, and bright spots that build a case for developing a stronger approach to supporting the diverse infant/toddler workforce.

New York City Pre-K Leadership Study, Veronica Benavides, Faith Lamb-Parker, Sheila Smith

All Faculty and Staff Papers and Presentations

Presents key findings from a study of New York City pre-K leaders that evaluated how leaders support teachers and what factors help or hinder leaders’ efforts to positively impact learning for all children.

Feelings Charts Instead Of Behavior Charts: Radical Love Instead Of Shame, Margaret Blachly, Noelle Dean

Graduate School of Education

In this article, the authors introduce some core concepts and language of Emotionally Responsive Practice at Bank Street , an approach to working with children developed based on deep knowledge of child development and a respect for children’s life experience (Koplow, 2002, 2007, 2009).

The Prepared To Teach Paradigm Shift, Bank Street College Of Education

All Faculty and Staff Papers and Presentations

Prepared To Teach exists to help districts, states, and teacher preparation programs find ways to develop sustainable streams of public funding to support high-quality teacher preparation.

Prepared To Teach National Network, Bank Street College

All Faculty and Staff Papers and Presentations

A two page summary of the Prepared To Teach National Network of teacher residencies.

Money Matters, Bank Street College Of Education, Prepared To Teach, Bank Street College

All Faculty and Staff Papers and Presentations

This short document summarizes the research supporting a unified P-20 system and how teacher residencies can bring us closer to achieving that goal.

Simplifying Improvement, Bank Street College Of Education

All Faculty and Staff Papers and Presentations

Initiatives, projects, and structural changes in service of school reform can become overwhelming and complicated. Teacher residencies are a streamlined way of untangling priorities for improvement and creating a unified strategy.

Professional Preparation, Bank Street College Of Education

All Faculty and Staff Papers and Presentations

Part of being a professional is completing quality preparation. But teachers don't necessarily receive rigorous, extended practice as other professions do—and notably, they don't get paid for their work when they do.