The topic I chose to further research is High Quality teachers with the subtopic being compensation. Prior to this course I had already began research on the compensation of teachers across the country then narrowing it down to just my state. The reason being is that I have had experience working in the field and the pay is not all that great, especially if you are trying to provide for a family. During my time working in preschools, this was one of the topics that came up in the break rooms a lot. While teachers loved what they did, they couldn't understand why their pay wouldn't increase, even with them gaining more education it didn't seem that raise once a year was barely budging.
With me having experienced that and knowing what I know now, I have decided to help make a change in that specific area. One way in doing that is finding organizations that share the same cause. I came across one of NAEYC's programs, called Power to the Profession. It's a national collaboration to define the early childhood profession by establishing a unifying framework for career pathways, knowledge and competencies, qualifications, standards and compensation. I am still researching ways to get involve, but that is a start.
Also, I look up salaries through indeed.com which has all preschool positions and the national average salaries of each position. I also found a site that had a list salaries for preschool teachers in the TN area.
Resources
http://www.indeed.com/salary/Preschool-Teacher.html
http://www.naeyc.org/profession
http://www.earlychildhoodteacher.org/jobs/tennessee/
Quintina,
ReplyDeleteYour topic is probably a hotly debated one to say the least. I am sure there are many, many early childhood education professionals who agree with you that the pay needs to increase substantially in order for them to be able to afford to live with any quality at all. However, as was pointed out in some of our other classes as well as this one, most people who don't work in the field don't understand that early childhood education is not simply babysitting. What really needs to be done is to educate the public as to the difference between babysitting and early childhood education. We need to make people understand that it is so much more than just taking care of a child's physical needs while their parents are at work. If people realized how much more beneficial early childhood education was than just babysitting, they would come to realize why we professionals need to be paid more.