How can we address the workforce challenges in early childhood education? How can we provide equitable access to more children? And how do we balance quality standards with diverse needs? 

These were some of the central questions discussed at Teachstone’s 2024 InterAct Summit in San Diego, where I spoke with three prominent early childhood education leaders from California and Colorado on a panel, “Leading Systems of Quality: A Conversation With State Innovators.”

The panelists included Sarah Neville-Morgan, Deputy Superintendent for the Opportunities for All Branch at the California Department of Education, Lisa Roy, Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, and Eunice Munro, Director of early Education Programs and Services at the San Diego County Office of Education. 

 

Prioritizing Equity

In over three decades of work in early childhood policy, I’ve seen inequalities in systems in every corner of this country. Balancing access to early childhood programs with quality is an ongoing challenge that no state has solved—but fortunately, there are many passionate leaders striving to build more equitable systems.

Ms. Neville-Morgan is a great example. She outlined major initiatives California has taken toward ensuring program quality, including many years of collaborative work across state and local agencies, quality improvement funding, workforce college credits, and implementing CLASS®, along with other observational assessment tools. She emphasized the importance of using tools and data that both focus on child outcomes and ensure equitable access for children across different settings and populations, such as African American and American Indian communities. 

“So trying to look at quality in a more objective versus subjective way, which we know there is bias and subjectivity in almost everything, but tools help us with a framework that sort of decreases that bias that can happen around us,” she said.

Ms. Munro talked about how her department in San Diego, the second largest city in California, balances the requirements and mandates from the state while tailoring them to the diverse needs of their local programs. Because there are about 80 different languages spoken in San Diego, it’s a priority to have staff with the capacity to serve all of the city’s communities. Every decision about quality is run through the Quality Counts California Consortium in order to ensure an equity approach to closing the education gap.

“We don't take any decision lightly. We want to make sure that it is equitable for the children, that it is equitable for the teachers and the directors because there's a lot sitting on the shoulders of those directors. And we want to make sure that we are here to support them,” she said.

Dr. Roy brings an equity lens to everything she does. She was in Head Start herself as a kid and used a United Way program to help pay for childcare for her three children while she completed her education. She’s been passionate about helping under-resourced communities for her entire life.

“At the state level, at least in Colorado, the majority of the staff are white women with master's degrees. They're various as far as background. But I always try to remind them of what the families are going through,” she said.

Dr. Roy, who wrote her doctoral dissertation on equity in early childhood education, discussed her approach to focusing on equity through staffing at the state level. Some of the roles she hired include a tribal liaison, an equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility director, and a language justice coordinator.

A Focus on Data-Driven Decision Making 

The early childhood education industry excels at collecting data, yet we face significant challenges in analyzing it and using it in our daily decisions. 

Early childhood education systems are loosely coupled systems, meaning there isn’t strict hierarchical control; different entities are not necessarily required to report to or take direction from others. That means there are many potential places for inconsistencies or inaccuracies to occur in data collection across the system.

In our discussion, the panelists emphasized the need for good data to assess progress on equity goals. They’re focused on measuring outcomes for underserved children such as those from low-income families, dual language learners, children with disabilities, and rural communities.

Ms. Neville-Morgan said the goal of early childhood education is to offer children choices and opportunities later in life, whether it’s college or career. However, many children are being kept from accessing those pathways. While the California school dashboard provides accountability, she said, children with diverse needs and backgrounds are not reflected in the dashboard the way they deserve to be. That’s why her department is focused on disaggregating data by factors like race, language, and disability status in order to understand where additional supports are truly needed for children. 

Ms. Munro also mentioned data and equity, specifically looking at race, languages, and other characteristics both of the children being served and the early childhood workforce in San Diego. She said her department uses this data to make informed decisions and provide reports back to agencies on their child and staff demographics. She emphasized the importance of collecting data, analyzing it, and looking at trends to guide their work in supporting programs and building workforce capacity.

Ms. Roy discussed some of the data collection challenges Colorado has faced while implementing its new Universal Preschool Program, which is coming to the end of its first year. She’s focused on implementing quality standards across the state while balancing the diverse needs of a mixed-delivery system. Home-based programs have the least experience with assessment tools to enhance quality, center-based programs have some experience, and school-based programs have the most, with coaching and expectations around teacher qualifications.

“I'm constantly trying to ensure that there's continuity in expectations around quality, but also it is targeted universalism trying to figure out how the needs differ,” Ms. Roy said.

Developing the Early Childhood Workforce with Support and Sustainability

The fundamental goal of all of our work is helping kids do better: better child outcomes, developmental progress, family functioning, and family health and well-being. 

But the hardest thing to change in a system is human capital. You can change curriculum or teacher training, but giving teachers the skills, time, and money to do their best work is extremely difficult.

The panelists discussed how workforce challenges such as low pay, lack of benefits, and staff turnover require innovative solutions. They talked about tuition assistance, loan forgiveness, career pathways, and a focus on compensation to attract and retain qualified educators. 

Ms. Neville-Morgan discussed several workforce challenges and priorities in California, including collective bargaining with a new Family, Friend, and Neighbor childcare union to address conditions and pay. She said a rate and quality workgroup has been working for years to address teacher pay and salaries, not just stipends. Her team is looking at how to give more credit for professional development and time in the field when advancing toward degrees, and embedding coaching and other supports into degree programs to help educators progress in their careers.

Ms. Munro said that offering fair wages and compensation for educators is the number-one priority in San Diego because the low pay means teachers can’t stay in the field. She said many educators in the city are working in poverty, which is unacceptable. Funding from First 5 San Diego provides $8 million a year back to the communities by offering stipends because agencies can’t afford to increase wages. She emphasized the importance of communicating about opportunities like the Workforce Pathway Grant and Workforce Investment Program.

“We create communication forums for all of our early ed workforce to learn about these opportunities because it doesn't help that we have them if people don't know that they exist and that they can apply for them,” she said.

Dr. Roy talked about several initiatives in Colorado aimed at supporting the early childhood workforce, including pilot programs looking at living wages and benefits to support pay as educators advance their education, loan forgiveness programs that put money back in educators' pockets, and the governor's initiative to grant associate degrees to those with 60+ college credits to recognize their experience and education. A recent initiative to provide free introductory early childhood courses had much higher participation than expected, showing educator demand for learning opportunities. Overall, she emphasized the need to evaluate initiatives to determine what is most effective at both attracting educators into the field and retaining them long-term.

The Importance of Peer Learning

I love hosting these discussions because I’m passionate about peer learning.

They’re an effective way to share, in a short period of time, lessons and policy development approaches from people who have distilled research, local experience, and personal experience—all things that go into decision making.

These discussions help local leaders and practitioners understand the state policies and funding decisions that impact their work.

If just one state comes away from this discussion with an “aha” moment that prevents others from taking the wrong path, we've potentially saved tens of millions of dollars and improved the lives of many children. 

And, ultimately, improving kids’ lives is our shared goal.

About the panelists

Sarah Neville-Morgan

Appointed by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond in May 2019, Sarah Neville-Morgan serves as the Deputy Superintendent for the Opportunities for All Branch at the California Department of Education to support California’s 6 million students reach their educational potential. In this role, Neville-Morgan oversees a branch that includes five divisions: Early Education, Expanded Learning, Multilingual Support, Nutrition Services, and Special Education. She is a fellow in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Children and Family Fellowship. 

Her previous work includes being the Director of CDE’s Early Learning and Care Division, the Child Care and Development Fund State Administrator, Deputy Director of Program Management at First 5 California, Deputy Executive Director of the California Early Learning Council, an Academic Child Development Specialist at the UC Davis Center for Child and Family Studies. She also spent time in a child care resource and referral agency, worked as an infant/toddler and preschool teacher, and was a supplementary elementary and a long-term Kindergarten substitute teacher. 

Lisa Roy

Dr. Lisa Roy was appointed by Governor Jared Polis as the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood in May 2022. Dr. Roy previously served as the director of program development for the Buffett Early Childhood Institute and as the executive director of early childhood education for Denver Public Schools. She has volunteered and worked in non-profit and government roles supporting families with young children for over 30 years. Dr. Roy completed a doctorate in Leadership for Educational Equity with an emphasis on Executive Leadership from the University of Colorado at Denver. She also has a master’s in Counseling Psychology and Counselor Education with a focus on school counseling, also from CU Denver. She was honored by CU Denver with the 2023 School of Education & Human Development Distinguished Alumni Award. She also earned the 2022 Harmon Award for Early Childhood Mental Health from the Colorado Association for Infant Mental Health.

Eunice Munro

Eunice Munro has worked in the field of Early Childhood Education for 32 years. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Child Development and a master’s degree in Education. Among the many roles she has held are that of a preschool teacher, center director, program director, accreditation manager, coach, early education specialist, and senior program specialist. She is currently the Director of Early Education Programs and Services for the San Diego County Office of Education overseeing the implementation of the local Quality Counts California efforts.

Gerrit Westervelt

Dr. Westervelt currently serves as Senior Advisor for Partnership Development for Teachstone, where he helps lead efforts to expand Teachstone’s impact on state and local early childhood systems using CLASS. Previously, he served as co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Afina Learning, Director of Early Childhood Policy and Resource Development at WestEd, and Executive Director of the BUILD Initiative, a foundation-led project that supports states in creating comprehensive, high-quality early childhood systems. 

He has worked extensively with state early childhood and K-12 leaders, including many years at the Education Commission of the States, and has given numerous presentations on early childhood and K-12 education policy to diverse audiences and media outlets. He holds a PhD in educational leadership, a master’s degree in political science, and a bachelor’s degree in communications. He loves being a dad to four almost-grown children.