The California Early Care and Education (ECE) Workforce Study was scheduled to launch in March 2020 but has been delayed due to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on California’s ECE programs. We are regularly updating our COVID-19 resources and publications page, including with California specific data on the impact of this crisis on programs and their staff.

The study will be conducted by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at the University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with the California Child Care Resource & Referral Network (Network), and implemented by our research partner E&W Research. The study is funded by the California Department of Education: Early Learning & Care Division, First 5 California, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Comprehensive statewide ECE workforce data has not been collected since CSCCE’s 2006 California Early Care and Education Workforce Study. Fourteen years later, California lags behind most other states when it comes to the status of its workforce data, and the absence of an updated statewide survey or a statewide workforce registry creates numerous challenges to the implementation of evidence-based decision making. Additionally, changes in the political, economic, and cultural environment over the past 14 years underscore the urgency for current and ongoing data to accurately assess the progress and consequences of policy approaches and interventions.

The new study will collect essential information from child care center directors, center teaching staff, family child care providers, and transitional kindergarten teachers working with children birth to five across California. It will provide a statewide, regional, and to the extent possible, local picture of the ECE workforce, and contribute to an ongoing, comprehensive workforce data system. 

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