A Moment with Dr. Moore

Earning While Learning: Apprenticeships and the CDA 

What’s old is new again when it comes to early learning pathways to success. Apprenticeships go back hundreds of years as a learning arrangement between master craftsmen and young men who were starting out in a field. Now apprenticeships for early childhood teachers are appearing across the country. “There’s just been an explosion,” said Linda Smith, director of policy at the Buffett Early Childhood Institute and a speaker at the Council’s recent Early Educators Leadership Conference (EELC). And the data bears Smith out. Early childhood education was among the five fastest-growing occupations in terms of apprenticeship, according to the most recent report from the U.S. Department of Labor.

And this is a recent development in our field. For years, only a handful of states, including California, Delaware and Pennsylvania, had apprenticeships for the child care workforce. But by 2018, apprenticeship programs had developed in over a dozen states, including Colorado, Montana and Virginia. In 2020, 35 states had regional or statewide child care registered apprenticeships, and federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021-2022 has encouraged the ongoing spread of apprenticeships in the early learning field. As of last year, seven more states were poised to offer apprenticeship programs and existing programs were expanding their reach.

The ongoing rise of apprenticeships for educators addresses both present issues and past injustices in the early learning field. Working families have a pressing need for child care, especially since the COVID pandemic led many providers to close their doors. COVID also made the public aware that child care workers are essential and deserve more avenues to grow in their careers, a chance they’ve lacked for too long. Social and economic inequities have made it hard for members of the early childhood workforce—many of them immigrants and low-income women of color—to succeed in gaining job training and higher education. But apprenticeships can level some of the roadblocks that educators face, as EELC attendees heard from Sandra Moore, chief program officer at Early Care & Education Pathways to Success (ECEPTS), a pioneer in apprenticeships for our field.

I know their work well since I attended the third annual ECEPTS National Conference on ECE Apprenticeship last May in Sacramento. The conference included several sessions on apprenticeships that support educators in earning a CDA® and hearing them strengthened my conviction that apprenticeship programs and the CDA are in sync. Like CDA programs, apprenticeship programs offer a mix of hands-on training, coaching and classroom instruction that makes sure educators have the right skills to serve children. And what better way to prepare our early childhood teachers than through the CDA, a national credential based on standards that guarantee competence in the early learning field.

The CDA is also a natural fit for apprenticeship programs since CDA programs are flexible, allowing teachers to take coursework both in person and online. As a result, 70 percent of apprenticeship programs nationwide offer the CDA to attract educators who can ease the child care shortage. And one expanding apprenticeship program is in West Michigan where four out of five employers say finding child care is a high roadblock to recruiting and retaining staff. To address the issue, West Michigan Works! (WMW) is ramping up its child care apprenticeship program this month with a second round of state grants.

“Our focus is on connecting child care employers and training providers to create an apprenticeship program in early childhood education,” said Kelly Tang, project manager for WMW. “We aim to bring in and register apprentices to address workforce needs,” as she explained. WMW is combining on-the-job experience with credentialing so apprentices can move into higher-paying roles over time. As CDA holders, educators can rise from assistant teachers to lead teachers, continue with their education and then transition to roles in elementary education or child care center management if they wish. And the educators can prepare for the future while they continue to hold their current jobs.

The West Michigan program, like other apprenticeship programs, follows an earn-while-you-learn model, so participants can develop as they work. Each is paired with a mentor and attends courses, a structure designed to give apprentices a real-life view of the field and allow them to see if it’s the right fit. Tang also hopes the apprenticeship program can address more than current staffing needs. “Our apprenticeship program improves retention because employees earn credentials like a CDA while being paid,” Tang said. She also explained that creating new career pathways will provide West Michigan with a continuous pipeline of qualified, committed educators. WMW’s goal is to have apprentices someday mentor the next generation, creating a cycle of camaraderie, skill growth and knowledge-sharing.

The personal bonds between mentors and apprentices make a difference, according to Brenda Schramm, the director of apprenticeships at Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children. “We thought about who our mentors are, where they are on the career ladder, where they might be heading, and what kind of things would be useful to them now, in addition to how that will strengthen relationships with the apprentices they’ll support. It’s always about bridging knowledge and relationships between the mentor and apprentice.”

The bond provides benefits to both apprentices and mentors, according to a survey that Bank Street College in New York conducted last year. “I have had the opportunity to mentor several apprentices and see them complete credentials and degrees that they worked hard to obtain,” said a mentor who responded to the survey. “I have been able to watch apprentices grow both professionally and personally and advance in the field. I love being a mentor.” And that’s because of the interaction the role provides, as an apprentice pointed out. “Whether you’re a mentor, coach or apprentice, everyone needs advice and resources, and to just talk and converse. As professionals we should be able to share ideas with each other to build up our practices so that we can improve each child’s early education experience. Collaborating and sharing what we each know brings new pieces to the puzzle others might be missing. And this is what apprenticeship does,” she said in response to the Bank Street survey.

Last year, Bank Street College was among the organizations that wrote a letter urging Congress to pass the Early Educators Apprenticeship Act, which would establish a three-year grant for states to support a registered apprenticeship program leading to credentials and degrees. Other signatories to the letter included the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Child Care Aware of America, the National Head Start Association, the Bipartisan Policy Center—and the Council for Professional Recognition. We joined these leading child care and advocacy groups in making the case that apprenticeships provide an answer to the ongoing child care shortage.

“As we strive to expand access to high-quality care for children nationwide, we must confront barriers to ensuring classrooms across the country have well-qualified educators,” the letter pointed out. “We must also ensure providers are able to retain a stable, quality workforce, and apprenticeships do this by helping move forward the skills and compensation of the early childhood workforce.”

So, apprenticeships build equity by responding to the needs of our diverse early childhood teachers, wherever they might be in their careers. Apprenticeship programs that provide CDA training have a particular value since the CDA counts for college credit in many states. This provides an entry into higher education and helps seasoned early childhood teachers find new roads to success. Young folks who are searching for their path in life can also benefit from apprenticeship programs, and high school apprenticeships, based on the CDA, have potential for expanding the pipeline of new educators we need.

The apprenticeship model can build the future of our field, though it’s rooted in centuries-old tradition. And the promise that it holds for our educators and children makes me think of an old African saying. We should retrieve things of value from our knowledge of the past, according to Sankofa, a concept that the Akhan people of Ghana have long embraced. And we should continue to embrace the apprenticeship model in our profession, as a coach pointed out in the Bank Street Survey.

“I hope that apprenticeship continues to expand and provide critical educational pathways at all levels for the entire early learning field to continue to attract and retain professionals. When I say all levels, I mean apprenticeship programs for seasoned and new-to-the field educators to obtain credentials. I also look forward to more opportunities to build mentor educators,” leading to a virtuous cycle for our profession and those we serve. When we give our early childhood teachers more chances to earn and learn, they’re more prepared to help children learn, too.