Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

A recent National Academies report recommended all early childhood teachers hold a bachelor’s degree (BA) as part of a broader strategy to improve care quality and learning outcomes (IoM & NRC, 2015). Mandating, incentivizing, and subsidizing BAs are increasingly popular policy levers. For example, the 2007 Head Start reauthorization required 50% of all lead teachers to hold bachelor’s degrees by 2013 (HHS, 2007). This requirement was met by 2011, and 74% of teachers held a BA in 2015, up from 23% in 1999 (Bassok, 2013; Mead & Kaplan, 2017).

There is surprisingly little evidence about the impact of this striking workforce transformation on child outcomes, and more generally, there is very little data on the effects of teachers with college degrees on children’s learning in early childhood settings. Previous correlational studies of the relationship between teacher education and learning outcomes yield mixed results (Burchinal, Howes, & Kontos, 2002; Early et al., 2007) and do not sufficiently explore or account for the non-random sorting of teachers with BA degrees across centers and contexts.

Leveraging data from the Family and Child Experiences Survey in Head Start (FACES), a nationally representative sample of Head Start participants, I provide new evidence about the sorting patterns of highly educated teachers and their implications for learning. Specifically, I ask:

1. To what extent are teachers with BAs different from less educated teachers with respect to their characteristics and work environments?
2. To what extent are centers employing more highly educated teachers systematically different from centers with less educated teachers?
3. Does accounting for these differences matter for our understanding of the relationship between teacher education and children’s learning?

FACES data include extensive information about Head Start children, families, teachers and centers. To account for differences across centers that may be associated with BA status, I employ center-level fixed effects when estimating the influence of teacher education on child learning. This study is the first to examine the role of teacher sorting in understanding the relationship between teacher education and early childhood outcomes.

Preliminary results from the 2006 and 2009 cohorts reveal that teachers with BAs are far more likely to be white (52% to 30%) and have fewer years of experience than less educated teachers (11 to 8). Further, teachers with BAs tend to work in centers that are led by more highly educated directors, employ more support staff and experience higher turnover rates. These differences are even larger in centers employing the highest and lowest proportions of BA teachers. Overall, I do find evidence of an association between teacher degrees and various child outcomes, even in models controlling for child, family and teacher characteristics. However, I find no evidence of these relationships in models that explore “within-center” relationships using fixed effects.

Recent policy focus on requiring degrees for early childhood teachers necessitates new evidence. This paper highlights implications of an increasingly common policy and points to the need to consider evidence-based alternatives for improving quality.