Description

High-quality early care and education (ECE) programs can produce high returns for children from low-income households and for society as a whole. And it’s also clear from research that the quality of child-teacher interactions and relationships is the most important factor in supporting positive child development outcomes. But what supports or threatens that relationship quality? Here, we focus on teacher turnover, which can disrupt the child-teacher relationship.

We find that turnover is higher in centers with lower wages and that it varies by center type. We also find that—within the category of centers that most consistently provide full-day care to young children—turnover is higher at centers that serve children whose families receive child care subsidies. These findings have implications for child care policy and program design.