Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato recently joined local legislators and Trying Together to underscore how a growing teacher shortage – driven by low compensation – is closing child care and pre-k programs throughout the state. As a result, working families are experiencing long waitlists to get their child into early education programs.

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Innamorato joined county policymakers at the Allegheny County Courthouse on Thursday, June 13 to urge investments in early learning teacher recruitment and retention. Legislators highlighted the need for Pennsylvania to mirror efforts in other states that could help remedy a child care and pre-k teacher shortage as well as ensure that early learning supply can meet the demand from families.

“As someone who has advocated for early care and education for a long time, I know that families rely on child care and other early learning programs,” Innamorato said. “If the early learning sector is struggling, it will have negative implications for our working families. The relative scarcity of quality programs have made words like ‘expensive’ and ‘waitlist’ all too familiar for parents with small children.”

Innamorato highlighted findings from her office’s All-In Allegheny Initiative survey, in which 40% of 19,000 residents who responded cited access and affordable child care were a top priority. Additionally, 31% of responders prioritized increased pay for child care workers.

Innamorato said that the county would advocate to increase wages for child care and out-of-school time workers as well as expand access to short-term and crisis child care and invest and secure more resources in the Allegheny County Child Care Matters pilot program.

Low Compensation Driving Shortage

Low compensation for early child care and pre-k teachers, who are among the lowest paid positions in the state’s workforce, is the driving factor behind the teacher shortage. According to a March 2024 report from the General Assembly’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO), the average child care teacher in Pennsylvania earns $15.15 per hour.

In a recent Start Strong PA survey, Allegheny County child care programs reported 511 open positions, resulting in 103 closed classrooms. Had the programs been fully staffed, an additional 2,416 children could be served.

State Rep. La’Tasha Mayes (D-24th District), a new mother and co-chair of the state Assembly’s Black Maternal Health caucus, said child care and early learning is a broken business model.

“I know first-hand the difficult position that early learning providers find themselves (in),” she said. “They are challenged to keep pace with market wages, but they know that the families they serve can’t afford to pay what it would take to accomplish this.”

Danielle Daye, owner of the Learning & Education Child Development Center, said that educators are the foundation of programs like the one she operates. She added that they are not being supported on a statewide level.

“As we meet and exceed guidelines of quality care and education following Keystone STARS standards, the cost of operating a center of this magnitude far exceeds the income generated to sustain this level of programming and pay livable wages,” she said. “Owners and operators like myself rely on building relationships with our staff and providing positive work environments to attract and retain the very individuals that make our program what it is, and we are losing staff to fields able to provide in this economy.”

Parents Struggling to Find Quality Child Care

Heather Visensky, the community engagement manager for MomsWork, said she hears numerous stories from mothers about their struggles securing quality, reliable, and affordable child care.

“The bottom line is that high-quality and reliable child care is something that is critical to the modern-day workforce,” she said. “When parents stress about not having reliable, affordable and quality child care, their work suffers, their productivity plummets, and they have difficulty advancing in their careers. Most importantly, their overall parenting and mental health suffers being in a constant state of worry and uncertainty.” 

State Sen. Lindsey Williams (D-38th District) and Duolingo’s Head of Social Impact, Kendra Ross, also spoke at the event about the importance of high-quality early care and education.

All of the legislators and speakers in attendance noted that they support a recruitment and retention proposal that would provide monthly payments to providers of up to $440 per child care employee for initiatives such as hiring bonuses, monthly wage increases, benefit packages, or retention bonuses for staff staying for a certain length of time or for staff achieving certain credentials or degrees. Such a program would provide flexibility for providers to choose how to use these funds so that they can have the maximum impact in local communities. The effort would cost the state $284 million.