Action plan aims to raise public awareness of early childhood education and childcare – and how poorly paid the workers in these sectors are

A new action plan lays out three recommendations to improve early childhood education and child care infrastructure in central Illinois. The first step is to raise public awareness of issues that aren’t working.

The action plan comes from leaders of Birth to Five Illinois Region 17, which includes McLean, DeWitt, Livingston and Logan counties, and is a follow-up to a 2023 needs assessment that found improving wages and benefits for workers would be one of the best ways to improve the early childhood system in central Illinois.

The first recommended course of action is to make the public aware of how poorly paid kindergarten teachers are. The public may not be aware that the average annual salary in this field for this profession is about $27,000, said Carol Weisheit, regional council manager for Region 17.

“They’re living at poverty levels,” she said. “The people who are teaching our children are actually struggling themselves because they’re relying on SNAP, they’re having to get help from a lot of other programs because they’re not making enough to support their own families. The stress our providers are under is just unbelievable.”

To raise awareness, Birth to Five aims to collect salary data that reveals this discrepancy and also promote opportunities for early childhood educators to increase their salary.

Another recommendation is to launch a public education campaign about the importance of early childhood education and care and a well-trained workforce. Birth to Five leaders hope to accomplish this through social media posts, town hall meetings, media appearances and more.

Childcare is expensive and in some places it is difficult to find places at all. This forces many households to keep one parent at home, even if that parent would prefer to return to work.

Weisheit said it was especially important to involve the business community.

“There’s a huge disconnect between looking at early childhood as an economic problem. It is! If you don’t have people to take care of the children – whether you’re working first shift, second shift, or third shift – you’re not going to have a workforce. It’s not a separate problem, it’s a problem that affects all of us,” Weisheit said. “I just don’t think it’s at the forefront of people’s minds. They don’t see it as an economic problem, and it most certainly is.”

The third recommendation is to identify transportation barriers for families in rural areas. Birth to Five plans to involve county officials, state legislators and community partners.

“In all four districts that we have, they have access to the Show Bus. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help parents who are struggling when their children are in, say, a half-day program and they have to leave that program and go to, say, a home provider or another center because the first program was only half-day. Many parents can’t just leave work, take their child and say to their boss, ‘I’ll be back in 20 minutes. I have to pick up my child,'” Weisheit said.