Childcare workers deserve worthy wage

Fifty-hour work weeks; poverty level pay; children with special needs and difficult behaviors; parents with demands for high quality care; 100 diapers to change a week; new program standards to achieve; high exposure to illness; and rare health insurance benefits. Is there any doubt as to why there is a record high job turnover in Iowa’s child care providers?

The committed individuals who nurture and teach the nearly 70 percent of Iowa’s young children who are cared for outside of their home every day continue to be undervalued despite the importance of their work. We know that children begin to learn at birth, and that the quality of care they receive both at home and while their parents work plays a major role in their language development, math skills, behavior and general readiness for school. However, the grossly inadequate level of wages for child care staff — roughly $18,180 a year and typically less than that in Iowa — has led to difficulties in attracting and retaining high quality early childhood caretakers and educators.

In addition to low wages, only approximately one-third of child care workers have health insurance, and even fewer have pension benefits. As a result, the turnover of childcare providers is 30 percent a year; this high turnover rate interrupts consistent and stable relationships that children need to have with their caregivers in order to flourish and grow.

The Iowa Center and Family Child Care Provider Wage Study — completed in 2010 by Iowa Workforce Development in collaboration with Early Childhood Iowa, the Iowa Department of Education and Iowa State University — found the average hourly wage for a teacher in a licensed childcare program to be $9.96 per hour, barely more than $20,000 per year. Assistant teachers and childcare providers who provide care in their homes earn even less, between $8,000 and $18,000 per year for full-time work.

When compared to other occupations on the OES Wage Survey from the Iowa Workforce Development, only fast food cooks and cashiers typically earn less than your child’s teacher or caregiver. Even animal caretakers (non-farm) and parking lot attendants average more per hour than a childcare provider. Those responsible for the care of our most precious possessions, our babies and young children, are earning poverty-level wages that typically do not allow adequate support for their own families.

Barbara Merrill

Executive Director, Iowa Association for the Education of Young Children

Program Manager, T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® IOWA

And you call yourselves independent and alternative

I’m disappointed that Cityview calls themselves independent and alternative but publishes pro-censorship propaganda from Douglas Eschon (“Continuing the fight against rogue websites,” April 19).

Dave Weis

Des Moines

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