Tiaja Gundy was just 19 years old when she started working at Federal Hill House, an early learning center in Providence, Rhode Island. It was 2016, and back then, she lacked experience and expertise working with young children. She had no intention of staying in the field long-term.

But the work grew on her. Gundy started out as a “floater,” helping with infants, toddlers and preschoolers as needed. She found she loved being around children.

As years passed, Gundy gained experience, and she moved into an assistant teaching position in a toddler classroom. Yet she was still missing some of the critical knowledge about child development that would allow her to continue growing in her career.

In 2021, Gundy recalls, one of her supervisors pulled her aside, and said, “You’re very promising. I know you can go farther in this field,” then told her about an interesting opportunity.

Rhode Island was launching a registered apprenticeship program for early childhood educators. With her employer’s support, Gundy would get to continue her paid teaching job as she took college courses, pursuing a Child Development Associate (CDA), a nationally recognized credential for those who work in early care and education settings. It would set her up to one day become a lead teacher. The apprenticeship would come with guaranteed wage increases, too.

The thought of balancing both work and school again was daunting, Gundy admits, but she was encouraged by her colleagues and excited to deepen her understanding of early childhood education. She decided to apply.

For decades, apprenticeship has been a popular career pathway for occupations such as electricians, plumbers and carpenters. In early care and education, however, there was limited uptake of the model.

Recently, that has changed — and fast. A decade ago, only a handful of states had registered apprenticeship programs in early childhood education. Five years ago, that had risen to about a dozen. As of last year, 35 states had an apprenticeship program for child care and early childhood education, and another seven states were developing them, according to a report published by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC).

In 2021, the last year for which there is available data, early childhood education was one of the five fastest-growing occupations for apprenticeship, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

“There’s just been an explosion,” says Linda Smith, who authored the BPC’s apprenticeship report last summer and has since joined the Buffett Early Childhood Institute as director of policy. “It is happening all over this country.”

Explaining the ‘Explosion’

Smith sees at least two reasons for the emergence and rapid growth of this model in early childhood education.

The first is that more federal funding has become available in recent years. At least 10 states are using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars to build or expand their child care apprenticeship programs, and 13 are using Preschool Development Grant Birth Through Five funds. As many as 15 states are using money from the Child Care and Development Fund, which received a $15 billion boost under ARPA.

The second reason is that there is increased awareness of how essential and how endangered the early care and education sector is.

“We’re in a tough spot right now with child care in this country,” Smith says soberly. “We have a workforce problem on our hands. Everyone is crying for child care workers. They can’t fill jobs. Wages are low. Child care programs can’t compete with big box stores, fast food, you name it.”

Broad recognition of that reality, Smith says, made policymakers and other leaders more willing to invest in the early education workforce.

It also helps, she adds, that people understand what apprenticeships are. It’s a well-established model that they can visualize and — importantly — measure.

Randi Wolfe, founder and executive director of Early Care and Education Pathways to Success (ECEPTS), an organization that provides training and technical assistance to get programs registered as apprenticeships, believes this model is proliferating in early care and education because it’s a natural fit for the field’s workforce development needs.

The early care and education workforce, Wolfe points out, is mostly made up of low-income women, and they are disproportionately women of color, immigrants, non-native English speakers and first-generation college students.

“Asking those people to do an internship that is unpaid creates unintended inequity,” Wolfe says. “From day one, an apprentice is a W-2 employee. There is no such thing as an unpaid apprentice.”

It works well for both educators and early learning programs, she adds. Early childhood educators who can’t afford to miss out on wages while they earn a degree get to do both at the same time — and at little or no cost. They get raises throughout the apprenticeship and, in many cases, are eligible for a promotion once they complete it.

Their employers, meanwhile, end up with highly skilled teachers who, after investing significant time and energy into their careers, are more likely to remain in the field.

“They’re the best qualified candidate,” Wolfe says of apprentices. “You’ve trained them. You’ve grown them.”

For early learning programs, better-qualified teachers can also help them move up the scale on their state’s quality rating system. Higher quality ratings are tied to higher subsidy reimbursement rates in many states. In short, apprentices help a program’s bottom line.

All of these outcomes support children and families, who benefit greatly from having teachers who provide high-quality, research-backed care and education.

The Nuts and Bolts of Apprenticeships

To be considered a “registered” apprenticeship, programs must meet a number of criteria and get approval from the U.S. Department of Labor or a state apprenticeship agency. All registered apprenticeships have a sponsor, such as a community-based organization, a workforce intermediary or a business, that manages program operations. Registered apprenticeship programs have a few other key ingredients:

• Employers must partner with apprentices, allowing them to learn while they earn. In early care and education, the employers are early learning programs.
• Apprentices must receive on-the-job training with opportunities to practice their new skills in context. Many programs pair apprentices with a mentor to fulfill this goal.
• Apprentices must receive instruction related to their industry. In early care and education, that happens in a classroom setting, often at a community college but at four-year institutions too. Employers are expected to provide support and flexibility so apprentices can attend classes and complete coursework.
• Apprentices are guaranteed incremental wage increases as their knowledge and skills grow. This is a huge win for early educators, who have some of the lowest wages in the country, but also a point of tension for programs, which are seldom in a financial position to pay staff more.
• Apprentices must receive a credential. In early education, that is usually a CDA or an associate degree, and sometimes a bachelor’s degree.

Despite the many criteria, there is still some flexibility for individual apprenticeship programs to put their own spin on the model.

In Rhode Island, where Gundy apprenticed, the program is exclusively for infant and toddler teachers, often the “least educated and least compensated” faction of the early childhood workforce, says Lisa Hildebrand, executive director of the Rhode Island Association for the Education of Young Children, which helped develop and implement the program, in partnership with a state agency, and now manages it.

There is a notion in the field, Hildebrand says, that if you start out as an infant or toddler teacher, you can get more training and education and then “move up” to teaching preschool.

“It’s almost like a promotion,” she says, because preschool teachers typically earn more money and command more respect.

But that dynamic leads to the high turnover of infant and toddler teachers, which, given the challenges many programs already face with hiring and retention, and the legal requirements around staff-to-child ratios, can result in classroom closures and reduced slots for the youngest children. It certainly has in Rhode Island.

“The waiting list for infants and toddlers is absolutely astronomical,” Hildebrand says, acknowledging that’s true outside of Rhode Island too. “It is reaching critical levels at this point.”

With additional funding on the way, the apprenticeship may soon expand to preschool teachers, among whom there is ample interest, Hildebrand notes. But right now, Rhode Island is focused on retaining the teachers who are in the highest demand.

Minnesota’s registered apprenticeship program, which launched in summer 2023, includes a strong mentorship component. Each apprentice is paired with a mentor, often a colleague at the program where they work, says Erin Young, who manages the program for Child Care Aware of Minnesota.

“That’s the secret sauce,” says Young. “That’s the magic.”

Mentors, who receive 24 hours of free training, guide apprentices through questions and topics ranging from children’s behavioral challenges, to curriculum implementation, to family engagement. That can be especially helpful for apprentices who are still quite new to the field of early childhood education, Young explains.

“It’s nice to have someone say, ‘It’s OK.’ ‘Try this.’ ‘Start here,’” Young says. “Having a mentor at the beginning of my early childhood career would’ve been a huge help.”

The mentorship made an impression on Katelyn Sarkar, an apprentice who graduated with her bachelor’s degree in early childhood education leadership in June.

Sarkar’s mentor would observe her in her classroom at a Head Start program in Rochester, Minnesota, then offer feedback and suggest strategies for her to try. “As an early childhood educator, I grew so much more in my skills because of that,” Sarkar shares.

Next up, Young is developing an apprenticeship model for licensed family child care providers, a group that is currently left out of most registered apprenticeship programs, despite being the “dominant form of care in rural Minnesota,” Young says, and an option preferred by many families.

“If it gets approved, that’s a really big win,” Young notes. “It opens the door for other states to do it.”

No Such Thing as a Silver Bullet

Although many early childhood advocates view the apprenticeship model as a promising strategy for workforce retention and improvement, they’re also quick to caution against overweighting its potential.

“In early childhood, we tend to [want] a single solution to a complex problem. That does not work. The problems of child care in this country are very complicated,” says Smith of the Buffett Early Childhood Institute. “Apprenticeships are never going to be the only answer.”

The model, while exciting, has its limitations, Smith adds.

Right now, apprenticeship cohorts tend to be quite small, with around five to 25 early childhood educators enrolled. Rhode Island graduated 16 apprentices in its pilot cohort and has another 17 enrolled now. Minnesota had 19 apprentices enrolled as of June.

That’s because apprenticeship programs are demanding, resource-intensive and very costly.

In Minnesota, for example, where early childhood apprenticeship costs fall on the high end, Young budgets $20,000 to $24,000 per apprentice per year. Apprenticeships there run for at least two years, she says.

That estimate includes covering 85 percent of the cost of college tuition and books, as well as giving apprentices an annual $2,000 stipend to help with transportation, internet access and their remaining 10 percent of tuition costs, and awarding them a small bonus at the end of their apprenticeship year.

It also includes an annual $5,000 stipend to employers to offset the costs of hosting an apprentice. In Minnesota, employers chip in the final 5 percent of tuition costs, and they are expected to give apprentices a $1 an hour raise at the end of each year, which typically works out to be about $2,000 a year, Young says. It can be hard for employers to budget for that right away, she notes. Mentors also receive a $3,500 annual stipend.

It’s expensive, to be sure, but Minnesota recently received $5 million from the state earmarked specifically for apprenticeships, Young says.

“There’s not going to be one silver bullet,” Young acknowledges, “but professionalizing the field, reducing turnover and increasing compensation is going to have to happen, and I am hoping the data will show this is one positive strategy that moves the needle on that.”

Now 27 and finished with her apprenticeship, Gundy has received her CDA and been promoted to lead teacher in her toddler classroom. She’s also pursuing her bachelor’s degree in early childhood education.

“It was nice to get the science behind what I did,” Gundy shares about her apprenticeship experience. “It answered ‘why’ — why are we doing it this way, why is play important. … It helped me be an overall better teacher.”