Center for the Study of Child Care Employment

Through research, policy analysis and policy development, the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) focuses on issues relating to the several million teachers and providers currently working in center-based and home-based early care and education settings in the United States. CSCCE currently receives support for its work from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation, the National Institute for Early Education Research, and the Schumann Fund for New Jersey.

Our work explores such questions as:

  • Who comprises the early care and education (ECE) workforce in California, and in the U.S. as a whole? Who comprises its leadership?
  • How does California’s ECE workforce vary across the state in terms of professional preparation, race and ethnicity, language, and age?
  • What is the skill and knowledge needed in order to be an effective ECE teacher?
  • What are the best strategies for expanding and revamping higher education programming to ensure that a linguistically and culturally diverse ECE workforce can gain access to relevant opportunities for professional development?
  • How can public policy support building a skilled and stable ECE workforce?
  • What workforce policies and investments are necessary to create publicly funded preschool services for California’s four-year-old children?

CSCCE staff work closely with policy makers, practitioners, and labor and advocacy organizations on strategies to improve early care and education jobs in California and nationally. Director Marcy Whitebook was also instrumental in developing the California CARES model, a program now operating in most counties of the state, awarding stipends to early care and education teachers and providers who stay on the job and pursue professional development.

In 2006, CSCCE in partnership with the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network released the groundbreaking California Early Care and Education Workforce Study.

CSCCE staff have also been instrumental in developing a new Undergraduate Minor program in Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Childhood, housed in U.C. Berkeley's School of Education.