The U.S. continues to struggle with workforce shortages. A new report makes the case that addressing sufficient wages for out-of-school providers could be a part of the solution.
Parents and other caregivers need to feel confident that while they are at work, or elsewhere, the programs their children participate in will provide supportive and stimulating environments. To do this, OST programs need to attract and retain caring and qualified providers.
But wages may be a big barrier in this goal. Early childhood and afterschool professionals “do not earn wages that adequately reflect the skill requirements and complexity of their work,” according to the report. This imbalance almost certainly affects recruitment and retention of high-quality OST providers, and ultimately the quality of the care and the willingness of some parents to return to work.
The researchers note that nearly 81 percent of early and afterschool educators earn below the self-sufficiency standard, meaning the amount of money a single adult needs to meet their basic needs like housing, food, transportation, and healthcare. Many of them must rely on public assistance programs, which ultimately imposes high costs on the state and its taxpayers. The system of compensation for these workers is clearly broken and must be addressed to better support them and the children in their care.
Adequately recognizing and compensating the work of high-quality afterschool educators has long been an interest of the National Afterschool Association and the Afterschool Alliance. These two organizations are collaborating with The Wallace Foundation to advise on a new study, commissioned by the foundation and led by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to generate a detailed cost model for the afterschool and summer sectors. It’s being led by AIR researchers Tammy Kolbe and Jill Richter and draws on department of labor statistics wage schedules to analyze the true costs of high-quality afterschool.
“At the National Afterschool Association, we know that high-quality afterschool programs begin with a well-trained, supported, and fairly compensated workforce,” Gina Warner, CEO of the National Afterschool Association says. “This study is a critical step toward illuminating the true cost of quality and ensuring that afterschool professionals receive the recognition and investment they deserve for their essential contributions to children, families, and communities.”
Better understanding the cost of quality programming is essential to demonstrating to policymakers at all levels the need to more adequately fund the high-quality afterschool and summer programs that can help close the opportunity gap for young people.
Expected to be completed by 2026, the study will produce an online, interactive cost calculator that will allow afterschool program leaders and stakeholders to create customized cost estimates for their programs. The cost calculator will update and refine an existing, popular afterschool cost tool first created in 2015. The tool will articulate the true costs of high-quality programs, including adequate compensation for staff indexed to national labor schedules. This will allow users to identify gaps between what it costs to fund high-quality programs and the funding currently available.
“We’ve largely been flying in the dark, without solid data about the costs associated with supporting that kind of professional workforce,” says Jen Rinehart, senior vice president of strategy and programs at the Afterschool Alliance. “Better understanding the cost of quality programming is essential to demonstrating to policymakers at all levels the need to more adequately fund the high-quality afterschool and summer programs that can help close the opportunity gap for young people.”
The hope is that such distinctions between what could be or should be and what is will support more strategic decision making as well as data-driven discussions with funders about the true costs of running effective afterschool programs. It might also help get afterschool professionals paid what they’re worth.
