Background

Early childhood teachers play a key role in creating positive teacher-child relationships, which are shown to promote child outcomes. However, turnover rates of early childhood teachers are strikingly high, which may compromise the quality of teacher-child relationships. Lack of early childhood education program policies (i.e., wage, benefits, and teacher support) may contribute to such high turnover rates.

Objective

This study examined whether the availability of early childhood program policies is related to program-level lead and assistant teacher turnover rates. We hypothesized that turnover rates would be higher in programs that do not offer these policies.

Methods

Participants were 354 early childhood providers working in center-based programs. Data came from the Year 3 Child Care provider Survey, part of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study. Independent t-tests were used to compare the program-level lead and assistant teacher turnover rates in programs that do versus do not provide wage, benefits, and teacher support policies.

Results

Results showed that teacher turnover rates were generally higher in programs where policies were not available. While lead teachers’ turnover rates were significantly higher in programs where only a few wage and benefit policies were not available, assistant teachers’ turnover rates were significantly higher in programs that did not offer many more wage and benefit policies and some teacher support policies.

Conclusions

Providing wage, benefit, and teacher support policies in the early childhood programs may help programs retain teachers. Further examination of the availability and usability of early childhood education program policies and how they may motivate teachers to stay or leave the program is needed.

中文翻译：

---

他们为什么要离开？了解幼儿计划政策与教师流失率之间的关联

背景

幼儿教师在建立积极的师生关系方面发挥着关键作用，这被证明可以促进儿童的学习成果。然而，幼儿教师的流动率非常高，这可能会影响师生关系的质量。缺乏幼儿教育计划政策（即工资、福利和教师支持）可能导致如此高的流动率。

客观的

本研究检验了幼儿计划政策的可用性是否与计划级别的领导和助理教师流失率有关。我们假设不提供这些政策的项目的离职率会更高。

方法

参与者是在以中心为基础的项目中工作的 354 名幼儿提供者。数据来自 3 年级托儿服务提供者调查，该调查是脆弱家庭和儿童福利研究的一部分。独立 t 检验用于比较提供与不提供工资、福利和教师支持政策的项目中项目级主管和助理教师的流动率。

结果

结果表明，在没有政策的项目中，教师流失率普遍较高。虽然在只有少数工资和福利政策不可用的项目中，首席教师的流失率明显更高，但在没有提供更多工资和福利政策以及一些教师支持政策的项目中，助理教师的流失率明显更高。

结论

在幼儿项目中提供工资、福利和教师支持政策可能有助于项目留住教师。需要进一步检查幼儿教育计划政策的可用性和可用性，以及它们如何激励教师留下或离开该计划。