How Much Do Early Educators Make? Hint: It’s Not Enough

[0:00]  they understand that building that relationship and making that child's physical needs be met making sure they're not hungry that they feel safe and secure that they have a a safe place to stay that they actually touch the child and actually make eye contact with that child at an early age before the child's able to speak themselves that child reads that and knows that that person cares and it builds that self accountability it builds that self-sufficiency of the child it's a parallel process what the teacher is doing the child is developing along at the same um rate or even faster but that teacher can make that Difference by taking care of those physical needs by

[0:47]  take making that child feel secure and safe by showing them that you care about them and that you love them and you are building that social relationship what that does is that ins that instills a a component of of self-awareness and self-confidence in that child and then that child is able to open up and begin to take in soak in all of that sun all of that rain and grow and become This Magnificent individual that you know if they don't do those things they don't have that opportunity I've been talking to so many leaders

[1:44]  about the importance right of early childhood development and education something that stuck with me since our last conversation Dr snugs was you said back in the day we thought that early childhood for the first for the baby I want to say you said like the first 2,000 days we had just a little ball right of human but we are literally impacting that child in so many different ways that it's so difficult for us to even be able to comprehend how important those early childhood development opportunities are and I thought that that was just something that was so important um since our last conversation why is this work so important for you Dr snugs well I have been um in this field now for over 30 years and it is the mo one of the most important things I've ever done um I think for me it's started at a very young age I had a grandfather

[2:32]  that was very dear to me that passed away with cancer when I was 5 years old and I deter I was determined that I was going to go into the medical field and help um other folks so that they could have their grandfathers for longer and they could instill all that love and knowledge into you and um so I prepared myself appropriately I went through um College um graduated you know with very high honors um prepared myself to go to med school and didn't get in um and I was very very disappointed um but I remember something that my adviser told me um he told me that um when I became a professional a doctor or whatever that I was going to be one of those that

[3:22]  invested in other people um he told me that um typically doctors the the top 10% of the class are the ones that actually teach the middle uh of the class are those that actually do research and the bottom of the class are the ones that practice well of course I didn't want to be at the bottom of the class so I wanted to be the one that could teach others and be engaged with other folks and so that I think that's exactly what happened and I think there was a you know a higher power that knew better um when I didn't get into med school I immediately uh went back to um a master's program and really emphasized the understanding of Child Development and child psychology and so it in one way it was a closed door but in another

[4:11]  way it really opened up my passion and so I I finished my Master's and then began working and very soon I was able to um actually um secure a job as a instructor at a at a high institution of higher ed and at that moment I knew that this was where I needed to be because I loved being in front of a classroom I loved instilling knowledge in others I was able to share my passion and Not only was I able to understand the biological um benefits for young children I was also able to understand the psychological benefits for young children I I was able to really understand the data behind it and really brain research at an early age when other people weren't even talking about

[4:58]  that and I also knew that I had a way with young children and so I knew that I wanted to do something that would make sure that they had um ample opportunity and that they would reach their optimal potential so um like I said I went back I ended up getting my doctorate in um educational leadership worked at the college but also made my way to a state level position that oversaw all the programs in North Carolina and then actually became a chief academic officer and really really wanted to make a difference um for students and so began to be able to help people in a in a way that I never dreamed of I was able to move um systemic barriers so people

[5:46]  could have access to higher education and and get the excitement that I had and and the understanding of how to really impact a child in a family's life you know who Matthew mccon is of course one of my heroes watch one of my heroes too um all right all right all right you know he was he was talking on a podcast yesterday and I thought this was fundamental he said you know one of the advantages that I have now in being a little bit older is I recognize that life in itself seems to be very mathematic and very coincidental for our destiny and when you're in the middle of things it seems like I couldn't understand why maybe I didn't get into medical school I don't understand why this hardship happened to me I'm not

[6:34]  sure why XYZ occurred but when you zoom out you see that everything happens for a reason when you didn't get into medical school what were some of those conversations that you were having with yourself about kind of pivoting into a different space I'm really interested in kind of how your heart reacted in that moment or what kind of conversations you were having with your family or with yourself about a path that you thought was going to be there but then you had to Pivot and go in a different direction that's a really good question you know um immediately I was devastated you know I everyone told me I would be able to go wherever I wanted and so the first thing I did is I went back to um the universities where I applied and I had conversations with the with the team I wanted to know what could I do to better myself and those conversations

[7:22]  themselves were enlightening um I'll never forget going into um the room and sitting down and talking to um it was three men um all white men um all 80 plus years of age with their little bow ties on and they sat there for about 40 minutes looking at my application and I remember them looking up to me and saying you we had some concerns because you did not come from a typical upper middle class family who had produced do doors wow I knew right then and there that um this was not the field for me and they tried to uh give me some

[8:11]  resources they told me to go to one of the programs that had been implemented for folks that weren't quite there uh weren't quite ready for this um you know difficult choice of a career and I remember standing up and looking at each one of them and telling them thank you so much for um instilling in me that this is not what I want to do because I prepared myself I know I would make a very successful doctor I know that I would have been a great pediatrician because that was my love but you know what I'm going to do something that's even more powerful I'm going to influence policy and I'm going to make systemic changes that will um be better for families in the long run and I'm

[9:01]  going to ensure that every child whoever sits at this table again anybody who wants to go will have an opportunity because we can find alternative ways for people to get there so I think they helped me to feel that void and I'm also a very competitive person so when I'm told no it just makes me a little bit um more energized a little bit more um excited to to show and prove somebody wrong and so I didn't stay depressed very long um I turned it around and within a month I was enrolled in a master's degree program and and pursuing a a different avenue of how to get there what an amazing way to basically tell them

[9:47]  to a southern phrase that I learned when I was living in South Carolina was bless your heart right exactly exactly a very polite way to tell them to bless well I have a button on my desk and it says bless your heart so exactly I I use that phrase all of the time oh my goodness so we one thing that I think is really interesting is thinking about how you can impact a space on a larger scale right systemic change why did you start thinking about systemic change rather than just like the hand-to-hand combat of you know being a provider that's a really interesting perspective at especially at a young age to realize the power that you had to have such influence I think for me it was um that I always always knew I wanted to do something big I wanted to be um have um my hand in something that really made a

[10:38]  difference and you know as as as I was planning to be a pediatrician I wanted to go back to a rural area of the state I wanted to be like Doc Hollywood people pay me uh with pigs or or the garden Harvest that they had or whatever because it wasn't about the money it was about who and what I was doing and it and it had to mean something to me and so I think from that early age I just decided that there's other ways to do it there's other ways to get there and so when I and I remembered what people had told me that I was very good I had grandparents um parents who told me I could do anything I wanted to do so I

[11:25]  give a lot of credit to folks that built me up and told me was important that I was special and that I could do whatever I wanted to do and you know that made me begin to think that even though I may not have come from that typical upper middle class family I came from a family that had something better a family that had love a family that had that that had um a strong work ethic and a family that had the belief in me and it was all about those relationships and the relationships that I'd build along the way with mentors and friends and people that that told me that I could do it and so those relationships were what I wanted to do is to build those relationships and help other folks so that really helped me to see that maybe

[12:14]  there's a better way and maybe there's a way that you can impact people at a much greater level um than just being a provider now I did those steps along the way um when I first started teaching at the local Community College I um ran the onsite Childcare Center there um and I did that for eight years and I loved it um and I was able to use it as a lab school as a teaching um mechanism for my students so they could learn right then and there what they're doing right and how they could improve their skills so I did do some of that and I have that hands-on experience and that's something that I also learned along the way is that I think it's extremely important that you keep your foot and um hands

[13:03]  connected to the people that you're trying to make a difference for and making sure that their voices are heard that the family's voices are heard because I think too many times we have folks that move up the chain and they're in levels of power and position but they've forgotten or they've never been there on the ground to see those um struggles that families face or the or the struggles that children face and so I've always throughout my career as I have moved into higher level positions always kept myself grounded and kept my hands and feet um on the ground to make sure I didn't lose that connection with the folks that I was trying to make a difference for I mean I think that that's so fundamental if you lose

[13:51]  connection to the population of people who you're serving you truly don't understand what you're actually creating in the policies that you're influencing to actually make a difference in their lives I had a um a CEO of a a food bank down in Georgia on the podcast and we were talking about this exact topic he said you know a lot of leaders who we see Ascend in organizations often come from the upper middle class I would say socioeconomic space very similar to what you got criticized for not being a part of and when they come into these organizations or they try and influence policy they're coming from a space in a lens where they truly don't understand the challenges of the people who they're trying to impact and it's just so So Beautiful to hear that you've always been incredibly intentional about staying grounded so you can have the biggest impact and recognize the challenges that you're actually trying to fight instead of trying to create a

[14:37]  solution in a vacuum which I feel like is so powerful definitely I mean that is one thing that I wanted to stay true to and it's something that I have instilled in my own children um my daughters are both very successful and they have moved up in uh careers in um science and um math career years one is a a biomedical engineer and the other is a a pediatric physical therapist both have graduate degrees but they didn't get an option I told them this was how you make the difference and it's it's really exciting to me that they are telling me now as young adults that you know those they are so thankful for the um values that we instilled my my husband and I instilled in them and that they are hard

[15:25]  workers they don't understand why people don't aren't invested in their work while they don't work as hard as they do um but both of them are looking into roles of of higher leadership and so I know that they have those feelings and I know we've instilled those um same values in them as well I want to get a little bit more tactical in the conversation so Dr snugs now starts recognizing that she has to make a difference on a larger scale what are the first lwh hanging fruit opportunities that you see out there as an opportunity for you to start impacting policy and impacting change what are some of the things that you start targeting first so there are so many challenges in the field of early care and education um and those challenges have been longstanding I've been in this field for

[16:13]  over 30 years and unfortunately um many of the things that we saw early in my career are still the same issues that we're dealing with today um I work for a a small nonprofit in the triangle region of North Carolina and we uh base our initiatives and our Innovations on data and so one of the first things we did uh we've been in existence for 50 years but one of the first things they did is they did a Work Force study of the Early Childhood field and that was in the late 1980s and what they found in that Workforce study was that there were three huge huge issues in the field of early childhood one was the um salaries of the workforce they

[17:03]  were extremely low two was that it was an undereducated Workforce and the third thing was that um there was high turnover not surprising for the type of work that was being done and those same challenges are the same three things that we're still dealing with today and so if you look at it on a broader scale what I would say to me as I have beg to look in and really think about what those uh challenges are um one is the severe underfunding of the early care and education field and when we talk about early care and education typically we talk about um prenatal up to third grade

[17:53]  um and it is this just the amount of funding that's invested in the state that I work in or in any place in the country in the United States it is so minimal in comparison to the K12 system or even the higher education system um in North Carolina for example we have had um years of underfunding years of underfunding in two we have not seen any type of increase we have seen a steady um amount of funding in early childhood in North Carolina since 2011 but we have seen dramatic increases in

[18:42]  k12 and higher education the funding in early childhood has been under it's been in the millions but under a billion dollars for all of those years higher ed has seen a 35% increase over $2 billion over that same time span and K12 education has seen a 42% increase almost $5 billion more if we look at it just on a dollar amount early childhood education gets a couple of cents per every dollar that the other levels of Education get now while I am an educator I've been in the higher ed I believe every level of of education is underfunded The Early Childhood area is is considerably

[19:32]  underfunded so that is such a huge um challenge that we're faced with and what makes it even more frustrating is it receives this minimal amount of funding but research has shown that it is the most crucial time in a person's life more development occurs in those first 2,000 days and then likewise in those first five years than any other time in a in a person's life and we're not investing in it where we can make the biggest difference and then the investment that we make can have long-term effects so that is a huge component another ex uh extreme Challenge is we forget about what kind

[20:22]  of impact this has on the children themselves but also on the families um you know that lack of funding impacts those long-term um outcomes for example we know for a fact that if children if they are in high quality early care and education it impacts their third grade reading and math scores we know that those scores are considerably higher at third grade but they're also higher even at um high school and and on we know that graduation rates are are higher we know that um those children are less likely to commit crimes or become incarcerated they're less likely to drop out of high school higher graduation

[21:10]  rates we also know for families it gives them an opportunity to pursue careers to make higher wages so that they can then in turn further invest in their families and take care of their children and we know that it has an impact on the state the econom iic Vitality of the state and then there's all of these as you start to try to work through these issues there's all these legislative and systemic barriers policy makers have overlooked early childhood education for years and I think there's some reasons for that I think it goes back to some of the things that I have experienced even in my own life and I think it's a reason that I stay so passionate about changing

[21:57]  those systemic barriers but one of the things that I hear on a regular basis is that parents should be in charge of their children and they should be educating them and we don't need to worry about um early care and education that's a parents job um they're also saying it's babysitting nothing is happening during those years so it doesn't matter uh and there's no reason to invest in that time frame and then there is unfortunately still embedded in our country today systemic racism because over um 60% of the folks that make up this field the teachers in this field are black and brown women so it's sexis it's systemic sexism and racism at its best first of

[22:47]  all the the passion in which you speak about with this topic is incredibly inspiring because knowing that there are people who are influencing policy that have such a strong feeling for why these things are important Dr Christie is incredibly important um something that you mentioned there started making me go down like an analogy in my mind which is which is more important to plant a seed in poor soil expect it to grow and then pour a ton of money and water on it at the end of its harvesting process to say this is going to solve the problem or do we invest into the soil which is the foundation in the early stages of helping a crop grow to become a more harvestable crop I feel like we're missing the early stages and we'll use our children as crops here by not

[23:34]  investing into the soil but expecting to dump resources into later harvesting process and higher education in K through 12 which don't really have an impact it's like we're missing the entire beginning of the race to only shove resources at the end and say everything's okay now it seems like a completely backwards way of approaching this that's exactly the way I see it you know there's there's a parable that we all have heard and it's exactly what you said it depends on where you plant those seeds if you put those seeds on Rocky ground they might grow for a little while but they're going to get strangled out and move and the way I see that is as a child who um maybe has had trauma in their life and it gets strangled out and there's not the investment in that early years that that Foundation that they need um and and likewise just like

[24:23]  you've said if we would take the time to cultivate the soil to invest into teachers that are working with these children and and they're in partnership with families no one's saying we should leave the families out of the picture the families have to be part of the picture but it's in partnership with those families you're working together the teachers can help the families to understand how to deliver because none of us are prepared to be a parent I wasn't prepared to be a parent um my own daughter just had a baby and she's like I don't know what I'm doing we learn it's it's about trial and era but when we have teachers that are educated and they understand that child what kind of development is taking place they understand that building that

[25:10]  relationship and making that child's physical needs be met making sure they're not hungry that they feel safe and secure that they have a a safe place to stay that they actually touch the child and actually make eye contact with that child at an early age age before the child's able to speak themselves that child reads that and knows that that person cares and it builds that self accountability it builds that self-sufficiency of the child it's a parallel process what the teacher is doing the child is developing along at the same um rate or even faster but that teacher can make that Difference by taking care of those physical needs by take making that child feel secure and

[25:58]  safe by showing them that you care about them and that you love them and you are building that social relationship what that does is that instills that instills a a component of of self-awareness and self-confidence in that child and then that child is able to open up and begin to take in soak in all of that sun all of that rain and grow and become this magnif ient individual that you know if they don't do those things they don't have that opportunity our brains are like soil there's Pathways and and we have to connect those neurons as as young children they're seeing it all for

[26:45]  the first time and they're making those connections and the adults in their lives the the family members the the teachers they're making those connections for those children and and then the more those connections happen over and over again those Pathways get burnt into our brains and they're and they make sense and they stay and it and our whole brain begins to develop and it even goes to this frontal cortex where all of the learning takes place but if we are if if children are in environments where there's constant stress where there's not those um where they don't feel safe they're not loved um and not saying families don't do that but there's so many challenges facing families today that they need support

[27:34]  and need help and if we will just invest in those early years those brains are so fertile they can capture so much information and it can make a difference in the lives of those children and those families from then on so recognizing there through how you're speaking about this the writing is on the wall this is incredibly important this investment is more needed than ever especially where we're at in a societal perspective today we have to invest into the younger generation but why is the average wage of an early childhood educator $14.50 how can we survive off of money like that what's going on so you know I've thought a lot about this and I I I think for years you know back in the 1950s in our country for

[28:22]  example um most moms stayed home so there wasn't a need for there to be be this educational facility for for young children because parents stayed home dad's went out and earned the the the uh living and there were two parent families that is not what we look like anymore family arrangements are so different most uh because of the inflation and everything that we're the higher costs um there's so most parents in the in the home are working and so right now the way the industry has has been um I think has evolved is it started with people keeping children in their homes and then it eventually as

[29:10]  more and more was needed there were larger arrangements and so it sort of Grew From this idea of maybe we can help each other families or or grandparents or whomever might help and there was never really a a business model that was created to really help um Early Childhood um centers or homes develop most people just did it because they like children and they were good at it or kids like them and so what has happened is it's predominantly private small businesses that are run and the only funding that they get unless there are particular they want to serve lower income families where there might be

[29:57]  some subs idiz U money subsidized Child Care available or they want to serve children that have developmental disabilities where there may be some additional funding the bulk of where the funding comes from is parents parents have to pay for the service and you know parents can only pay so much and right now families are paying an average of about 20% between 18 and 20% of their income on early care and education if they have young children below the age of six unfortunately single parent families and lower income families are paying in upwards of 50 to 70% of their income in child care how do we get by with a huge percentage like I'm just trying to think

[30:45]  about like what are the stress you don't you don't and that's why families are so stressed that puts extra uh trauma on the children um and so you have this one source it's on the backs of parents that are paying the child care cost uh parents can't afford to pay anymore um the the number one cost for child care facility is the is the Staffing and so you pay them what you can afford to charge the parents which is not that much and therefore then you have to turn around and you can only uh pay your teachers what you're able to bring in from a revenue standpoint and then because they're being paid for $1 an hour they don't stay you know we tell them they have to have education that costs money there's

[31:34]  student loans and other things that they then have to go back and pay they want to go somewhere where they can make a a living wage and add on top of that that they're because they're small businesses most of them do not have a large number of employees there's usually not Health Care available less than 25% of the child care um environments actually provide any type of benefits to their teachers so the teachers can afford to stay they're not making a living wage themselves um over 60% of our teachers in the field are are parents themselves so they have this cost of Their Own Child Care um and then they're not able to provide for their own family so they have to find something better so it's

[32:21]  just this vicious cycle and it's an unsustainable model that no one has looked at and you're right the writing is on the wall the the the research is there people know the brain development is occurring but it's the cost and and it would cost a tremendous amount of money uh during the pandemic we finally got um we finally were able to elevate the profession to um to the level that I think it deserved because when everything started shutting down people do doors those Frontline workers could not go to work without child care because it truly is the workforce behind the workforce and so people begin to recognize how

[33:10]  important early care and educator early care and education teachers were and so you know we began to invest the federal government invested just in North Carolina over $2 billion well that helped us raise wages about $3 to $14.50 an hour they were making much less than that before and at the same time inflation and cost on everything else went up and so in the research that we've done at early years what we saw that is in 2019 they might have been making $3 less but based on inflationary increases they're actually making less now than they were prior to the pandemic so how do you stay positive with all of this right we've been

[33:57]  talking a lot about the challenges that we're facing the writing's on the wall inflation's growing we don't have enough money 2 billion equates to $3 an hour more for everybody inflation eats that up so how are you staying optimistic about this opportunity that's in front of us I think one of the things that keeps me optimistic is I look in the faces of the children that we're doing this for and you see that they have the potential to do anything and everything they want to do and so I'm reminded that there are future they're going to be the ones taking care of us as we get older and we want them to live in a society and we want them to have the opportunities that we've had also families are doing the best they can and we want to support families I mean I I had a wonderful family I still have a

[34:46]  wonderful family but I was raised in a environment where people cared about each other and loved each other and and I just believe that people are still good and it makes me feel good when you can um talk to a provider and you know you can give them um some type of salary or wage supplement $2,400 maybe more a year and they're like this is what kept the lights in my home on this is why I stay in this field and you see them turn around and invest in those children and encourage them in ways that um it's just hard to explain but you know I just wish and I am I guess the other part that I would say is that I see s I've seen

[35:34]  small successes as we've moved we have seen um our child care system have quality move toward quality um we have had 30 years of success in North Carolina where we've seen um the four and five star centers which are the quality centers increased dramatically we've seen people a marginalized population have opportunities to get education and in better themselves not only maybe just from a salary perspective but better themselves with knowledge and understanding that gives them opportunities to do other things and also education is something that you can't take away it is something that you know just instills confidence in yourself and so those small gangs that

[36:22]  you see keeps me positive and the fact that I still believe that that people do care about other people and that we can change this tide we just have to get in front of the right people we have to get excuse me businesses to understand that their bottom line their revenue is dependent upon having workers and in order to have workers that you need in their most um um you know in the Years where they're the best workers um where they can do the hard jobs the jobs that no one else wants is is during the early part of their careers and you've got and that is the time when they're having children they're typically earning less during that time

[37:10]  but you have to have those Frontline workers and in order to have those you have to have care for children and so I just think that we need to think about it and how we can invest and how we can um bring businesses to the table and I think that's a a change that we've seen in the last couple of years well it's incredibly easy for me to understand why you're a guest on this podcast because the heart that you have behind this hustle is amazing and just hearing so much passion that you have and the perspectives of investing into the right places will make the longtail investment worth it is something that I think we need to Echo a little bit more Dr Christie if you had to answer a question what is your legacy going to be when you're done with all of this H well well I think I had the tremen I've had

[38:00]  tremendous opportunities in my life and you know I started this uh conversation today talking about I didn't get into med school I didn't um I wasn't able to pursue the path that I had prepared myself for um but then there were so many doors that opened um you know I was able to um work at the state level I was able to expand early childhood education to all 58 community colleges in North Carolina and make it a program that was available anywhere and people didn't have an excuse of why they needed to go back I was able to uh see legislation through to the end and help people and uh get um their higher education

[38:50]  degrees I was able after 25 years to see state level articulation from our community college two years system and our four-year system didn't think that would ever happen but that did happen and I was instrumental in that then I was able to um rise in the ranks and become a chief academic officer and be able to visit other colleges Across the Nation and share our Innovations and how we took some of the systemic barriers out of the way and help meet people where they were and help people that never would have had an opportunity to go to college um earn degree and and have successful careers I was at the place at the right time when the pandemic hit you think a global pandemic is a positive yes for me

[39:37]  it was I was able to lead the Division of Child Development our state uh agency that was able to save child care in North Carolina and while other states saw a dramatic decrease in the number of um childcare centers that closed in the workforce North Carolina was SP we saw an increase in our Workforce we only over the course of the since 2020 till now we've seen um 280 facilities closed which is a lot but in the comparison of of almost 6,000 programs it was a very minuscal amount and I was also able to make sure that those providers had what they needed to remain

[40:24]  open and stay so for me you know every childcare provider in North Carolina has my cell phone number I think they call me when they have a question so I guess one of the pieces of the Legacy that I will leave is that I was there and I was a friend and it was someone that they trusted and they could ask questions of and I would help them to find innovative solutions that's the Legacy I want to leave and I've had the tremendous chance to do that so where is your statue going up in North Carolina where we can look at you know the memorialization of all the amazing work that you've done Dr snugs I think it's so appropriate um to start thinking about where that's goingon to be I don't need I don't need that I don't need that recognition I just need

[41:11]  to see that children are getting a chance and that they're having an opportunity to reach their optimal potential and that people are helping them along the way and we're preparing those um Educators to build those trusting relationships with those children and prepare for our future and maybe maybe my children or or someone else's children will take care of me when I lose my mind and can't think anymore you know well Dr snugs I'm uh I'm so I'm so gracious for you coming on the show I appreciate you know the time that we've been able to spend together you are the definition of heart and hustle there is no question about it um one of the traditions we have here on the podcast is our previous guest wants to ask you a blind question now previous guest is an amazing leader from an organization in

[41:59]  New York City um who is just redefining what Afterschool programs mean for the younger generation her question was if you have unlimited resources and unlimited time to apply to a single project what would that be if I had unlimited resources and unlimited time to apply to a single project what would that be I would pay Early Child Early Childhood Educators a living wage and I would do some type of campaign that put their faces front and center about the importance of their role because they are so underappreciated and they deserve to be

[42:48]  millionaires well that's a beautiful place for us to put a wrap on today's episode once again for everybody who's been tuning in watching and listening Dr Christy snugs thank you than you so much for the time that we've been able to send together it's been an absolute pleasure and you again are the definition of heart and hustle thank you so much for joining us thank you so much for having me I really have enjoyed our time together today