Strung Out Episode 138. DON'T CALL HIM A BABYSITTER.

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Robert Smith raised four sons, worked in IT to support his family and after they were grown adults, made a decision.  It was during the pandemic when Robert decided to make a difference in his community by become an early childhood development teacher.   Smith, an African American man, became an outlier in a field that is predominantly women, understaffed and underpaid.  Yet, research has proven that early childhood education, such as preschool, is fundamental to the formation of successful adults, especially in the urban setting.  The New York Times Article, Why Are Our Most Important Teachers Paid the Least? states:
 According to a recent briefing from the Economic Policy Institute, a majority of preschool teachers are low-income women of color with no more than a high-school
diploma. Only 15 percent of them receive employer-sponsored health insurance, and depending on which state they are in, nearly half belong to families that rely on public assistance.  “Teaching preschoolers is every bit as complicated and important as teaching any of the K-12 grades, if not more so,” says Marcy Whitebook, a director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment atthe University of California, Berkeley. “But we still treat preschool teachers like babysitters. We want them to ameliorate poverty even as they live in it themselves.”

Why is it that society avoids investing in one of the major solutions for what ails society?   If early education is key to lowering crime, teen pregnancy, increasing college education and subsequently lifting whole families out of poverty, do we still treat the educators as babysitters?

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