Wanted: More and better college-level training and higher salaries for Michigan students who want to enter the early childhood profession. Both are key if Michigan is going attract – and keep – the best and brightest in the business of caring for and educating children birth to 5, according to Dr. Valora Washington, president of Community Advocates for Young Learners.

In a new report titled “Steps Forward,” Washington says it is “ very difficult” for Michigan child care providers to earn a bachelor’s degree in early care and education because credits often do not transfer between 2-year and 4-year colleges and universities.

“Many in the early childhood workforce begin their educational journey as ‘adult learners’ in community-based programs or community colleges, often encountering barriers as they attempt to articulate (transfer) those experiences across various educational settings.”

Fewer barriers are important because the federally-funded Head Start program, which serves almost 37,000 children in Michigan, will be increasing its workforce standards in 2013 to a bachelor degree.

Chief among those barriers: a living wage.

“In some Michigan colleges, there has been discussion about whether community colleges should continue to offer ECE (early childhood education) programs, due to the failure of graduates to earn a living wage,” writes Washington. “Michigan could strengthen its capacity in this regard by adapting models from other states that have demonstrated how to increase the quality of ECE programs while raising staff compensation through Quality Rating and Improvement Systems and projects like T.E.A.C.H. and WAGE$. Michigan is currently how best to achieve the potential of these models locally.”

Read the entire “Steps Forward” paper.