CCSA’s T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Scholarship Program and National Center Featured by New America

CCSA’s T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Scholarship Program and National Center Featured by New America

New America’s Supporting Early Educator Degree Attainment report highlights how CCSA’s comprehensive scholarship program helps early childhood educators eliminate barriers to higher education

Chapel Hill, N.C., October 8, 2020: Child Care Services Association (CCSA) is proud to contribute to New America’s recently released report, Supporting Early Educator Degree Attainment, through its T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® National Center. New America’s report explores the most pressing barriers that institutions of higher education face when serving early educators, identifies promising practices to overcome those barriers and examines what policy and institutional levers stakeholders can pull to change the system to better meet the needs of our early education workforce.

Data from a 2018 survey by CCSA’s T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® National Center on the barriers early educators face to higher education access and success was cited in this report, and the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Scholarship Program was highlighted as one of the two most comprehensive programs in the country that address student support.

As cited in New America’s report, in 2019 T.E.A.C.H. supported more than 17,495 scholarship recipients across 22 states and Washington, D.C. The T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Scholarship Program, providing educational scholarships to early care professionals, originally began in North Carolina at Child Care Services Association. Now, more than 30 years later, Child Care Services Association’s T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® National Center licenses the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Scholarship Program and the Child Care WAGE$® Program across the U.S., providing education-based salary supplements to early care professionals based on education.

While the pandemic has exposed the fragility of our systems, it also presents an opportunity to accelerate innovation and allow for flexibility where it has been lacking. Child Care Services Association hopes New America’s report will help garner resources for such innovation moving forward.

Learn more about the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Scholarship Program here and visit CCSA’s website here.

Child Care Services Association
Founded in 1974, the mission of Child Care Services Association (CCSA) is to ensure affordable, accessible, high-quality child care for all young children and their families. Using a holistic approach, CCSA supports children and families, helps child care professionals improve the quality of early education children receive and ensures all families can afford and access the high-quality early care and education that is so important for a child’s early development. Through its Meal Services Program, CCSA also provides nutritious meals to children at child care centers, where they may eat 50-100 percent of their meals. Our T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood^®, Child Care WAGE$^® and Infant-Toddler Educator AWARD$ Plus^® programs give child care professionals the means to obtain an education and supplement their salary based on that education. CCSA also licenses T.E.A.C.H. and WAGE$ across the U.S. and conducts early childhood systems research and policy development statewide and nationally. For more information, visit www.childcareservices.org.

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