The workforce challenges facing the child care and early education (CCEE) sector are well known. CCEE educators typically have low levels of compensation; limited opportunities for education, training, and professional development; inconsistent working conditions; and high levels of stress and burnout. There are also high rates of job turnover, which can strain remaining educators and decrease the quality of care they offer.

Policymakers at the federal and state levels are taking steps to build and stabilize the CCEE workforce. Effectively addressing these challenges requires a better understanding of which strategies increase retention and recruitment and which strategies work best for different types of teachers and different settings. There are also important gaps in knowledge about workforce dynamics in CCEE—that is, how teachers enter, stay in, and exit the field—due to a lack of data tracking individuals over time.

The Building and Sustaining the Child Care and Early Education Workforce (BASE) project aims to increase knowledge and understanding in CCEE by documenting factors that drive workforce turnover and by building evidence on current initiatives to recruit, advance, and retain a stable and qualified CCEE workforce. As part of the BASE project, the study team completed a literature review and an environmental scan designed to identify and document existing knowledge about the CCEE workforce and strategies to strengthen it. The literature review synthesized research on factors that shape CCEE workforce dynamics, as well as types of care and the effectiveness of strategies that aim to build a stable and qualified workforce. The environmental scan identified and reviewed the range of strategies that are currently underway across the country to build, advance, and sustain the CCEE workforce. The team also completed a data scan that documented and assessed the strengths and weaknesses of a range of potential data sources for examining workforce dynamics and addressing key gaps in the research identified by the literature review and environmental scan.

This brief uses data from one of the sources identified in the data scan: state CCEE workforce registries. Using data from Montana’s Early Care and Education (ECE) Workforce Registry, the brief addresses the following research questions.

1. What are the characteristics of the Montana ECE workforce?
    
2. What are retention rates in the ECE field, and how are they associated with teacher, job, and provider characteristics?
    
3. How many teachers earn credentials over time, and how is credential attainment associated with teacher, job, and provider characteristics?

Thirty-nine states currently have workforce registries, which typically collect data on teachers’ credentials, professional development, and employment. Data from these registries can potentially be used to address several gaps in the research that were identified through the BASE project’s knowledge review activities: the need for longitudinal data to track workforce dynamics; how these dynamics vary by role and setting type; and how they vary by multilevel factors at the teacher and provider level.

This analysis illustrates the potential use of this type of data source for the broader field and how similar data sources might be improved to provide further insights. This brief is one of four from the BASE project that use existing data to address knowledge gaps related to CCEE workforce dynamics in the field. One brief discusses how Unemployment Insurance (UI) wage data can be used to address gaps in the research, another brief uses UI data from Illinois to examine CCEE workforce dynamics, and the final brief uses data from the Linked Information Network of Colorado Early Care and Education Workforce project to examine individuals’ enrollment in and completion of CCEE postsecondary programs.