Low pay hurts quality of child care in Nevada

Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2003 | 11 a.m.

Nevada's child care facilities suffer from high employee turnover and pay teachers less than half of what similarly educated public school instructors earn, according to a state-funded study released Monday of the child care workforce in Nevada.

Nearly half of the centers studied had staff turnover of at least 31 percent in one year, said the principal investigator for the study, Eva Essa, professor of human development and family studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Center directors reported that teacher turnover was 35 percent, though Essa said study investigators believe that figure is 45 percent based on failed attempts to contact those individuals.

Essa said turnover is a critical measuring stick of quality child care because children do better when they become attached to longer-serving instructors. She said Nevada's turnover rates for child care teachers are slightly higher than national averages that have been estimated at 30 to 40 percent.

"Studies say turnover has a negative effect on children," Essa said. "Child care seems to be a profession with high turnover, not just in Nevada but elsewhere. The center directors told us that finding and keeping staff was their biggest concern."

Child care facilities are predominantly privately owned and operated but the study found that pay in Nevada is considerably less in those facilities than in public schools.

The study found that:

The survey funded by the Nevada Department of Human Resources, gathered information from 354 child care center directors, 1,577 teachers and 634 parents. It also included 159 non-licensed child care providers who work out of their homes and deal with small numbers of children. The average family care giver earns $15,000 a year when business and home expenses are considered.

"The average starting salary for (child care) teachers is $15,500 and for aides $13,000," Essa said. "If you are a single mom with one or two children, you certainly fall below the poverty level. The people who are in the field are not in it because of the big bucks they're making."

Essa said the study found that the highest quality care generally came from facilities that paid the highest salaries.

"Previous studies have shown the relationship between pay and high quality care," she said.

She said better-trained teachers and center directors also would improve child care but a low percentage have taken advantage of state scholarship programs aimed at improving their grasp of early childhood education. Only 21 percent of directors and 13 percent of teachers have used the scholarships.

The state has established adult-to-child ratios that licensed child care facilities are required to maintain. A majority of facilities meet those standards for all age groups.

But the study found that 43 percent of the centers that handle infants did not meet those standards. The ratio requirements also were not met in 21 percent of the centers that handle toddlers, 18 percent that have preschoolers and 14 percent with school-age children.

"It's possible we have work to do," Essa said of those findings. "But standards in Nevada are higher than professionally directed and maybe they're higher than they should be."

Nevada, though, is one of the only states that has no standards that address the number of children that can be grouped together at a facility, Essa said.

The study found that 40 percent of child care centers with infants have groups of 11 or more. Among centers that handle toddlers, 38 percent have groups of 14 or more. More than one-third of all facilities with preschoolers have groups of 19 or more. And nearly one-fourth of all facilities with school-age children have groups of 31 or more.

The study did not attempt to gauge the economic health of child care facilities in the state but made reference to the cost of such care and the problem many centers have of remaining in business.

"Many parents find the cost of child care prohibitive, often having to make choices between paying for child care and meeting other essential needs for their families," the study reported. "In fact, more than three-fourths of Nevada child care center directors reported that at least some parents in their centers are behind in their payments for child care.

"Almost 60 percent of directors also indicate that their centers are owed substantial amounts of money, putting their own businesses at risk."

Essa's presentation, made at the Donald W. Reynolds Scouting Resource Center at 7220 S. Paradise Road, was sponsored by Nevada Kids Count, a nonprofit child advocacy research group.