The National ECE Workforce Dataset: What is it, what’s in it, and who does it represent?
Registries, the workhorse of ECE Professional Development Systems
Today 1.8 million people are registered in the nation’s network of Early Childhood and Out-of-School-Time Professional Registries. Those registries, their leadership and staff, are integral to the Early Learning Professional Development System infrastructure in states and territories. They provide timely, responsive support to the early childhood workforce through more than a dozen common and essential services and functions. Across the country, registries are unified and strengthened through membership in the NWRA, a national, non-profit organization founded by the registries. Today, registries serve as the Emergency Broadcast System for this industry. As partners, we create the central hub facilitating access and information exchange to and from the workforce. Together we support all members of the ECE Workforce by collaborating to strengthen registries, aggregate data about professionals caring for children, and steer bi-directional information exchange to encourage data informed decisions, policy priorities, and equity accountability to support them.
A significant biproduct of the Workforce/Registry/NWRA relationship, and output of their service functions, is the co-creation of the industry’s leading cross-sectional workforce dataset. Data collection is supplied directly by workforce members and verified by the registries* (degrees of data verification vary by state). This aggregate workforce dataset is the largest, most comprehensive Early Childhood & Out-of-School-Time (ECE & OST) workforce data collection in the country, encompassing over 466,000 people caring for children in 2021. In the last decade, field representation in the dataset has increased 700%; growing from just under 60,000 workforce members in 2009 to representing over 466,000 people in 2021. The dataset’s potential reporting capacity in 2021 was over 800,000, had an additional 12 states contributed their state’s workforce data.
Beginning in 2009, when 47% of the country utilized Professional Registries in 24 states, to 2022 when 85% of the country operated a registry in 44 states (not including 5 states building registries) data saturation accelerated. As workforce and registry participation increases every year, by 2025, the dataset is anticipated to draw up information from 25 states, with close to a million members of the workforce included. Today, 38 states require registry participation for QRIS and 20 states for Child Care Licensing. We anticipate establishing the industry’s only nationwide longitudinal dataset reflecting actual people and their near real-time data in the next decade.
What kind of data do registries collect?
Demographic data:
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- Gender, age
- Equity elements: race/ethnicity, primary language spoken, preferred training language.
- Geographic/location: using Beale codes (Rural-Urban Continuum)
Career-related data:
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- Employment: status and history, current and previous employers, program type/place of employment
- Compensation: hours, wages (self-reported in some cases)
- Type: role, program setting, ages of children served
- Turnover/Longevity: movement in the field (and in some cases, rationale)
Preparation and Qualifications:
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- Education and Training: specializations (ECE, Related and non-related), all educational records completed with coursework breakdown and aligned to core competencies.
- Credentials: type, with expiration dates, etc.
- Professional Progress:
- Career Pathway: level, placement/change
- Professional Competencies: self-assessments, professional development planning
- Career Goals: professional development tracking, status, scholarship applications, career advising, etc.
Professional Contributions: the workforce often gives back to their colleagues and the field. Commonly in the form of mentorship, coaching, or volunteering, which is often overlooked by researchers and policy decision makers.
Where does the data come from?
Collaboratively, professional registries and workforce members registered within them, work in tandem to collect and generate verified data when possible. The NWRA provides the standards and alignment for reliable data elements and collection processes, supporting the production of consistent career-related data identifiers that make in-depth research and analysis possible. Subsequently, data at the state level is then pulled, cleaned, and made available through the state’s registry.
While state level data can reach and inform local and state-level policy and programmatic decisions, to generalize or create a broader regional or national picture, registries aggregate their data through the NWRA. For this to happen with confidence, the NWRA sets quality standards and criteria for data definitions, alignment, and supports development of expertise at the state and local levels. The NWRA, formally recognizes states that meet these criteria, and determines their readiness to participate in collective data pulls, partnerships, or aggregate data to produce a growing national workforce dataset.
An important note is that individual-level workforce data is also integrated with program-level data through child care licensing data feeds in over 20 states. This data documents critical workforce trends, informs equitable policies, and highlights sustainable strategies to uniquely support the workforce. In 2021, the dataset included 466,000+ workforce members, of which 76% were employed at the time of the data pull and 10% self-identified as Home-based Child Care Professionals (FCC).
Dataset FAQs
To better understand the data integrity- and illuminate ways to lift the voices of the workforce reflected in the dataset and their scale of impact- we’ve compiled a list of questions recently asked by national researchers and data partners invested in driving change centered in equitable approaches.
What is in the dataset and what is the unit of analyses?
Child Care Professionals create and manage their own profiles within registries, so the dataset is effectively focused on the people who care for children. It’s their qualifications, preparation, competencies and needs being tracked and represented in the data system; the individual caring for children is the primary unit of analyses in the aggregate dataset. Most ECE Professional Registries have data reflecting training, education, credentials, and demographic details. Many also include employment specific information and competency details. Data can be disaggregated by role, setting, program, Beale Code, race or ethnicity, languages spoken, ages of children served, employment status, etc.
*Professional Registries are the primary entity approving ECE Training and Trainers in most states. They also do the professional placement in state Career Ladder/Lattice. As such, they can additionally provide units of analyses at the Trainer, Training, and Career Pathway levels. They track specific elements related to Professional Development access, services, training topics, languages offered, and professional competency areas.
Who does the dataset represent?
Dataset representativeness is determined by who participates. In the 20+ states where participation is required for Child Care Licensing, workforce representation and data saturation is high; their dataset is representative of Licensed Child Care Providers in that state. In the 29+ states that require participation for programs participating in Subsidy, Apprenticeship, Scholarship, or QRIS, it can be considered representative of the people in those programs. If programs or states neither require licensing or incentivize participation in the registry (for workforce eligibility for support or application processing regarding support services), the data saturation is lower and representative of those who voluntarily registered as professionals.
In 2021, the aggregate dataset included individual records from 466,115 professionals, 76% of whom were employed at the time of the draw (356,206), working across 64,237 programs/facilities. Roughly, 56% of the programs and 10% of the professionals the dataset represented were in Family Child Care. In 2021, the aggregate NWRA ECE Workforce Dataset included workforce representation from 14 states. Of those, 8 states required participation for Child Care Licensing.
Regarding “who” the dataset includes, Professionals self-identify their role first by Direct or Indirect Care. They then select the role that best represents their position. Direct care roles included in the dataset: Center-Based Admin, Center-Based Lead Teachers, Center-Based Assistant Teachers, Family Child Care Providers, School-Based Admin, School-Based Lead Teachers, and School Based Assistant Teachers. A majority of states also include associated non-direct care roles such as Trainers, TA Specialists, Consultants, Coach/Mentor/Peer Advisors, Home Visitors/Early Intervention, Higher Ed Instructor, Facilitators, etc.:
A) Professionals working with children in group settings: (40 states)
1) Center-Based, 40 states (In 2021, 41% of 466,000 records were center-based)
2) FCC, 40 states (In 2021, 56% of programs reflected in registry records were FCC)
3) HS,
4) EHS,
5) PPK,
6) School-age & Out-of-School-Time (30 states)
7) FFN (20 States)
B) Examples of Indirect Care or Field Professionals:
Professionals NOT working directly providing care but influence or support care in various settings:
1) Trainers (34 States)
2) TA Providers/Mentors/Coaches (37 States, 2022)
3) Early intervention service providers: including home visitors, service coordinators, etc. (20 States)
4) Family/Friends/Neighbors (FFNs), 20 states report on them, no states exclude them
5) Child Care Licensing Staff (15 States)
6) Other (please specify): 5 states, “Anyone can create a professional profile as a user.”
7) Child welfare workers (MN)
8) Foster Parents (MN)
What does PER mean and what is a PER state?
Partners in Employment Reporting (PER) is a self-study process designed by the NWRA to help registries demonstrate their commitment to established standards for registries and best practices for policies, procedures, and data collection. The PER process affirms registries are meeting the 10 standards for quality and have provided evidence for them. Once registries meet and submit evidence of the standards, their application is peer reviewed. Approved registries are publicly recognized with a unique PER seal, additional member benefits, and eligible for participation in national partnerships. In 2022, there were 17 PER states (AZ, CO, CT, FL, IL, ME, MO, MN, MT, NJ, NV, NY, OH, OK, PA, WI, WV); an additional 12 (AR, CA, DC, GA, IA, MI, OR, SC, TN, TX, WA, WY) were eligible or in the process of applying for PER recognition.
How is the NWRA aggregate dataset created?
- Initially, Child Care Professionals enter their own profile data; states/registries verify many of those entries.
- Next, to obtain PER status, states complete a self-study, peer review process, and receive approval. Once verified, the state’s registry is publicly recognized, ie: has PER Status.
- PER states are then invited to participate in the national data pull, occurring in odd years.
- States kickoff the data pull in January of each odd year.
- Data is pulled from the preceding years (01/01/odd year – 12/31/even year).
- Participating states first extract their aligned data for cleaning, using the Data Elements list provided for the PER data pull. Instructions include coding, cleaning, and how to handle outliers.
- States typically complete the cleaning and contribution process in spring of the same year.
- State data is then uploaded to the NWRA’s secure individual state folders.
- State data sheets are cleaned by an external third party, several iterations of cleaning can occur until the data are cleared for processing.
- Certified “clean” sheets are then provided to our third-party data analyst who provides us with the aggregated workforce dataset, summaries of findings, full report and executive summary.
- Findings are reviewed by participating states, committees, and staff of the NWRA.
- Individual state summary results are provided to participating states.
- Published findings are presented at the NWRA’s annual conference and website. This data is important to our federal partners, workforce allies, and can be instrumental to informing new policy and legislation.
Which data get aggregated by NWRA
1. To find the common data elements we aggregate, see our Core Data Elements.
Data Aggregation is undertaken in partnership with the state registries, whose workforce data is de-identified and pooled. Most states (80%) now have professional registries that collect workforce data to make strategic, data-informed decisions to retain and support early childhood professionals at the state and local level. To participate in contributing aggregate data at the national level, states must first successfully complete a self-study known as Partners in Employment Reporting (PER) to ensure alignment of the core data elements, definitions, data verification, and standard operating policies and processes.
2. Once recognized by the NWRA, PER approved states can contribute their workforce data, representing the ECE & OST professionals who were employed and have been active registry participants during the last two years of the period of the data pull.
3. Pooled data can then be disaggregated using any number of filters, from demographic and equity informing to SES, county, program, setting, or role. The pooled, cleaned, data is analyzed with high reliability, providing valuable information to the field and creating the nation’s largest cross-sectional data set reflecting the Early Learning Workforce.
What does the data collection process entail?
The way data is collected through registries is unique as it is done in tandem with the workforce who are engaged throughout the process and who are the main agents in keeping their data as current as possible. The infographic here shows the collaborative journey to this data collection process.
1. To find the common data elements we aggregate, see our Core Data Elements.
Data Aggregation is undertaken in partnership with the state registries, whose workforce data is de-identified and pooled. Most states (80%) now have professional registries that collect workforce data to make strategic, data-informed decisions to retain and support early childhood professionals at the state and local level. To participate in contributing aggregate data at the national level, states must first successfully complete a self-study known as Partners in Employment Reporting (PER) to ensure alignment of the core data elements, definitions, data verification, and standard operating policies and processes.
2. Once recognized by the NWRA, PER approved states can contribute their workforce data, representing the ECE & OST professionals who were employed and have been active registry participants during the last two years of the period of the data pull.
3. Pooled data can then be disaggregated using any number of filters, from demographic and equity informing to SES, county, program, setting, or role. The pooled, cleaned, data is analyzed with high reliability, providing valuable information to the field and creating the nation’s largest cross-sectional data set reflecting the Early Learning Workforce.
How are we working to improve data quality?
We know that a limitation of the dataset can be saturation; although registry data is still considered representative, it can only reflect the people who are in it. For the PER dataset, half of PER states require participation for childcare licensing in their state. Therefore, we know that their dataset IS representative of people working in licensed care. The data can’t, however, represent people who are not in the registry, nor those who have not included their data, making voluntary participation problematic for states by lowing workforce saturation. The NWRA is very transparent and committed to ensuring workforce reports acknowledge who IS included and represented in the data.
To have greater generalization, we need to encompass enough of the broader population to become representative of any give population for a state, region, county, or local. We continue to elevate ACF’S considerations for states to require participation in their registry systems to advance equitable workforce compensation and supports.
Another limitation in the data can be the degrees of required data verification, reporting, and profile revalidation. For example, to have optimal data that is both accurate and up to date, PDS systems (states) must require workforce members (users) to re-enter or verify the accuracy of their profiles on a regular basis. Wage and Education data collections, for example, must have periodic opportunities or requirements for updates or it can only represent the wage or education levels at the time the profile was created. The NWRA is working to recognize states who currently meet these criteria and to strengthen the data quality in states where this is not yet a requirement of for participation.