The Early Educator Investment Collaborative, a coalition of funders focused on supporting the early childhood education workforce, has announced grants totaling $10.4 million to help strengthen teacher preparation programs.

With the goal of elevating the early care and education workforce, breaking down systemic barriers faced by students of color, and promoting professional compensation for a workforce that is often underpaid, the grants will support partnerships between institutions of higher education and states or tribal nations to strengthen programs that prepare early childhood education teachers through a competency-based bachelor's degree and advance state and tribal government efforts to increase funding for students and compensation for teachers. Recipients include California State University, Sacramento, College of Menominee Nation, Georgia State University, North Seattle College, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.

According to the collaborative, people of color, primarily women, make up nearly half the early educator workforce yet are not provided equal access to higher education, ongoing professional development, or professional compensation, especially in comparison to their peers in K-12 education. Launched in 2017 to address those issues, the collaborative includes Ballmer Group, the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, the Foundation for Child Development, and the Bezos Family, Bill & Melinda Gates, David and Lucile Packard, Heising-Simons, and Stranahan foundations.

"We must support the professionalization of our ECE workforce," said Rebecca Gomez, a program officer at the Heising-Simons Foundation and co-chair of the Early Educator Investment Collaborative. "We need to attract, retain, and financially support students who bring racial, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity to a field that educates and cares for our equally diverse young people.

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