Building a Diverse IL Early Childhood (Birth-age 8) Teacher Workforce

In Partnership with the Ounce of Prevention, the Latino Policy Forum convened a group of experts to craft recommendations to help boost the number of early childhood professionals who can serve children from diverse language and cultural backgrounds.  CLICK HERE to read recommendations.

Projected student growth in Illinois from 2005-2020 will largely come from the children of immigrants.  Preliminary findings from the Illinois Early Childhood Workforce Hiring Survey (2017) highlight that the most difficult position to hire is a lead teacher licensed by Illinois State Board of Education. Forty-two percent of respondents indicated a need for bilingual staff with 15 percent needing more than two bilingual staff. More than half of respondents (55%) state there is a limited pool of bilingual early childhood candidates. Illinois cannot ensure school readiness and equitable services to multilingual children and families without diverse, well-prepared teachers.  The recommendations are intended to increase the number of non-licensed and licensed educators with the abilities to better support children in a variety of early learning settings.