In 2022, the District of Columbia made major investments to improve early educator wages and health care coverage. These efforts supported early educators’ financial well-being and health and benefited children and families by helping child care providers recruit and retain qualified staff. Nearly four years later, DC continues to administer an early educator compensation program that provides funding to participating licensed child care facilities to support more competitive wages—and most facilities participate. Evidence to date suggests that the program has helped sustain facilities’ financial health and made child care a more attractive job for many educators. This brief extends earlier analyses by examining whether the compensation program continued to promote workforce stability as implementation matured, documenting early educator workforce trends through March 2026.

Why This Matters

Early educators are often paid substantially less than workers with similar education and experience in other occupations. Low compensation contributes to high turnover, staffing challenges, and program instability. Understanding how pay relates to retention can help policymakers and practitioners identify strategies to strengthen the early childhood workforce and improve the quality and continuity of care.

What We Found

• Educators employed at facilities participating in DC’s early educator compensation program were more likely to stay at the same facility one year later than educators at nonparticipating facilities.
• Annual turnover rates were lower in more recent years across DC, though departures from the child care field remained highest among assistant teachers and aides.
• Participating facilities were more likely to stay open and had lower annual educator turnover rates than facilities not participating in the compensation program.
• Over time, the workforce at facilities participating in the early educator compensation program became more highly credentialed.
• Child care facility owners and directors, along with parents, reinforced many of these findings, describing how DC’s compensation program is attracting educators to child care and helping them stay and provide high-quality care.

How We Did It

We analyzed four annual snapshots of workforce registry data, merged with facility-level licensing data and information on early educator compensation program participation. We described the extent to which early educators entered, left, stayed in, or moved within DC licensed child care. We also incorporated perspectives from 96 owners and directors of 112 licensed child care facilities, gathered through a fall 2025 survey, and from 30 parents enrolled at those facilities, who participated in spring 2026 interviews.