The Best First Step

If you've spent any time in a child care classroom, you've seen moments that remind you what this profession is all about.

A visit to a classroom of two-year-olds did it for me. The children were playing with toy telephones and pretending to call their parents. Most of them were saying things like, “Hi Mommy, Hi Daddy!” One little boy named Max picked up his phone, then slammed it back down and exclaimed "Damn!"

One teacher looked over at Max and said gently, “We don’t use bad words in our classroom, Max.” A reasonable response! But then another teacher sat down beside him and said, "Oh, my Max! It sounds like you're pretty mad about something. Can you tell me what's going on?"

I learned later that Max had developed very little language and there was a lot going on in his family. That conversation created the opportunity for Max to use his words and express his feelings.

I've never forgotten that moment because it captures what great early childhood educators do every day. They make real-time decisions that shape children's development, confidence, and learning.

Whether those moments go well shouldn’t be left to chance. Every child deserves that level of care. And every educator deserves to be supported to provide it. And yet child care remains one of the only essential professions in America without a clear, consistent entry point.

That reality has consequences.

We see it in workforce shortages. We see it in turnover. We see it in the pressure educators face every day. We see it in the child care programs struggling to stay open. We see it in state economies constrained by an unstable workforce.

For years, our field has been talking about recruitment, retention, career pathways, and professionalization. We don’t need more conversations, we need action.

That begins with creating a clear starting line. It’s time to adopt the Child Development Associate® (CDA) credential as the national entry-level credential for child care professionals.

The CDA is the most widely recognized entry-level credential in early childhood education. More importantly, it is competency-based. It requires educators to demonstrate that they can apply their knowledge in real-world settings—supporting children's development, managing classrooms, and creating safe, responsive learning environments.

In short, it focuses on what early childhood teacher can actually do.

That distinction matters. Child care is demanding work. When people enter classrooms without the preparation they need, it often leads to burnout and turnover. The CDA prepares the workforce to meet real-world demands. It builds the skills that child care providers say they want, and that children need to thrive.

The CDA creates an accessible on-ramp, allowing people to enter the field, build skills, gain experience, and continue their education over time. In many states, it connects to college credit and serves as a bridge to further education. This layered pathway approach expands access without closing doors, supporting a more sustainable workforce pipeline.

Every profession needs a clear pathway that is shaped by the profession itself. The CDA is an example of that—a competency-based credential developed by the early childhood field and a first step in the professional progression outlined in the Unifying Framework for the Early Childhood Education Profession. And it goes without saying but is still worth repeating that we must also be working for a child care financing system for America that values, recognizes and compensates early educators as they grow in their professional practice.

The good news is that we do not have to build the foundation. We already have it.

More than one million educators have earned a CDA. It is widely available, portable across state lines and supported by existing training and professional development infrastructure. Two of the nation’s highest quality child care systems, Head Start and The Department of Defense’s child care system, use the CDA as a foundational workforce credential.

The CDA is a practical, ready-now solution that builds on infrastructure already operating in communities across the country.

To say that child care workforce requirements and expectations vary widely across states is a serious understatement. And trying to explain most of them in simple terms in less than a minute is almost impossible because they have so many caveats and exceptions.

That creates confusion for early educators, families, and policy makers. A national entry point would not eliminate state flexibility. It would create a common floor while preserving states' ability to innovate and build on their unique strengths.

Consistency at the starting line does not limit innovation. It makes it possible.

That is why Child Care Aware of America, with support and partnership from Council for Professional Recognition and Child Care Trust, are launching a multi-state pilot—The Best First Step—that will work alongside states to embed the CDA into state systems intentionally and at scale.

Together, we will expand access to CDA training and support, strengthen connections to higher education and career pathways, integrate the credential into workforce systems and identify what is needed for broader adoption nationwide.

The pilot will help states build on what already exists, testing what works in different contexts and creating a roadmap that other states can adapt and use. The states that participate will help shape the future of workforce preparation in early childhood education.

A clear entry point will not solve every challenge facing child care. But without one, everything else becomes harder to align, harder to sustain, and harder to scale. The CDA is the nation’s best first step to move a clear starting line, to move child care from a job to a profession.