Why Teacher Training Is the Most Important Investment in Early Childhood Education

If you could change only one thing about an early childhood program to improve outcomes for children, what would it be?

Not the curriculum. Not the facilities. Not the toys or the technology.

The research points clearly to one answer: the quality of the educator in the room.

Decades of studies — from the landmark Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes Study to more recent work by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) — converge on the same finding: the single greatest predictor of what a child gains from an early childhood program is the skill, knowledge, and warmth of the adult who spends the day with them.

Everything else is secondary.

When researchers talk about educator quality, they are not talking about personality or natural warmth — though those matter. They are talking about a specific set of knowledge and skills that can be taught, practiced, and refined.

High-quality early childhood educators understand:

• How young children develop — cognitively, socially, emotionally, and physically — and what that means for how they structure the day and respond to individual children
• How to use language intentionally — asking open-ended questions, expanding children's utterances, narrating experiences, and building vocabulary through conversation
• How to support social-emotional development — helping children name and regulate emotions, navigate conflict, and build the self-regulation skills that predict long-term success
• How to observe and document learning — noticing what children know and can do, and using that information to plan experiences that extend their thinking
• How to build secure relationships — creating the conditions of trust and predictability that allow children to take intellectual and social risks

None of these skills are innate. They are learned. And they require sustained, high-quality professional development to develop and maintain.

There is a persistent and well-meaning belief that caring for young children requires little more than warmth and patience — that anyone who loves children can do it well.

This belief, however kindly intended, does real harm.

It devalues the expertise of skilled early childhood educators. It leads families to choose programs based on price or proximity rather than quality. And it results in children spending their most formative years with adults who, despite genuine care, lack the knowledge to support their development effectively.

Loving children is necessary. It is not sufficient.

A surgeon who loves their patients but lacks surgical training is not a good surgeon. An early childhood educator who loves children but lacks knowledge of child development, language facilitation, and social-emotional support is not equipped to do the job the research says needs to be done.

The evidence connecting educator training to child outcomes is substantial and consistent.

A landmark study by Burchinal and colleagues found that children in classrooms with more highly trained educators showed significantly greater gains in language, literacy, and math — even after controlling for family income and other background factors.

The Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes Study, which followed children from preschool through second grade, found that the quality of the early childhood program — driven primarily by educator quality — predicted children's cognitive and social development years later.

NIEER's annual State of Preschool reports consistently find that programs requiring higher educator qualifications and more professional development hours produce better outcomes for children.

The mechanism is not mysterious. Better-trained educators have more sophisticated conversations with children. They ask better questions. They notice more. They respond more skillfully to challenging behavior. They create environments that are simultaneously warmer and more intellectually stimulating.

Not all professional development is created equal. A one-day workshop on a new curriculum, however well-designed, produces little lasting change in practice. The research on effective professional development is as clear as the research on educator quality itself.

Effective professional development is:

Sustained over time. Change in practice requires repeated exposure, reflection, and coaching — not a single training event. Programs that invest in ongoing professional development, rather than one-off workshops, see meaningful improvements in classroom quality.

Grounded in observation and feedback. The most effective professional development involves an experienced coach observing in the classroom and providing specific, actionable feedback. Educators who receive regular coaching improve their practice faster and more durably than those who receive only group training.

Connected to real children and real situations. Abstract knowledge about child development becomes useful when it is applied to the specific children in a specific classroom. Professional development that helps educators think through real situations — "What was happening when Marcus had that meltdown, and what could we try differently?" — is more effective than purely theoretical training.

Supported by leadership. Professional development works best when program leaders model a commitment to learning, create time for reflection, and treat educator growth as a shared organizational priority rather than an individual obligation.

Focused on both knowledge and practice. Understanding why something matters is important. Knowing how to do it — and having the opportunity to practice, receive feedback, and try again — is what changes what happens in the classroom.

There is an uncomfortable truth at the center of early childhood education in the United States: the people doing some of the most consequential work in a child's life are among the lowest-paid workers in the economy.

The median annual wage for childcare workers in the United States is less than $30,000. Many early childhood educators qualify for the same public assistance programs as the families they serve.

This is not just an equity problem, though it is that. It is a quality problem. Low compensation drives high turnover. High turnover means children lose the consistent, stable relationships that are foundational to their development. And it makes it difficult to attract and retain the highly trained educators that the research identifies as the key driver of quality.

Programs that pay educators well, invest in their professional development, and treat them as the skilled professionals they are tend to have lower turnover, higher quality, and better outcomes for children. These things are connected.

At Palmetto Future Scholars, we treat educator quality as our primary competitive advantage — because the research says it is the primary driver of outcomes for children.

That means we hire educators with formal training in early childhood development. It means we invest in ongoing professional development, including coaching and observation. It means we pay wages that reflect the expertise and importance of the work. And it means we create a culture where learning — for educators as well as children — is valued, supported, and expected.

We believe that the families who choose Palmetto Future Scholars deserve to know that the adults spending the day with their children are not just warm and caring — though they are that — but genuinely skilled in the science and practice of early childhood education.

That is the standard we hold ourselves to. And it is the standard every family deserves to expect.

Further reading:

• NAEYC: The Importance of Educator Qualifications — Research and resources on early childhood professional development
• NIEER: State of Preschool — Annual report on preschool quality standards across the United States
• Harvard Center on the Developing Child: The Science of Early Childhood Development — Research on what drives healthy development in the early years

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