WASHINGTON, DC — Amid severe labor recruitment and retention difficulties, the U.S. early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce has diminished at the same time demand for qualified workers has risen. Efforts to alleviate these challenges have often overlooked a promising talent pool: immigrants with relevant college degrees or high school diplomas and work experience obtained abroad. Even as the ECEC field is looking to build a linguistically and culturally competent workforce equipped to serve the country’s increasingly multilingual young-child population, immigrants with foreign-earned qualifications face time-consuming, costly and sometimes insurmountable obstacles to having their academic and professional credentials recognized. The Migration Policy Institute’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy is out today with an analysis of state policies and processes that people with education and work qualifications earned abroad must navigate and that often unnecessarily impede or complicate qualification recognition. The policy brief highlights actions states can take to ensure their ECEC hiring and licensing processes smartly, fairly and expeditiously assess the education and other qualifications of such workers. In Understanding Obstacles to Foreign Qualification Recognition for Key U.S. Early Childhood Education and Care Positions, analysts Alexis Fintland, Margie McHugh and Maki Park examined policies for early childhood teaching positions and child-care or day-care positions in the 20 states with the largest immigrant populations. Their findings identify the range of weaknesses and gaps in state policies that hinder experienced ECEC workers from fully putting their skills to use—a phenomenon known as “brain waste.” While immigrants represent nearly 20 percent of the 1.7 million ECEC workers in the United States, they are disproportionately likely to hold lower-rung and lower-paid positions. The brief outlines key actions states can take to effectively tap the skills of existing and potential workers with foreign-earned qualifications, including by: - Increasing the accessibility of information on foreign qualification recognition policies.
- Ensuring that these policies cover the breadth of education and work experience requirements for common ECEC positions.
- Considering ways to assist or reduce the cost of navigating recognition processes for applicants.
While the analysis reveals significant gaps in many states’ foreign qualification recognition processes, it also points to actions some have undertaken to reduce the burdens that recognition processes can place on ECEC job applicants, suggesting other states should learn from these initiatives and emulate them. These include programs to cover fees for foreign credential evaluation processes as well as the development of guidance and career navigation supports for foreign-trained individuals seeking to enter the ECEC field. “With efforts underway in numerous states, ECEC system and program leaders have many opportunities to borrow and learn from existing initiatives and to develop new approaches that allow them to more fully tap the talents and skills of these workers and to support high-quality education and care for young children across the United States,” the analysts write. Read the brief here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/ecec-foreign-qualification-recognition For more of the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy’s work on employment and the U.S. workforce, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/nciip-employment-and-workforce. | 
