Tarrant County invests in wages for child care workers. Here’s why that matters.
A local Tarrant County board invested in wage supplements for child care workers as part of a larger effort to boost the quality of programs, according to data analyzed by a state nonprofit.
In fiscal year 2024, Tarrant’s local workforce development board invested 59% of its child care quality funds toward wage supplements, according to state advocacy and research organization Children at Risk. The supplements were offered to programs that either joined Texas Rising Star, the state’s quality rating and improvement system for child care, or maintained a four-star rating in the program. Four stars is the highest rating a program can receive.
“Tarrant County was saying, ‘We know that we want to invest more in the salaries in any way that we can, or to incentivize quality,’” said Lyn Lucas, associate director of early childhood education with Children at Risk.
This data point was one of several metrics presented during a virtual presentation on Thursday, April 16, digging into the current child care landscape in Tarrant County. Local information on gaps, investments and policy recommendations were presented by Children at Risk that elaborated on other statewide metrics released by the nonprofit last week.
Addressing wages for child care workers is a key part of improving retainment and quality in an environment where young children spend their most crucial years of development, experts say. In Tarrant County, the median salary for these workers is about $31,800 annually, or about $15.29 per hour, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. This is notably higher in comparison to the state median salary of about $27,900, or about $13.40 per hour.
“Inadequate and inequitable compensation is the longest-running and most pressing issue in early childhood education — impacting educators themselves, as well as children, families, businesses, and the economy,” according to the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
During the virtual presentation Thursday, Lucas conducted a live poll asking child care providers to rank what their biggest barrier to child care quality was in their programs. The majority of participants put salary and benefits as the biggest issue.
Where are Tarrant County’s child care deserts?
Children at Risk also elaborated on a new metric known as chronic child care deserts, which are areas where the demand for care has been three times higher than the available supply for three consecutive years.
Tarrant County has a chronic shortage of child care seats across six ZIP codes: 75050, 76022, 76106, 76114, 76115, 76164. This includes Fort Worth’s Northside and Diamond Hill neighborhoods, south Fort Worth, River Oaks, Bedford in northeast Tarrant and Grand Prairie in eastern Tarrant.
There are 15 overall child care deserts out of 74 ZIP codes in Tarrant, and 40% of those deserts are considered to be chronic. This is notably lower than the state percentage, said Jacob Westjohn, assistant director of the Center for Social Measurement and Evaluation at Children at Risk.
“I do want to note that this is much lower than the statewide rate for overall (deserts). About 64% of all child care deserts in Texas are classified as chronic, so that is great to see that you guys are lower than the statewide rate,” Westjohn said.
The nonprofit also outlined other types of child care deserts where the demand is three times greater than the supply for subsidized child care seats and seats in Texas Rising Star programs.
“When we look at Tarrant specifically, there was an increase in about 1,000 subsidy seats from your previous year, which is awesome to see. Unfortunately, similarly to the statewide data, this didn’t lead to a decrease in the subsidy deserts,” Westjohn said. “We really think this is just because these increases in child care seats are going to communities that already have subsidy child care available, or going to childcare desert areas where it’s just not enough to be able to flip that ZIP code.”
A similar trend was seen with Texas Rising Star deserts. The number of quality child care providers increased by more than 150, but the percentage of Texas Rising Star deserts increased by 5%.
The nonprofit is recommending policy improvements to address the underlying issues that show up in the data. This includes better coordination among the multiple state agencies that regulate and oversee the child care sector, in addition to minimizing red tape, providing public data on where families stand in line for the state’s subsidy waitlist and ensuring access for children with disabilities.
