Links among early childhood leadership, teacher-child interaction quality, and teacher retention

Stable high quality early learning opportunities provide essential benefits for both young children and their caregivers, who rely on care for work. Central to this function is the skill and stability of the early educator in the room, who’s daily interactions and consistent present both support development and provide adults with assured daily caregiving support. Unfortunately, working conditions in U.S. early learning sites often result in low levels of classroom quality and high teacher turnover. This study explores the potential role of early childhood leadership in bolstering both quality and retention in early learning sites. Using a large sample of publicly-funded early learning sites in Louisiana we estimate the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of their leaders and an observational measure of teacher-child interactions, teachers’ intentions to stay in the field, and observed teacher retention one year later. We also explore variability by leadership domain. We find evidence that teachers’ ratings of leaders do shape all outcomes, with variable domain-level relationships for each outcome. Policy implications are discussed.