Resulting from a fragmented landscape of policies for and uneven investments in the early childhood education (ECE) field in the United States, the qualifications of the ECE teaching workforce are typically quite low. This article first reviews the history and status of the ECE teaching workforce in the United States, focusing on the evolution of the field, current demographic characteristics of the teaching workforce and the pathways to professional development and professional preparation of the teaching workforce. The authors then discuss the legacies of this history and policy landscape: a lack of quality, equity and sustainability. Offering a re-conceptualization of professional development within the context of systems thinking, the article concludes with a discussion of innovations and challenges with which the field contends relative to workforce development. IntroductionThis article reviews the professional development (PD) and workforce supports available for those who are a part of the early childhood education (ECE) teaching workforce in the United States. Although ECE is conventionally defined as embracing children from birth through age eight, this article focuses on the adults who work directly with children from birth to age five. Our reasons for doing so are multiple: in the United States, individuals teaching children ages six through eight fall within the purview of the country's public education system; as such, the requirements for their PD are quite consistent and differ markedly from the requirements for individuals who work with children birth to age five. Moreover, our focus is grounded in the fact that the minimum qualifications for the birth to five segment of the ECE teaching workforce and requirements for PD are highly idiosyncratic, quite complex and tightly coupled with the evolution of the ECE field.As is the case globally, contemporary ECE is contextually situated and is derived from a country's ideas, values and governmental structures. Because context and history also shape ECE PD policies and programs, we begin our review with a brief history of the field and its teaching workforce in the United States. We then turn to an examination of the various professional preparation and PD pathways that are available to the ECE teaching workforce, the process of creating systemic

Around the world, there is an increasing focus on the importance of the early years, with growing numbers of countries specifying early learning and development standards. The authors find that differences in country context and pre-primary service delivery influence the content and use of standards documents. Generally, within their documents, countries favor either specifying precise indicators of what children should know and be able to do, or including many elements that guide early education more broadly, such as broad learning goals for children and pedagogical guidance for teachers. Although the standards’ documents vary, countries generally use their documents for the purposes of curriculum development, professional development, parent engagement, and national monitoring and evaluation. By using the standards for multiple purposes, early education is better aligned and countries are advancing the integration of their services. Standards have made numerous positive contributions to the early childhood field, but, lacking rigorous outcome evaluations, it is too early to discern the effect of standards on children’s performance and learning. The authors recommend that countries devote greater attention to developing their early childhood infrastructure so that the standards documents are more effectively understood, utilized, and evaluated.