This story about child care wages was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit,
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Caring for children during their first few years is a complex and critical job: A child’s
brain develops more in the first five years than at any other point in life. Yet in America,
individuals engaged in this crucial role are paid less than animal caretakers and
dressing room attendants.

That’s a major finding of one of two new reports on the dismal treatment of child care
workers. Together, the reports offer a distressing picture of how child care staff are
faring economically, including the troubling changes low wages have caused to the
workforce.

Early childhood workers nationally earn a median wage of $13.07 per hour, resulting in
poverty-level earnings for 13 percent of such educators, according to the first report, the
Early Childhood Workforce Index 2024. Released earlier this month by the Center for
the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley, the annual
report also found:

? 43 percent of families of early educators rely on public assistance like
food stamps and Medicaid.

? Pay inequity exists within these low wages: Black early childhood
educators earn about $8,000 less per year than their white peers. The
same pay gap exists between early educators who work with infants and
toddlers and those who work with preschoolers, who have more
opportunities to work in school districts that pay higher wages.

? Wages for early educators are rising more slowly than wages in other
industries, including fast food and retail.

In part due to these conditions, the industry is losing some of its highest-educated
workers, according to a second new report, by Chris M. Herbst, a professor at Arizona
State University’s School of Public Affairs. That study compares the pay of child care
workers with that of workers in other lower-income professions, including cooks and
retail workers; it finds child care workers are the tenth lowest-paid occupation out of
around 750 in the economy. The report also looks at the ‘relative quality’ of child care
staff, as defined by math and literacy scores and education level. Higher-educated
workers, Herbst suggests, are being siphoned off by higher-paying jobs.

That’s led to a “bit of a death spiral” in terms of how child care work is perceived, and
contributes to the persistent low wages, he said in an interview. Some additional
findings from Herbst’s study:

? Higher-educated women increasingly find employment in the child care
industry to be less attractive. The share of workers in the child care
industry with a bachelor’s degree barely budged over the past few
decades, increasing by only 0.3 percent. In contrast, the share of those in
the industry who have 12 years of schooling but no high school degree,
quadrupled.

? Median numeracy and literacy scores for female child care workers
(who are the majority of the industry staff) fall at the 35 th and 36 th
percentiles respectively, compared to all female workers. Improving these
scores is important, Herbst says, considering the importance of education
in the early years, when children experience rapid brain development.

This doesn’t mean child care staff with lower education levels can’t be good early
educators. Patience, communication skills and a commitment to working with young
children also matter greatly, Herbst writes. However, higher education levels may mean
staff have a stronger background not only in English and math but also in topics like
behavior modification and special education, which are sometimes left out of
certification programs for child care teachers.

You can read Herbst’s full report here, and the 2024 workforce index here.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Nov. 1, 1890

Mississippi adopted a new state constitution aimed at barring Black voters and restoring white supremacy. The disenfranchisement clause struck all voters from the rolls and then required them to register again to vote — but only approved them if they paid poll taxes, could read and pass a quiz on the constitution. 

“Dressed up in the genteel garb of bringing integrity to the voting booth,” ‘One Person, No Vote‘ opined, “this feigned legal innocence was legislative evil genius.” 

There was no mystery to those involved. 

“There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter,” future Gov. and U.S. Sen. James K. Vardaman declared, “Mississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n—– from politics.” 

The changes worked. Within a decade, the number of Black registered voters fell from more than 130,000 to less than 1,300. Other Southern states followed Mississippi’s lead, barring Black voters in every way they could. There were “grandfather clauses,” which required voters to have a grandfather who voted. There were even “white primaries,” where white Southern Democrats barred Black voters from their primaries. 

“Jim Crow was never policed just by laws written out on paper,” according to ‘Our Unfinished March‘. “It was enforced with broken bones and crushed skulls, with rope wrapped around trees and knots tied around necks, with bodies displayed in town squares or made to disappear at the bottom of rivers.” 

Unlike Mississippi’s prior constitution, voters did not approve or ratify the document. The lone Black member of the constitutional constitution was Isaiah T. Montgomery, who was once enslaved by Jefferson Davis and had since helped found the all-Black town, Mount Bayou. Montgomery voted for the constitution, hoping this disenfranchisement might mean an end to violence against Black Mississippians. It didn’t.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

For all of his adult life, 52-year-old Tim O’Neal has strived to join the ranks of famously successful millionaire golfers such as Ernie Els, Bernhard Langer, Justin Leonard, David Toms, Stewart Cink and so many more.

O’Neal, a Savannah, Georgia, native who played his college golf at Jackson State, has played all over the world, played on every mini-tour imaginable, and suffered heartbreak after heartbreak. Through it all, he kept working, kept dreaming and never gave up.

“I always thought I had it in me, I always thought I could win,” O’Neal said in a phone conversation this week from his home in Savannah. “There were times, I began to wonder, times I had my doubt.”

Then came Sunday, Oct. 20, the final round of the Dominion Energy Charity Classic at the Country Club of Virginia in Richmond. Three shots behind starting the final round of the PGA Champions Tour tournament, O’Neal fired a remarkable, 7-under-par 65 to earn the victory and the $350,000 top prize that came with it.

In a tearful Golf Channel interview afterward, O’Neal put it this way: “For me to get it done when I had to just means a lot.”

To do it, O’Neal had to beat all those guys listed in the first paragraph and many more, most of whom have won and won often on the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour while O’Neal could only dream and continue to work 

Said O’Neal in a phone conversation from his home in Savannah this week, “It really is a dream come true and it was a long, long time coming. Those guys I beat are guys I have looked up to my whole life. It’s hard to describe how much it meant.”

We can only imagine.

Randy Watkins, owner of three Jackson-area golf courses and once a PGA Tour player himself, can come closer to imagining than most of us. Watkins, who watched O’Neal play when he was at Jackson State, was watching on TV when O’Neal won at Richmond.

“When you think of all the roadblocks that guy has faced, all the times golf has kicked him in the butt, all the disappointments he’s experienced in 30 years of trying, oh my gosh,” Watkins said. “I’ve just got tons of respect for him. I can tell you for sure a lot of people would have given up a long time ago. A lot of people have.”

Eddie Payton recruited O’Neal to Jackson State in 1994. All O’Neal did was win the SWAC championship all four years. This will tell you something about O’Neal: As a senior he qualified to play in the NCAA Championship as an individual, but the Jackson State team was not invited. O’Neal turned down his invite, saying, “If the team doesn’t go, I don’t go.” O’Neal instead led JSU to a fourth straight National Minority College Championship. He won 16 college tournament in all at Jackson State.

He remembers his time at JSU and Eddie Payton fondly. He remembers watching Steve “Air” McNair playing football for Alcorn State and he remembers Lindsay Hunter playing on some fantastic Jackson State basketball teams. And, of course, he remembers the JSU halftime shows with the Sonic Boom. Said O’Neal, “Who could forget?”

Likewise, Watkins remembers watching O’Neal when the team would play at Watkins’ Whisper Lake Country Club. “Tim was fundamentally so sound,” Watkins said. “His swing was perfect, and he was a ball striker. Man, he hit the ball hard. His technique was so freaking good.”

And Watkins has followed O’Neal’s professional career from afar, including all the times O’Neal failed to qualify for the PGA Tour.

“I remember one time he came to the final hole of the final stage of PGA Tour Qualifying and double-bogeyed the last hole to miss by a shot,” Watkins said. “Some guys would never recover from a crushing disappointment like that. That kind of stuff eats at your soul.”

Last year, O’Neal did qualify for the Champions Tour, which in many ways is more difficult than qualifying for the PGA Tour. More than 70 golfers played for only five berths on the tour. O’Neal finished third and got his card.

His rookie season had been only minimally successful until the Richmond stop. Going into the tournament, O’Neal ranked 55th on the Champions Tour points list. The top 54 qualify for next week’s season-ending Champions Tour championship at Phoenix. O’Neal’s victory moved him all the way up to No. 31, just ahead of Vijay Singh, another pro O’Neal has long watched from afar.

This rookie year, at age 52, has been learning curve for O’Neal.

“I figured out pretty quickly that my short game needed to improve,” he said. “These guys are so good around the greens that it’s just incredible. I knew I had to get better to compete with them and I have. I’ve improved. I am not where I want to be yet, but I am going to work at it until I get to where I need to be.”

Don’t bet against him. Tim O’Neal has nearly a lifetime of experience at perseverance.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.