In January 2021, NHSA released the paper, Broader, Deeper, Fairer: Five Strategies to Radically Expand the Talent Pool in Early Education. Through this paper, NHSA furthered the thinking and actions related to innovative, high-quality early childhood career pathways. One of the paper’s outcomes was forming a nationwide early childhood education apprenticeship work circle. This work circle consisted of advocates, early learning systems leaders, early pioneers in early childhood education apprenticeships, and federal leaders invested in training. Over time, the group dug deeper into various models and shared their challenges and successes. Soon, the work circle began to identify critical components in early childhood education apprenticeships; these components were standard in successful models and missing from short-lived programs.
Armed with this knowledge, the group created a list of recommendations that would support expansion. In the end, it seemed that these colleagues had more to share, so we continued to dig deeper, present together, and learn from one another. Finally, the lessons and experiences of these pioneers have informed the insights in this paper.