The AFT has long endorsed the importance and value of education for children at their earliest age and is proud to represent roughly 90,000 early childhood educators in every early learning setting, from public schools, Head Start programs, and child care centers to family child care programs.
In 2002, the Center for the Child Care Workforce (CCW) merged with the AFT Educational Foundation and became the Center for the Child Care Workforce, A Project of the American Federation of Teachers, Educational Foundation (CCW/AFTEF). This strengthened our efforts to focus the nation’s attention on early childhood education by working together to develop an even stronger voice for the early childhood workforce and the children and families they serve and to bring early childhood education to the forefront of the national agenda.
In October 2007, the union’s New York City affiliate, the United Federation of Teachers, welcomed 28,000 home daycare providers into its ranks. This was the largest addition of unaffiliated workers in the history of the AFT.
More than 80,000 early childhood educators have joined AFT at their pre-school sites, non-profit and church-based centers, home and family provider sites, Head Start centers and other places in our nation’s diverse community of child care and early education. AFT also has early childhood organizing campaigns in every corner of the U.S. If you’d like to hear more about this work, and tell us about your own needs and concerns, contact us.
Our voice is strengthened through the union’s programs, activities and actions that call attention to the needs and rights of early childhood educators and the importance of early childhood education.