Child Care Slots in Wisconsin Sit Vacant as Programs Struggle to Hire Teachers

Recent data out of Wisconsin confirms what many early care and education experts have been warning about for years: Staffing has reached crisis levels, and the shortage is hurting providers, families and kids. 

In 2024 alone, more than 6,000 early childhood educators in Wisconsin exited the field, representing about a quarter of the state’s overall child care workforce, according to a report from the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA), a nonprofit advocacy organization that supports early childhood educators and the children they serve. 

Without qualified teachers to fill classrooms, most center-based programs are not able to enroll as many children as they can accommodate. As of October 2025, more than three-quarters of programs were under-enrolled, with the average program operating at only about 75% of their licensed capacity, according to the WECA study, which analyzed monthly data over the past five years that early education providers submitted to the state’s Department of Children and Families. 

That translates to more than 33,000 licensed but unfilled child care slots across the state. To make those seats available, the state would need an estimated 4,000 additional educators.

Wisconsin’s high staff turnover and worsening shortages have strained its child care capacity, leaving the state with the space — but not the teachers — to meet the needs of families.

There’s clear data proving that this paradox is playing out in Wisconsin. There’s also evidence it’s plaguing other states. It’s not surprising, in a nation where the average wage for early childhood educators hovers around $15 per hour, employer-provided benefits are rare, and nearly half the field receives some sort of public assistance. 

“We have a precarious workforce,” acknowledged Anne Hedgepeth, senior vice president of policy and research at Child Care Aware of America, a national organization that promotes high-quality, affordable child care. 

In Wisconsin, where the last pandemic-era relief payments are due to run out this June, that has perhaps never been more true.

“Staffing has always been a challenge, but it continues to get worse,” said Paula Drew, director of early care and education policy and research at WECA. “This business model is not focused on what it costs to provide high-quality care to children. It’s based on what parents can afford to pay. [Providers have to cover] rent, liability insurance, food. What’s left is what goes to staff.”

In Wisconsin, early childhood educators earn an average of just over $14 per hour, while the statewide median wage across occupations is close to $23 an hour. The result is a workforce that can barely make ends meet. 

Across the country, fast food restaurants, gas stations and retail stores have increased their wages since the pandemic. Early care and education programs, in many instances, are no longer trying to compete with their prices — they simply can’t afford to. They’re relying, instead, on people who love young children so much that they are willing to forego financial stability. 

Drew pointed out that in the K-12 education sector, pay is modest, but public school employees often get rewarded with great benefits. 

“There isn’t something like that in early childhood,” Drew said. 

She added: “It’s great to watch a lesson in circle time play out, to see children use a lesson you just taught them. But when you worry about how you’re going to pay for groceries or get to your second job, there really isn’t something that helps you stay.”

In interviews, several providers in Wisconsin shared that they have lost exceptional teachers to jobs in unrelated fields, strictly because of compensation. 

Virginia Maus, co-owner of Joyful Beginnings Academy in Hortonville, said her program lost 18 teachers in 2025, out of a staff of 38. 

Every single one of them left for higher pay, she said, and 80% of them left early education altogether. (Maus has a day job as a data scientist, so naturally, she collects and analyzes the center’s data on staff turnover.) 

“They all came to me and said, ‘I got this offer,’ and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t match that,’” she explained.

One went to McDonald’s. Another, who Maus said was a “really, really great teacher who really connected with the children,” left for a job at a factory. 

“It’s really saddening, when they’re really talented people and the children adore them — to think she’s now standing in front of a machine,” Maus said. 

Julia Wilridge, who runs Lov ‘N Care Academy, a child care center nearly 150 miles away, in Kenosha, has also seen many teachers leave the industry for better-paying jobs elsewhere. The cost of living has gone up, she pointed out. Pay for unskilled jobs has gone up. But wages for early childhood educators? They’ve remained stubbornly low — at least in her program. 

“Young kids are getting jobs at McDonald’s and Taco Bell, getting $16 to $18 an hour,” she said, “and we’re still offering $12 and $13 an hour.”

Wilridge is in the process of increasing her base pay to staff, out of necessity. Assistant teachers without experience would start at $13 an hour, instead of $12, while lead teachers would start at $15 an hour, up from $14. 

Part of the challenge in Wisconsin, providers shared, is that the state’s child care quality rating system, YoungStar, boosts ratings when more teachers have advanced certificates and degrees, but these programs aren’t making enough money to pay degree-holding teachers what they want.

Wilridge, for example, needs to hire a new teacher to lead her 4-year-old classroom, but that teacher has to have an undergraduate degree. 

“I already know I’m going to run into an issue,” she said, noting that the last time she was hiring for a similar role, candidates all wanted at least $20 an hour. “None of our staff make $20 an hour. I’m going to run into a problem getting people to accept a job paying $16 or $17. I don’t blame them, but I know that’s going to be an issue.” 

Annette Larson, director of Coulee Children’s Center in La Crosse, said her program closed the toddler classroom she was teaching in after she stepped into the director position there three years ago. They haven’t been able to find a teacher to help reopen it, since that person needs to have a degree. 

“You don’t find a lot of four-year-degree people who want to work in child care due to what you get paid in child care,” Larson said bluntly. “That’s a lot of the issue.”

Her center is licensed for 125 children but currently only serves 70, in part due to staffing, she said. 

Child care programs can hire people without experience and education, but then they have to ensure those teachers obtain the required coursework. Even assistant teachers are required to take one or two classes — depending on the age group they teach. That’s a financial investment and time commitment for programs, which are already just scraping by. 

Hedgepeth, at Child Care Aware, described teachers as the “linchpin” of early care and education programs. “It’s critical to figure out what we need to do [to keep them] in our programs and fill vacancies when we have them,” she said. 

Drew, who led the WECA study and plans to continue to track statewide staffing data, emphasized the importance of this issue. 

“Workforce is everything. That is child care supply, child development, child care quality,” she said. “One of the items on the list to do to improve child care infrastructure is shoring up our workforce.”