Evaluation of the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program Teacher Salary Increase Pilot
Child care and early education (CCEE) teachers work in one of the lowest-paid occupations nationwide, and they often rely on public assistance or second jobs to make ends meet. Low pay makes it challenging for child care centers to recruit and retain qualified professionals, which may affect the quality and continuity of care and education that young children receive. One way to potentially address this issue is to increase teachers’ salaries.
Although there is ample evidence suggesting that higher pay is associated with increased retention in CCEE settings, there is limited experimental evidence—based on randomized controlled trials—that higher pay causes higher retention or affects other outcomes, such as teacher recruitment, advancement, and economic well-being. Further, there is little information on the costs of strategies that increase pay or benefits or on their implementation challenges. Thus, more evidence is needed about the impact, implementation, and costs of compensation strategies.
To address pervasive issues in the CCEE workforce in Colorado—namely, low pay and high turnover rates—the Colorado Department of Early Childhood (CDEC) created the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP) Teacher Salary Increase Pilot. The pilot program was designed to raise the salaries of lead and assistant teachers in center-based child care settings to be closer to a livable wage—that is, a wage that meets the minimum standards of living in their counties. The pilot program provided centers with monthly payments, based on the number of participating lead and assistant teachers and the county’s cost of living, to fund salary increases for two years.
MDRC, in collaboration with MEF Associates and Decision Information Resources, Inc., conducted an evaluation of the pilot program as part of the Building and Sustaining the Child Care and Early Education Workforce (BASE) project. A total of 74 centers participated in the evaluation, which used a randomized controlled trial design. Within program group centers, which received monthly funds for teacher salary increases, teachers were eligible for the salary increase if they were lead or assistant teachers in infant, toddler, or preschool classrooms and worked at least 16 hours per week.
The evaluation of the pilot program comprised an implementation study, an impact study, and a cost study. The implementation study examined aspects of pilot program implementation—participant reach and engagement, system and infrastructure, and context—as well as the perceptions and experiences of participating directors, teachers, and program implementers. The impact study examined the effects of the pilot program on a range of outcomes, including teacher retention; teachers’ economic, mental, and physical well-being; teachers’ perceptions of their working conditions; center-level turnover, hiring, and staffing approximately one year after the start of the pilot program (that is, Wave 1); and on a small subset of outcomes approximately two years after the start of the pilot program (this is, Wave 2). The cost study examined the costs that participating centers incurred when implementing the pilot program and compared these costs with potential center-level savings from reduced turnover. This report describes the findings from these three studies.
Key Findings
Implementation Study Findings
The pilot program application and payment processes generally worked well and were easy to navigate.
Directors and teachers were excited about participating.
Program implementation was facilitated by several factors: (1) strong collaboration between State and external partners, particularly during the pilot program’s design phase; (2) a simple program design that included a clear scale for the salary increase amounts across centers and teacher roles; and (3) direct communication from CDEC to centers during the application process.
The long-term sustainability of the salary increase, given the pilot program’s temporary nature and ongoing funding constraints, was a key concern of directors and teachers.
Pilot program implementers described data and quality assurance challenges. For example, the vendor’s existing database was not built to support a program that disbursed funds monthly and calculated funds at the teacher level. This issue required work-arounds to collect data outside of the vendor’s system and manually enter data.
Many directors noted pay parity concerns about increasing pay for teachers but not for staff members in other roles, such as administrative staff members, floaters, or substitutes.
Impact Study Findings
The pilot program did not lead to a statistically significant increase in the primary outcome measure of teacher retention, which was measured with staffing reports that were completed by directors at two points in time. Seventy-six percent of teachers working at program group centers at the start of the pilot program were still working at those centers one year later (Wave 1) compared with 69 percent of teachers in control group centers. This difference is not statistically significant. By Wave 2, fewer teachers in both groups were still at their original centers: 56 percent of program group teachers compared with 53 percent of control group teachers. The difference of 3 percentage points is also not statistically significant. Although not statistically significant, the increase in retention on this primary outcome measure is large enough to be substantively meaningful and may warrant further research. The salary increase led to a statistically significant 10 percentage point increase in the secondary outcome measure of teacher retention (measured approximately one year after the start of the pilot program); 89 percent of program group teachers reported that they were still employed by their original center compared with about 78 percent of control group teachers.
Program group teachers earned significantly higher wages than those in the control group. However, the pilot program did not lead to a statistically significant increase in household income at Wave 1. Teachers in the program group were less likely at Wave 1 to have other sources of income, particularly income from a second job or from child support, which may partially account for why program group teachers had higher wages but not overall household income.
On average, teachers in the program group were more likely, at Wave 1, to report improvements in markers of economic well-being: fewer teachers worked two or more jobs, and teachers experienced less food insecurity, had fewer unpaid bills, and perceived that they had more financial security.
Teachers in the program group who remained in CCEE or education-related jobs at Wave 1 reported more stable and better working conditions, greater job satisfaction, and stronger intentions to stay at their current center than teachers in the control group who remained in CCEE or education-related jobs.
The study team also examined the pilot program’s effects on centers, although these analyses were exploratory given the small number of centers in the evaluation. Effects on teacher retention rates, teacher turnover rates, vacancies, and hires were in the expected direction but are not statistically significant. These findings warrant future research that is appropriately powered to detect center-level impacts.
Cost Study Findings
The costs to centers that were associated with administering the pilot program were minimal—approximately $200 per teacher—and could be attributed largely to the time directors spent applying to the pilot program.
The estimated costs of turnover were substantial (in both the control and program groups) and were driven largely by director and staff time that was devoted to recruitment and hiring, training and onboarding, and vacancy coverage.
Document Details
Maier, Michelle F., Alexandra Bernardi, Michele Abbott, Rebecca Davis, and Cynthia Miller. 2025. Evaluation of the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program Teacher Salary Increase Pilot. OPRE Report 2025-136. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.