A birth-to-kindergarten (B-K) degree is an early childhood education degree that prepares you to teach one continuous span: birth through kindergarten — infants and toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners.
The matching B-K license is a state educator license; North Carolina issues one, and whether your state offers it under that name is a question for its education agency.
Below: what B-K programs cover, where the licensure exists, and the jobs it leads to.
What a birth-to-kindergarten degree covers
A birth-to-kindergarten (B-K) degree is an early childhood education degree organized around a single age span: birth through kindergarten.
The field's wider professional frame is bigger — NAEYC's developmentally appropriate practice position statement treats early childhood as birth through age 8, across centers, family child care homes and schools — and the B-K degree concentrates on the younger end of it.
That span is the whole point.
Preparation runs from infancy (birth-to-three) through preschool and into the kindergarten year.
The adjacent label birth-to-five degree describes the same idea, with the preparation stopping at five instead of continuing through kindergarten.
What the coursework actually covers tracks the areas the field's professional standards name.
NAEYC's Professional Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators (2020) sets six standards — child development and learning in context; family-teacher partnerships and community connections; child observation, documentation and assessment; developmentally, culturally and linguistically appropriate teaching practices; integrating academic content into the early childhood curriculum; and professionalism.
Read together, they are a plain-language map of this preparation: how children develop from birth, how to work with families, how to observe and assess learning, and how to teach across the age bands in the span.
Two accreditation facts help when you compare programs.
NAEYC currently accredits 185 early childhood higher education programs across 36 states — a review that covers associate, baccalaureate and initial master's ECE degrees, and requires the college itself to already hold accreditation from a CHEA- or U.S. Department of Education-recognized accreditor.
And because a B-K license — where a state issues one — is a state educator license, ask any licensure-track program whether it is approved for licensure in the state where you plan to teach.
For the degree itself — levels, cost, licensure vs non-licensure tracks — our bachelor's degree in early childhood education guide goes deep.
Where B-K licensure exists
The degree belongs to the college; the license belongs to the state.
North Carolina has a professional educator's Birth through Kindergarten (B-K) license, named in the state's published teacher-requirements guidance for early educators — that guidance is the state Department of Public Instruction's list of what its pre-K teachers must hold.
That is the B-K license the research for this page verified.
It did not verify which other states issue a license under the same birth-through-kindergarten name, or under which age spans, and we will not guess at a list.
The state education agency that issues educator licenses can answer both questions for your state: whether a birth-through-kindergarten license exists, and which preparation programs lead to it.
License names and spans are state rules
Jobs a B-K degree leads to
In North Carolina, the B-K license plugs directly into pre-K hiring.
State guidance for NC Pre-K teachers sets the NC Early Childhood Credential as the minimum, and names the "enhanced" requirements as an Associate in Applied Science (AAS) in early childhood education or higher, a professional educator's Preschool Add-On license, or the B-K license — so the B-K license is one of the qualifications the state itself counts above that minimum.
The degree-level math matters beyond North Carolina too.
NIEER's 2025 State of Preschool Yearbook (2024-25 school year) found that 30 of 63 state-funded pre-K initiatives require every lead teacher to hold at least a bachelor's degree, and some programs set different rules by setting — for example, a bachelor's in public-school classrooms but an associate degree in nonpublic (child care) sites.
Assistants are measured separately: only 21 of the 63 initiatives meet NIEER's benchmark requiring assistant teachers to hold a CDA or equivalent.
Head Start is the other setting where this degree type maps cleanly onto hiring rules.
The Office of Head Start's performance standards (45 CFR 1302.91) require all center-based Head Start preschool teachers to hold at least an associate or bachelor's degree in child development or early childhood education, or equivalent coursework, and require at least 50% of Head Start preschool teachers nationwide to hold a bachelor's.
BLS's summary of the same rules adds that a teacher whose degree is in a related field — psychology, say — must also have experience teaching preschool-age children.
A birth-through-kindergarten degree is an early childhood education degree, so it sits in the field the standard names.
One caution: ACF proposed on August 7, 2026 to rescind and replace the Head Start Program Performance Standards, and the comment period closed October 6, 2026 — so check what is currently in force before you count on any single requirement.
The birth-to-three stretch of the span also touches early intervention and early childhood special education.
Under IDEA Part C, early intervention "qualified personnel" are people who meet state-approved or state-recognized certification, licensing, registration or comparable requirements — so early intervention credentials are set state by state, not by one national degree rule.
States may use appropriately trained and supervised paraprofessionals and assistants in Part C, and in shortage areas may hire the most qualified available candidates who are making satisfactory progress toward the standards.
For special education teaching more broadly, BLS puts typical entry education at a bachelor's degree.
What a specific state accepts for ECSE or early intervention roles is a question for that state's education agency or Part C agency.
At the entry end, BLS puts preschool teachers' typical entry-level education at an associate degree, while noting requirements vary by setting and state rules — center-based roles are their own track, with the state child care licensing agency setting the minimums in our childcare teacher requirements guide.
B-K vs PK-3: the age span is the difference
Both labels describe age spans for teaching the first school years, and the span is what separates them.
B-K — birth through kindergarten — includes the infant and toddler years and runs through the kindergarten year.
PK-3 spells its span in the label — pre-K through grade 3 — so it starts at pre-K, continues into the early elementary grades, and the birth-to-three years sit outside it.
North Carolina's license, the one the research for this page verified, is written as birth through kindergarten.
The grade-band question has a broader answer from BLS: people with a bachelor's degree in early childhood education are frequently qualified to teach kindergarten through grade 3 as well as preschool, and those grades typically pay more — with the exact band depending on the state's license.
On pay, BLS's Occupational Outlook Handbook (2025 data) puts the preschool teacher median at $38,140 a year ($18.34 an hour), against $63,820 for kindergarten and elementary school teachers in the same handbook.
So the choice is about where you want to stand.
If the infant and toddler years are the point, the birth-through-kindergarten span is the one that contains them.
If you want a school building and the early elementary grades, that is the PK-3 and elementary side of the line — our ECE vs elementary comparison walks through the ages, licenses, settings and pay on each side.
Career information, not licensing or legal advice. License names, age spans and pre-K or Head Start hiring requirements are administered by state education agencies, state child care licensing agencies and the Office of Head Start — confirm the current rules with the agency named before you enroll or apply.