Teaching pre-K in a public school and teaching it in a childcare center are different jobs with different pay, entry rules and calendars.
In BLS wage data from May 2025, preschool teachers earned a median of $52,800 per year in educational services, the industry category that covers schools, versus $36,850 per year in child daycare services, the category that covers childcare centers.
This guide compares pay, requirements, schedules and class size so you can choose.
Pay and benefits
Pay is the starkest line between the two settings.
BLS's May 2025 data for preschool teachers (SOC 25-2011) splits the occupation by industry: the median was $52,800 per year in educational services (state, local and private) versus $36,850 per year in child daycare services.
Those are BLS's two industry categories — educational services covers schools and child daycare services covers childcare centers — the two sides this page compares.
Neither number is a salary scale; both are medians for one industry.
For scale, the May 2025 median for the whole occupation was $38,140 per year, and the tails are wide: the lowest 10% of preschool teachers earned under $28,990 per year and the highest 10% earned over $61,390 per year.
The industry medians describe typical pay in each category — not what any single classroom will post.
The same industry gap shows up one rung down.
Childcare workers (SOC 39-9011), the federal code childcare-center assistant teachers are usually counted under, had a May 2025 median of $18.15 per hour in local elementary and secondary schools versus $16.43 per hour in child daycare services.
The direction matches the teacher code above it.
All of these figures are wages.
They don't price the rest of a package — health insurance, retirement contributions, paid leave or tuition help — and each employer sets those terms, so weigh the whole package against the wage when you compare a school-based offer with a center offer.
For the pay comparison in depth — district salary schedules, community-based pre-K pay and benefits — see public school pre-K teacher pay vs private centers.
Requirements
The school side carries the higher formal bar.
BLS says public-school preschool teachers generally need at least a bachelor's degree and must be licensed to teach early childhood education — a license that covers preschool through third grade, with license names and grade bands varying by state.
Certification sits with the state education agency, not with child care licensing.
Center classrooms answer to a different system: state child care licensing.
BLS's typical entry education for preschool teachers is at least an associate's degree, but that label describes the occupation statistically — it is not a legal minimum, and staffing rules for licensed centers come from each state's child care licensing agency.
Below the teacher code, requirements vary by state: BLS notes some states require a high school diploma or equivalent for entry-level childcare workers while others have no education requirement, and where a state requires a nationally recognized credential, it is most often the Child Development Associate (CDA), renewed every 3 years.
Public pre-K is not one national system either.
NIEER's 2025 State of Preschool Yearbook counts 63 state-funded preschool programs across 44 states plus DC in 2024-25, and six states — Idaho, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Wyoming — had no state-funded program meeting NIEER's definition.
Those programs enrolled nearly 1.8 million children in 2024-25, including 37% of 4-year-olds and 9% of 3-year-olds.
Their teacher rules also vary: only 30 of the 63 programs met NIEER's benchmark requiring a bachelor's degree for lead teachers in every classroom, so whether a state-funded pre-K lead teacher needs a bachelor's degree in every classroom depends on the state program you would teach in.
The pre-K teacher career guide maps how credentials, degrees and state rules fit together for the role as a whole.
Two agencies, two rulebooks
Schedule
The calendar is the clearest day-to-day difference.
BLS notes that preschool teachers in public schools generally work school hours, often on a 10-month year, while preschool teachers in daycare settings may work year-round with longer hours.
In practice that is often the difference between a calendar that ends with the school year and a workplace that usually keeps running through the summer.
On the center side, BLS says childcare centers are usually open year round with long hours, and some centers cover the full day with full-time and part-time staff on staggered shifts.
BLS also states that part-time work and irregular hours are common for childcare workers.
Neither setting is one schedule.
BLS's descriptions are patterns — "usually" and "generally" are doing work in them — so compare the specific posting rather than the setting label.
And a 10-month year and a year-round one are different incomes as well as different calendars — when you compare offers, ask each employer how pay is spread across the year.
Class size and support
On the state-funded pre-K side, class size and staffing have public numbers.
NIEER's quality benchmarks call for a maximum class size of 20 or lower and a staff-child ratio of 1:10 or better; in 2024-25, 50 of the 63 state-funded programs met the class-size benchmark and 51 met the ratio benchmark.
The yearbook tracks them as benchmarks — standards NIEER measures, not licensing rules.
Center classrooms run on different paperwork.
Staff-to-child ratios and group sizes in licensed centers come from each state's child care licensing agency and change with the ages of the children in the room, so the rules behind a center pre-K room and a school pre-K room are not the same body of rules even in the same state.
If a specific ratio or group size matters to your decision, ask the state child care licensing agency for its current staffing table for the age group you would teach.
Support staffing differs too.
On the state-funded side, NIEER tracks an assistant benchmark, and in 2024-25 only 21 of the 63 programs met the benchmark requiring assistant teachers to hold a CDA or equivalent.
In centers, what an assistant or aide may do and how they fit a room's staffing are state licensing questions — ask any center you are considering how its pre-K rooms are staffed before you accept an offer.
Where does that leave you?
If the school side fits your goals, the requirements are the first thing to plan for: BLS says public-school preschool teachers generally need at least a bachelor's degree and a state early childhood teaching license.
If you want year-round work, the center side can be the shorter path into a classroom at entry level: BLS notes some states require a high school diploma or equivalent for entry-level childcare workers, and others have no education requirement for entry-level positions.
Live postings tell you the pay, the hours and the room you would actually walk into — compare them when you browse pre-K teacher jobs.
Career information, not licensing or legal advice. Certification, licensing and program rules change; confirm current requirements with your state education agency and your state child care licensing agency.