•Cultural Existentialism Pedagogy (CEP) is the theoretical basis of this study.•Chinese Kindergarten Teacher Quality Scale (CKTQS) helps teacher quality assessment.•Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed five constructs of the CKTQS.•A survey of 1810 teachers of 81kindergartens from seven districts of Shanghai.•Shanghai kindergarten teachers show higher quality and position matters in quality. This study develops and validates the Chinese Kindergarten Teacher Quality Scale (CKTQS) based on China’s National Professional Standards for K-12 Teachers. We randomly selected and surveyed 1834 teachers from Shanghai kindergartens. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed a five-factor structure (healthy condition, practical wisdom, cultural literacy, empowerment and autonomy, and loyalty and commitment), indicating satisfactory construct validity. Descriptive statistics indicated that the Shanghai kindergarten teachers were generally of good quality, ranking highly in practical wisdom. Latent profile analyses generated three profiles, (1) low teacher quality, (2) medium teacher quality, and (3) high teacher quality, while MANOVA results revealed the significant effects of age, educational background, professional title, and position on these quality levels. Finally, hierarchical regression analyses found that job position predicted better teacher quality and that public school tenure was a negative predictor, after controlling for demographic and kindergarten factors. Implications for policy-making and teacher education are discussed.