Making a Difference – The Case for Public Funding of Early Childhood Education and Quality Childcare - Tim Frazier
Providing early education with a focus on literacy and wellness from birth to kindergarten will make a difference for us all. Making a difference means getting involved. It means becoming informed and advocating for the funding necessary to truly elevate quality early childhood education and child-care to the level of ESSENTIAL for all young children. Nothing has shown the need for quality early childhood/child-care programs more than the COVID-19 pandemic – the pandemic has redefined child-care as an essential service needed but sorely lacking, to the extent of becoming a major obstacle to our economic recovery.
Literacy is the cornerstone for building a strong learning foundation for our youngest children, their families, our communities, our society, and the future of our country. The data-based research and evidence is very clear about this investment in our youngest children, yet the facts about our commitment to this research and evidence is grim at best. Only 40% of three-year old’s in America ae enrolled in some form of early educational programs, even though these programs have been shown to provide the highest return and impact on successful learning.
Most educators agree that beginning at birth, children’s social/emotional/literacy development significantly influences future learning, where children develop the skills, habits and traits needed to become successful learners. By age five, 90% of brain capacity has already developed, indicating that the brain is at its most receptive and flexible stage of growth during these five years. In fact, the richer the literacy experiences children have in their early years, whether at home or in child-care/Pre-K, the greater the impact is on their developmental growth and their potential for learning. Unfortunately, not all families of our youngest children have equitable opportunities for rich literacy experiences and/or for quality, affordable child-care.
Early childhood education/child-care programs across our country are collapsing under the pressures of the COVID pandemic and the lack of federal, state, and local funding. Instead, private, and public programs and services are fighting for the little funding that is available with families (most in financial crisis themselves) bearing the burden of paying and/or struggling to find out how to access subsidized programs/funds. This issue of “ability to pay” for quality early childhood education/child-care speaks to the increasing gaps in educational achievement between children of high-income and low-income families. Narrowing this income and achievement gap to provide equitable social/emotional and academic opportunities for our youngest children is critical.
As we find ourselves overwhelmed by the time, energy, coordination, and funding required to make the changes so needed in funding early childhood education/child-care, please consider: Consider the costs of not accelerating literacy achievement during the early years of development. Consider the widening gap between high- and low-income student achievement. Consider the countless millions of dollars now being spent on literacy interventions (reading), special education and poor educational attendance.
The perception that educating young children requires a lower level of expertise and/or training is problematic. The research is clear, educating young children requires the same levels of expertise, knowledge and competencies that are provided by most K-12 educational programs both private and public. Why, then, does early childhood/child-care programs experience less than equitable compensation, educational support, and public funding? Isn’t it obvious (ex: Head Start) that early intervention and advocacy for our youngest learners will have a substantial impact on preparing them for success in school? Yet there is no cohesive funding for early childhood education/child-care.
Ron Edmonds, an early leader of the “Effective Schools” movement, advocated that we know enough to successfully teach all children – yet the underlying issue is – do we have the will? Do we have the will to fully invest (both financially and educationally) in our youngest learners? Are we willing to advocate for the needed changes? If so, the payoff for investing in early childhood literacy and child-care can reap huge dividends for children, their families, and society at large.