The Delta Issue #22

3 Steps towards tackling the bipartisan issue that unites America

By: Jessica Baghian

Hey, y’all, Jessica Baghian here. With a new president in the White House this week and new governors taking office across the country, it’s the perfect time to talk about an issue we can all get behind: Improving early childhood education for kids ages 0-5.

Research shows that 90% of a child’s brain development happens in the first five years of her life. Access to high-quality early childhood programs and services is essential to boosting young children’s development, supporting working families, and growing a prosperous economy. Research has established that every dollar invested in high-quality, birth-to-five early childhood education for disadvantaged children can deliver a 13% annual return on investment. The challenge governors face is how to ensure all families, regardless of ability to pay, can access high-quality early childhood education.

There’s a lot of work to do here, so we’re going to tackle it in two parts: Today, we’ll focus on what state leaders can do. Next week, we’ll turn our attention to the feds.

The biggest hurdle at the state level is fragmented early childhood systems.

Education for kids ages 0-5 in America is what we call “mixed delivery” — it takes a lot of forms and happens in a lot of settings, including small businesses, family homes, federally-funded Head Start programs (more on this next week), and public and private schools. Without a sustainable funding structure or a coherent vision for success, the “system” isn’t really a system at all.

Most governors are shocked when I tell them there isn’t a single person in their state who can answer these 3 questions:

How many kids need early childhood care and education in your state?
How many early childhood seats are available in your state?
What is the quality of those seats?

This is not an exaggeration — in the majority of states both red and blue, there is no one whose job it is to know these things.

State administration of early childhood education lags behind K-12 education in two key ways: First, in most states there is no one at the state level in charge of it. Every state has a person in charge of K-12 education, but only a handful of states have a captain who wakes up every day working on all things birth-to-five. Second, there is no one at the local level in charge of it. In other words, there is no early childhood equivalent to a school district superintendent whose job is to oversee and expand the availability of high-quality early childhood offerings in a region. This job is made even more complicated — and important — by the number and variety of providers serving kids at the regional level.

It can be tempting to say that underfunding is the biggest problem in early childhood — and underfunding is a problem. But throwing more money at an incoherent system won’t work, either, because even if states could wave a wand and get the funding to provide education to every child that needs care tomorrow, we don’t have the infrastructure. The first step has to be putting someone in charge.

Unified: State established an office or agency to oversee several early care and education components, including at least state-funded Pre-K and child care.

Partially Unified: State created a new agency for some early care and education components, but that does not include both Pre-K and child care administration.

Coordinated: State has multiple early care and education functions split between different offices and agencies.

Many states are somewhere on the road to unifying their early childhood systems (the standouts include Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Virginia) but the majority of states still have a lot of work to do.

With that in mind, here are the 3 actions we recommend to governors who are serious about addressing their fragmented early childhood systems:

Put one person in charge at the state level. This is the person who will ultimately be responsible for counting the number of kids, the number of seats, and setting a quality standard for early childhood in your state.
Identify one organization to lead in each region or city. Empower the people who are closest to kids and classrooms to come up with early childhood options that work for their communities.
Build a state strategy for the entire mixed delivery system. This should include (1) plans to measure quality, develop a workforce, and increase access over time, and (2) partnerships with the local leads to make it a reality for children and families.

The question everyone, from the governor’s office down to the classroom, should ask themselves is not just, “Did we fulfill the requirements of our grants?” but “Are we actually helping students and families at all income levels?”

Ultimately, the goal is to build a system that makes the most of every public dollar and serves as many kids as possible in the highest quality settings — including fully subsidized, fully tuition-paying, and a range of options in between.

Want more? Colorado offers a great example of how to unify early childhood without disrupting the mixed-delivery system families like. Learn more about how we helped Gov. Jared Polis turn his vision into a reality.

We’ll give our new federal leaders a week to settle in — and then we’ll be back to talk about what they need to do to support early childhood unification efforts in the states. Sneak peek: We’ll be talking Head Start.

Let’s Get Muddy

I’m thinking a lot this week about Head Start grants, and I want to know: What’s working and NOT working about Head Start grants in your state?

I read all your comments and am curious to hear what specific topics you’d like me to address.

REMINDER: NAEP scores are coming Jan. 29! Join me for a free webinar on Feb. 3 at 10 a.m. ET with special guest Chad Aldeman . We’ll be diving into the numbers to help you interpret the data and make the most of our NAEP dashboard. Save your spot here.