Over the last couple of weeks, there has been a lot of dialogue both on the regional and national level about what early care and education is. What should it be? What should it focus on?
With the recent emphasis on a Birth To Five agenda by President Barak Obama and a focus on child care by First Lady Michelle Obama, is it any wonder so much attention is placed on the very young?
It’s about time!
But I do worry that all the confusion and debate will fail us. I worry we will miss the opportunity to finally have a national agenda that promotes the health of the very young and underserved.
Last week, The Washington Post had a piece by Charles Finn, entitled, "Slow the Preschool Bandwagon," which made me think about the recent universal preschool activities in VA, MD and D.C. Mr. Finn cautions about advocating for universal pre-school.
I am in total agreement that more emphasis needs to be put on infants and toddlers, as well as existing programs that have consistently been proven to be effective, like Head Start and Early Head Start.
But there are a few points I struggled with. I worry about the push for social service programs to become more educational focused. Is advocating for Head Start preschoolers to learn their numbers and letters going to ensure they are going to succeed in school?
I do want to figure out how to ensure children in impoverished communities learn what they need to be prepared to succeed, but I worry that the social service component (i.e. health, family support services, prenatal care, etc. ) will be compromised.
I would hope that it would not be the only focus.
And a few weeks ago, I was listening to the Kojo Nnamdi Show about the child care challenges in the region. By the end of the show I was so frustrated. BB Otero, Founder and Executive Director of CentroNia (a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation), tried to explain the complicated debate that is taking place around early care and education and the need to be very clear about how we define this debate.
Is it child care for infants and toddlers? Is it universal preschool for three or four year olds? What does quality mean for infants and toddlers? What does quality mean for preschool classrooms?
It is not an easy task!
Callers missed this message completely. Calls were about their own personal struggles about finding a nanny or an au pair. One caller even advocated for all mothers to stay home to ensure their infants and toddlers get the quality care they need.
How does a conversation about access to affordable, quality child care for all almost turn into a show about nannies?
Whether you are poor or rich, we all need access to quality care. We all need opportunities to ensure children are afforded the opportunities they need, whether it is child care or preschool.
I could not find quality care for my children in Arlington. I was absolutely shocked that after spending thousands of dollars in application fees, and waiting for months, I never found a slot for my five-year old in either a child care or preschool program.
It simply brought more meaning to the work I was doing. I had the information and the resources and still struggled to find the care I hoped for for my daughter and son.
And the children in impoverished communities needed far more support than I did.
I absolutely want more support for working middle class families, but the current debate is not about me. The debate we are engaged in is for the children who need it most!
There are plenty of children whose parents do not have the means or the knowledge that early education is critically important to their children’s long-term growth and development. By the time a child is three, he/she has grown dramatically by producing billions of cells and hundreds of trillions of connections, or synapses, between these cells. We know enough from the research that a young child’s brain takes years to complete, but providers and parents can ensure children get off to a right start to establish patterns for life-long learning.
Why should we all care about the current debate for higher quality early care and education, including child care?
- An increasing numbers of children, including infants and toddlers, spend hours each day in various arrangements because their parents work or attend school;
- Research has shown that in the majority of infant care arrangements in the U.S., children are not talked to and played with enough, and they do not have the opportunity to form the kind of comfortable, secure relationships with a caregiver who will promote their healthy emotional development;
- Parents should be given information about how to choose quality care for their children;
- Special attention should be given to the development and enforcement of standards that promote high-quality care, including adequate professional development for caregivers, low child-to-teacher ratios, and small group sizes; and,
- Finally, child care reimbursement rates for families moving from welfare to work must be high enough to fund well-trained staff who can deliver developmentally appropriate care and education.
HyeSook Chung is Program Officer for Early Care and Education at The Women’s Foundation.
