Opinion: A hopeful note for early childhood education in 2024 — some states are ramping up investment

With the recent expiration of pandemic-era federal funding, millions of families could face child care shortages.

The child care “stabilization” fund included in the American Rescue Plan Act was an emergency fund meant to stabilize the child care sector during the pandemic.

While critical, that funding was insufficient to address many of the systemic issues affecting early childhood education and its workforce, including inequitable pay.

Early childhood workers’ wages already lag far behind those of similarly qualified K-12 colleagues. These workers are disproportionately Black, Latinx, and Indigenous, and face poverty rates that are, on average, 7.7 times higher than other teachers.

This fiscal situation perpetuates economic inequality and reflects systemic racism, with Black, Latinx, and Indigenous women working long hours for unfair pay and limited benefits, while young children Educational programs continue to be subsidized.

Related: Early Education Coalition seeks solution to increase teacher pay even as budgets balloon

The Century Foundation estimates that this inequity and the end of a critical federal lifeline for early childhood educators during the pandemic will have a negative impact on families and workers. About 70,000 child care programs could close. Millions of families will struggle to access child care. 232,000 jobs could soon be lost.States would lose $10.6 billion in tax and business revenue. every Year.

There is one bright spot. That means state and local governments are providing a model for innovation and a ray of hope in the face of these dire challenges.

In late 2022, New Mexico became the first state in the nation to create a permanent child care fund, making child care free or affordable for many families and increasing wages for early childhood educators.

State and local governments provide a model for innovation and a beacon of hope.

Washington, DC recently established the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund, which aims to achieve pay parity between early childhood educators and K-12 educators. Since 2022, approximately $70 million has been distributed to approximately 3,000 early childhood educators. The district is also expanding health insurance for early childhood educators.

In Louisiana, a coalition of state and local governments is working with nonprofit organizations to test the effectiveness of a project to raise wages for childcare workers in key regions. If positive, the plan is to expand the program across the state.

Minnesota signed on to the Great Start Compensation Assistance Payment Program last year to fill the gap caused by the end of federal child care stabilization grants. The program will provide $316 million this fiscal year and $260 million on an ongoing basis every two years to directly increase childcare worker salaries.

These solutions are very important. Because our nation’s youngest students ultimately suffer from high teacher turnover and unstable learning environments during critical developmental years.

Early childhood education has a direct impact on future learning outcomes and lifelong success. It deserves our attention and investment.

Building on these efforts, the Early Educator Investment Collaborative, a group of funders brought together to accelerate progress in the early childhood education profession, recently launched state and local partnerships in Colorado, Louisiana, and Washington, DC. announced a grant for

These grants will power innovative approaches to increasing pay for early childhood education workers, including creating dedicated revenue streams and pilot projects to evaluate the impact of pay increases.

We also plan to strengthen interagency collaboration to improve employee compensation, with the aim of increasing the ability of financial and data systems to support long-term wage and benefit increases.

RELATED: Opinion: District leaders must prioritize early education to ensure children enter school prepared

I’m excited about the larger solutions these grants will bring, and I hope they can provide a useful model and encouragement for other states to explore ways to better compensate early childhood educators. I am.

But we also need state legislatures and Congress to step up for their constituents on this issue. It is important for legislators to reflect the interest of the majority of their constituents in early childhood education reform by enacting legislation that increases investment, increases compensation, and advocates for broader support for early childhood educators.

Philanthropy also has a big role to play. By supporting governments with the funding they need to explore their own solutions, charities can find out what works, scale up successful models and support sustainable change.

As well as amplifying calls for increased federal investment in early childhood education and its workforce, this moment is also a time for states, communities, and philanthropists to make real long-term commitments to fully support early childhood education workers and their families. It is also an opportunity to find solutions.

Ola J. Friday is a director of the Early Educator Investment Collaborative.

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