Supporting High Quality Early Learning
Children are our best hope for the future and our most valuable resource. But as a society, we are not making the investments in children we should be, especially when it comes to children of color.
We will all benefit when every child gets a great start. Why? Because decades of research have revealed how babies’ brains develop and why the early years (0-3) are so incredibly important. Early childhood education produces a significant return on investment -- economists have demonstrated anywhere from $5 to $15 saved for every one dollar spent on high quality early childhood education. Many industrialized nations make quality early education universally available, and there is no reason why our state and our nation should not do the same.
The events of 2020 have made the importance of investing in early education more obvious than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic shined a light on the fact that child care providers are an essential component of our state’s economy. In addition, increased awareness of our nation’s severe racial disparities has boosted interest in combating long standing inequities. Numerous studies have concluded that high quality early education is one of the most effective ways to counter the racial disparities that are holding back people of color and our nation as a whole.
Quality early education programs enable parents to work and children to get a great start. It is a win for families, communities, and our whole state. The following changes would improve the well-being of our young children, reduce racial disparities, help parents participate in the workforce, and boost Wisconsin’s long-term prosperity.
Increase Wisconsin Shares reimbursement rates
State lawmakers should restore funding that has been cut from the Wisconsin Shares child care subsidy program and allow reimbursement rates to catch up to marketplace rates. Too many parents are now unable to find quality child care providers who participate in the subsidy program. This is because the rates have been frozen for most of the last 13 years, and participation in the subsidy program is down sharply across the state, especially in rural counties. In light of the workforce shortage that has impeded economic growth in Wisconsin, it’s all the more important to reduce the number of parents who have stopped working because they don’t have access to affordable child care.
State policymakers should restore Wisconsin Shares reimbursement rates to the level in each county that will include 75% of the slots in that area. Getting back to that level will take time, but the pandemic has underscored the importance of prioritizing progress toward that goal, starting with the next budget.. One clear opportunity for increasing rates is infant and toddler education.
Improve access to early education for infants and toddlers
Care for infants and toddlers has become especially difficult for parents to find. To help remedy that very significant problem, we support the following recommendations of the Infant Toddler Policy Project for inclusion in the next state budget:
Targeted changes to Wisconsin Shares – To help alleviate the acute shortage of care for younger children, increase Wisconsin Shares rates for infant and toddler care to 75% of the market rate, which is estimated to cost about $14 million per year. The project also proposes raising Wisconsin Shares eligibility for parents of infants and toddlers to 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL). They project this would reach an additional 530 infants and toddlers and would cost $6.4 million per year.
Contracts for infant and toddler care – Utilize $9.9 million per year to contract for the creation of 50 infant/toddler classrooms. Priority for the contracts would go to areas that either have the highest rate of poverty or the worst child care deserts.
Infant Toddler Stabilization Fund – Create a $30 million grant program to help stabilize infant/toddler classrooms that are operating at least 20% below their regulated capacity.
Eliminate disparities in access to quality early education
Low-income families with very young children should have access to high quality, culturally and linguistically responsive early care and education (ECE) that meets their family and employment needs and also supports optimal child development and well-being. However, our analysis of Wisconsin’s Quality Rating and Improvement System (YoungStar) found significant disparities in access to high quality (4 and 5 Star) programs for low-income African American kids. Part of the problem is that the state’s quality initiatives leave out family child care providers, which are relied on heavily by families of color.
To improve and maintain quality, state policymakers should increase and broaden funding for quality sustainability grants to early education programs. The new grants would support child care centers and family child care providers that are striving to improve quality through accreditation, certification, or alternative routes to professionalization..
Support infant/toddler teachers around social-emotional learning
Research shows us that children experiencing adverse circumstances such as racism, domestic violence, abuse or neglect have lifelong negative outcomes. It is now understood that poverty itself is an adverse experience. Although Wisconsin has trained trauma-informed ECE experts, we do not have enough. We need more early childhood educators who understand these issues and who live in the communities where their students reside. Far too little funding goes toward trauma-informed, person-centered early childhood education. .
Conclusion
The most effective investments state policymakers can make are in young children. By closing gaps in access to quality early education, Wisconsin lawmakers can help children succeed, enable their parents to reenter the workforce, reduce our state’s severe racial disparities, and boost the Wisconsin economy. For all of those reasons, it’s time for our state to make major investments in access to high-quality early education.