Building a World-Class Workforce Starts With Focusing on The Early Years of a Child’s Life

Just how important are high-quality experiences in a child’s first years? We know that not only do these experiences foster brain development, but they also lead to better outcomes in school, fewer criminal arrests later on and decreased remedial education and social services costs.

Early childhood education is important enough that many elected officials, including governors, have taken notice.

Why? For the states that make up our country to remain competitive in the global economy, governors need to focus on those first years, which serve as a key first step in building a highly skilled workforce.

The challenge lies in how to finance and expand affordable, high-quality programs. In turn, parents struggle with decisions about which early care and education experiences are right for their children and affordable for their families.

Let’s follow the money. Much of the funding for early care and education comes from state tax dollars and individual families in the form of tuition. While there are federal programs, such as Child Care and Development Block Grants; Head Start; the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting; and Title 1 of Every Student Succeeds Act that provide some funding for child care, only about 16% of eligible families receive federal subsidies to help pay for child care. The remainder of the funds come from a patchwork of business and philanthropic partnerships.

Nearly 40 states have been able to take advantage of the recent influx of discretionary federal dollars through Preschool Development grants, Early Learning Challenge Grants, which have provided additional funds to expand services, pilot innovative approaches and invest in quality program improvements.

While state and local programs grapple with how best to blend, braid and layer funding from these and other funding streams, the costs of child care and the costs of improving program quality continue to rise. In many states, the cost of infant care already exceeds the average cost of in-state tuition at a four-year college.

Governors are exploring innovative financing approaches to balance the costs of high-quality programs while ensuring equitable access to affordable, high-quality early care and education for families and providing competitive compensation for the early care and education workforce.

States are also looking at expanding tax credits for businesses and workforce investment credits for providers who attain specific educational levels and work in high-quality programs. States like Massachusetts, Illinois, Oregon and the District of Columbia are considering expanding tax credits and municipal bonds, and increasing tiered reimbursement rates through the child care block grants, as well as implementing social impact bonds (such as Pay for Success) that reimburse private sector funders when agreed upon outcomes are achieved.

Last winter, more than 40 of the nation’s governors gathered in Washington, D.C., to highlight the importance of early care and education and emphasize the bipartisan interest governors have in prioritizing the early years as a key component in early workforce development. That is why assisting governors in improving the access and quality of early care and education is a top priority for the National Governors Association.

As governors’ interest in early childhood education continues to grow, we’re launching a new program to assist states in establishing and implementing governance and finance policies for prenatal-to-age-3 programs and services.

Stay tuned as we continue to work with governors to identify challenges and explore creative solutions to financing early care and education in ways that balance affordability for families, pay parity for educators, quality improvements and equitable access for young children.

NGA’s Education Division will continue to work with governors to identify challenges and explore creative solutions to financing early care and education in ways that balance affordability for families, pay parity for educators, quality improvements and equitable access for young children.

Beth Caron is a program director with the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices Education Division.