Quality Programs for All Children

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) in the US includes a wide range of part-day, full-school-day, and full-work-day programs, under educational, social welfare, and commercial auspices, funded and delivered in a variety of ways in both the public and the private sectors, designed sometimes with an emphasis on the “care” component of ECEC and at other times with stress on “education” or with equal attention to both. Although ECEC scholars and advocates are increasingly convinced of the need to integrate all these program types, categorical funding coupled with diverse societal values continue to support the differences. The result is a fragmented ECEC system, of wide ranging quality and with skewed access, but with some movement in recent years toward the integration of early childhood education and care.

ECEC policies currently include the whole range of government actions (federal, state, and sometimes local) to influence the supply and/or demand for ECEC and program quality. These government activities include: direct delivery of ECEC services; direct and indirect financial subsidies to private providers of education and care such as grants, contracts, and tax incentives, financial subsidies to parents/consumers of ECEC such as grants and tax benefits to permit or facilitate access to services or to permit parents to remain at home and withdraw from the labor force at the time of childbirth or adoption for a brief period of time, and the establishment and enforcement of regulations.

Interest in and participation in out-of-home, non-parental child care has increased dramatically in the U.S. over the last few decades, as has policy attention and public funding. The pressures from employed mothers with young children continue to rise, and underscore the need for more accessible, affordable, and better quality ECEC services. The U.S. has carried out more extensive and more rigorous research on the impact of this dramatic change in how young children are reared and cared for than any other country. The hoped-for outcomes now include: the productivity of the current and future workforce, the prevention and reduction of social problems such as welfare dependency, juvenile delinquency, teen pregnancy, and school failure, support for the work, efforts of welfare-dependent and poor parents to help them achieve economic self-sufficiency, enhancing the development of young children, and helping parents fulfill their roles as nurturers and teachers to their children by providing skill training (Kamerman, 2001).

Reference:

http://www.childcarecanada.org/sites/default/files/3_Kamerman.pdf