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Advocating for children, families and communities facing barriers to high quality child care. | |
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Advocating for children, families and communities facing barriers to high quality child care. | |
An understanding of the importance of access to high quality preschool is gaining momentum among policymakers, elected representatives, and the public at large. While the child care community has known for decades of the positive impact of high quality early education, that knowledge largely remained a well-kept secret—until now. The social science research that proves the benefit of preschool—both to the individual children who have a much greater likelihood of becoming healthy adults, and to society at large, which reaps the benefits of more productive adults with fewer anti-social traits—is now widely trumpeted in the popular media.
Early care and education stands at the threshold of great opportunity. At the same time, the way forward requires thoughtful reflection on how most effectively to incorporate our existing system into a new one and to meet the needs of all California families. California need not start from scratch. An early care and education system—dramatically under resourced though it is—has been in place for decades in California, enriching the lives of children and families.
When we envision “education” for preschoolers, what does it look like? While it can take place in a very traditional school-like setting, early education is equally feasible, and has long been underway, in the homes of skilled family child care providers. We must tap the wealth of knowledge and experience that the entire existing system offers.
We have the opportunity to build on the successes of our existing early care and education system, expand its reach to every family, and strengthen the system in areas where it is fragile. A key insight that architects of a successful expanded system should keep in mind is the necessity for a new system to address the real world needs of the entire family—because children are part of families and California families come in a breathtaking. Thus, for example, universal preschool programs must reflect the fact that working families need care for their children throughout the year, the week, and, increasingly, throughout a 24-hour day. The programs must be truly accessible to all of the state’s families, including those who speak any of some 60 or more languages—accessible culturally as well as linguistically. Children with a wide variety of disabilities must be viewed as an integral part of the preschool constituency, not only because federal and state law require this but because children with disabilities comprise a significant number—likely some tens of thousands—of California children three- and four-year-olds.
CCLC, with its 25 years of experience in child care advocacy, is excited about the benefits a high quality early care and education system offers to California’s families.