Early Childhood Districts: A Capita Symposium
In August Capita published a new white paper by policy expert Elliot Haspel in which he proposes “early childhood districts.” Elliot envisions these districts as the counterpart to public school districts for children five and under, but adapted to the early childhood context, and learning from the inequities found in the K-12 system.
In order to help us think more deeply about this novel proposal and to foster its prudent development, we have commissioned several other experts to contribute to a written symposium to critique and to caution, and to make recommendations about where next to take this proposal.
The symposium’s second essay is by Mario Cardona. Read the first essay by Patrick Brown.
Governance matters. It is one of the areas that concerns me the most in the context of implementing federal relief to stabilize the child care sector, and any additional investments we might secure in Congress. In many ways, we are at the beginning of building the system of early childhood that our country deserves.
I appreciated the white paper that Elliot put together, because it offers a point for discussion on how we can improve systems of local or regional governance, a topic that receives less attention than state system improvement.
Conceptually, there are elements of Elliot’s paper with which I wholeheartedly agree. I agree we need to create systems that are responsive to families’ needs and make it as simple as possible for them to get support. I agree that we should have a system that gives help to providers not only in achieving greater levels of compensation and benefits, but also in their pursuit of professional learning and credentials. Fundamentally, I believe government has a role to play in all of that.
I do want to register a few concerns, and make some suggestions, based on what I read in the proposal:
Elected Leadership: Having an elected board could offer advantages, including building power among stakeholders that have historically been left out of decision-making. However, the opposite may happen, and certain troubling power dynamics may emerge. For example, it is easy to imagine child care businesses providing significant contributions to a particular candidate, or slate of candidates, to create a more friendly environment for their model’s expansion. Also, any sort of formal governance structure should guarantee the inclusion of parents and providers, which is something that may not occur in the context of open elections. Head Start, and their family policy councils, can offer a lesson in how we can approach parent and community participation in local governance. A state-based example can be found in West Virginia, which requires its counties to form collaborative early childhood teams to bring together a range of early learning stakeholders to make decisions about their preschool program. These teams include representatives from the local school district, Head Start, the county’s preschool special needs program, child care resource and referral (CCR&R) agency or the local department of health and human services, and families.
Boundaries: As the paper describes, in many cases, k-12 district boundaries were drawn to maintain segregation or insulate affluent communities. For that reason, any early childhood district should not simply re-trace the boundaries of current school districts. As the paper suggests, a regional approach makes sense, and is also a path being explored in Illinois. In that state, the creation of a regional and local system approach to early childhood has intentionally focused on how to include families and providers in the development and design of systems. And addressing considerations of racial equity is at the core of the systems’ development.
Current Infrastructure: Systems in place to support aspects of our field, including CCR&Rs, shared service alliances, and staffed family child care networks, have been crucial in working with families and providers. These community-based entities hold positions of trust in communities, and many have contracts with states. In the case of CCR&Rs, they accomplish much of what is considered in the paper. These entities, if anything, need additional investment to support the needs of their communities and should serve as the backbone of any new models of governance.
Non-Federal Funding: I worry that if we copy aspects of k-12 governance system that states may also seek to adopt k-12 financing systems to offset any match that may be required with new federal investments. Both the new child care entitlement and universal preschool proposals under consideration in Congress require substantial state matches. I would not want to encourage states or localities to generate the match through local property taxes, the way that much of k-12 education is financed. It would lead to the same types of resource inequities we see in k-12, which are stubborn and difficult to address.
Data Interoperability: To achieve success, early childhood districts would need to rely on sophisticated data systems that provide real-time access to information relating to children, families, and providers. In most states and localities, these systems do not exist. Formal data governance recommendations put forth over the last decade to guide state and national child care data system integration and interoperability have not been adopted, in part due to a lack of states’ data, technology or policy readiness to commit to, or sustain, this work in the long-term. Without resolving these issues, data-backed policy efforts to advance early learning will not be as successful as they could be. While promising work is taking place in certain states, like Kansas, a national strategy is needed to tackle issues relating to data, alongside significant federal investment.
I’ll end where I began: it is an exciting time to be thinking about these issues, and I’m glad that Elliot brought this concept forward for discussion. It’s important to look at what we’ve done – not only in our field but adjacent ones – and see how we can improve to make sure that we build systems that work better for children, families, and providers.
Mario Cardona is Chief of Policy and Practice for Child Care Aware® of America.