Integrated child care and pre-K better serve families
Making child care more affordable and more available, and expanding access to free, high-quality preschool for more than 6 million children through crucial, federal investments would represent a historic step forward for children and families in the United States.
The three of us are leaders in business, law enforcement and the military. We understand that, from an economic, crime-prevention or national security perspective, both child care and pre-K are essential.
The research case for both high-quality pre-K and quality child care reveals that these experiences can lead to positive outcomes for kids, including increased high school graduation rates, lower incarceration rates, higher future income and better long-term health.
These programs can lead to better lives for kids, shrink achievement gaps, and make our workforce stronger, our communities safer, and our nation more secure by building children’s fundamental cognitive and behavioral skills. Thankfully, more and more people have come to understand the truth that these two early childhood programs can be transformative indeed.
A less-known truth is that child care and pre-K aren’t two systems at all.
Pre-K and child care are part of a single, integrated early care and learning system. They are so intertwined that to invest and implement these programs independent of one another is to fundamentally misunderstand that relationship, as if someone asked you to choose between keeping your red blood cells or your white blood cells. It’s a false choice. Both are indispensable components of the same vital system.
Likewise, pre-K and child care can only work when they’re integrated in necessary ways across the country, and child care providers are often a core component of pre-K delivery infrastructure.
In many states, public and private facilities offer public pre-K programs specifically so that state pre-K can be integrated with child care and Head Start. Of the 44 states with state preschool programs, more than half (24) allow services to be delivered in private settings, including child care.
Quality child care providers also deliver a large percentage of pre-K programs. For example, that figure is 65% in Pennsylvania. Given that relationship, it’s pointless to talk about something like pre-K expansion without simultaneously strengthening a child care system that has been in crisis since before the pandemic.
Placing the programs together ensures that families can overcome obstacles that would exist if there were two distinct service providers. For example, transportation is a significant challenge, especially in rural areas. Housing both programs in the same location helps solve this problem, as well as providing other benefits like minimizing transitions and disruptions for young learners.
Imagine a young child dropped off at a pre-K program as her mother is on the way to work. The child begins her day in a pre-K learning environment. However, pre-K ends in the early afternoon, and the mother doesn’t leave work until after 5 p.m. The child stays in the same location, and, due to service integration, seamlessly transitions from pre-K to child care. She remains there, safe and learning, until a parent picks her up.
This level of service integration means that providers often deliver pre-K and child care to the same child, on the same day, in the same building.
That’s why significant investments for pre-K and child care programs — together — are essential for a strong early care and learning system. Significant investments in both accomplish the critical goal of ensuring that America’s youngest learners have the supports they need to achieve success in school and life. Accomplishing that goal, in turn, would also provide parents with the support they need to go to work and remain productive.
As Congress considers its next set of major legislative priorities, lawmakers must recognize that maintaining investments that allow as many children as possible to access a quality early care and learning system is a paramount concern. Meaningful increases in funding for the complete system of early childhood support will allow more young people in this country to reach their potential, while boosting our workforce, public safety, and national security in the process.
Larry D. Boone is chief of the Norfolk Police Department and a member of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids. Jack Brennan is chairman emeritus and senior advisor of Vanguard and co-chair of the ReadyNation CEO Task Force on Early Childhood. Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré, U.S. Army, retired, is a member of Mission: Readiness.