Leveraging STEM for Social Change

Child Care in Crisis

Washington state's child care and early education systems were already in crisis before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that these systems have been further strained, what can be done to bolster and reimagine early learning to provide the high-quality care and positive learning interactions children need for positive outcomes in school and beyond? In late December, Washington STEM created an in-depth report on some of the primary issues driving this early learning crisis. 

Our overarching goal is to ensure that all children have the opportunity to develop skills that will eventually enable them to participate in the family-wage careers of the future. Child care is a critical piece of the education infrastructure that helps children develop the skills they need. Yet, prior to the onset of the pandemic, working families struggled to access affordable, quality, reliable care. A year into this national crisis, challenges faced by families and child care providers are growing and may soon become insurmountable without a bold commitment and investment in children and those that care for them.

The State of Early Care

Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of early care and education was already in crisis. Approximately 314,000 children under the age of five in our state live in a family with all parents in the workforce; however, prior to COVID, there were only 154,380 licensed child care spots available statewide for that age group—that’s 51% of children under five without even the possibility for licensed care. Many families opt for care with family, friends, and neighbors; however, this care has little support from our state systems, can be inconsistent, and is of unknown quality. These often-informal arrangements are particularly fraught when an increasing number of family, friends, and neighbors are experiencing financial instability and difficulties managing their own household health concerns amid a pandemic.

Families that do use licensed care—that is, they send their child to a licensed family child care home or center-based child care programs—have to compete in an open market where scarcity of spots can drive up prices; especially for children aged birth to three. This leads to long wait lists and can cause parents to accept any available child care spot, with little power to choose based on quality or how the program meets their family’s needs. The situation becomes even more dire for lower income families, who either cannot afford the price of many of the child care programs on their own, or who participate in the Working Connection Child Care (WCCC) subsidy program and then have to find child care programs that will accept it.

For example, a family with one infant and one preschooler in Southwest Washington making $57,636 is just over the limit ($57,624) to qualify for the WCCC subsidy program, and can spend an average of $23,784 a year on child care, a staggering 41% of their income. A similar family that does qualify by making $57,624 would still spend up to $8,964 per year in their co-pay, a daunting 16% of their limited income. Currently, only 15% of those who qualify, or 25,000 households, participate in the WCCC subsidy program. One of the barriers to increased participation is the co-pay; low-income families simply cannot afford the expense for licensed child care even when subsidized, and thereby are not given the opportunity to choose care from this source.

For the poorest children, those in families making $28,815 or less for a family of four (110% of the federal poverty line), Washington state’s Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP), as well as federal programs like Early Head Start and Head Start, are designed to provide wrap-around support to children and families. But again, these programs only reach some of the children they are designed to support. In 2019, only 52% of eligible children accessed ECEAP or Head Start. Another challenge is that income eligibility is the same no matter where a child lives in the state. In more expensive regions, King County for example, many families may make over the limit, yet, because of the cost of living, still have the same quality of life as those that make under the limit in another less expensive region. Instead of one blanket eligibility based on the federal poverty line (used now), a regional and more nuanced approach to income eligibility using the area median income would be more equitable.

In other words, families are being pushed to the edge. The affordability and availability of care in many regions is tenuous at best. These issues disporportionately affect famlies of color and non-English speaking families. And the pandemic has exacerbated the problems, as we detail later in our report. A full analysis of the situation, including an investigation of impact across race, gender, and region, can be found on our website. 

What Washington STEM is Doing

With urging from a broad coalition of regional and statewide partners in the early learning sector, Washington STEM (with co-leadership from Washington Communities for Children) is creating a suite of regional State of the Children reports and dashboards that monitor—over time—how the system is supporting children ages 0–8 to grow, learn, and thrive. These resources will:

• Have easily accessible data needed to quickly assess which early childhood interventions are working, how they are working, and for whom.
• Determine how to improve practices and systems to support young children from priority underserved populations.
• Provide critical information to regional early learning leaders and practitioners so that data can drive decision making, advocacy, and increased investment.

Washington STEM is also partnering with ten regional STEM networks, as well as with Washington Communities for Children and Child Care Aware of Washington, to sound the alarm bells and mobilize community action. We're also actively advocating for change as part of the Early Learning Action Alliance (ELAA) steering committee. Washington STEM is also part of the Fair State policy workgroup, working alongside legislators and other statewide early education and care-focused organizations to create strong legislation that equitably supports children and caregivers.

Your Support

We invite you to join Washington STEM in supporting those who are leading in this space. We ask you to devote time and resources to local, frontline early learning organizations and to support social justice organizations that focus on education and early learning. Changes at the systems level will improve access to critical early learning resources and skills for both programs and families, and, in turn, will help Washington’s students have choices and allow them to fully participate in our economy, including STEM. And lastly, we ask that you use your voice to advocate for equitable policy that supports building a system of care that serves all our children.

For Washington state, time is of the essence. Our communities, and all of our children, need and deserve the opportunity to launch their lifetime of learning in a way that will enable each to succeed, be self-determining, and to share in the prosperity of our economy. For that to happen, as we rebuild, we need to think holistically, invest early, and ensure that the solutions we develop are just.

Links:

• Read our full analysis of the early learning & child care crisis