Fixing preschool crunch not child’s play

How do you fix a problem like early education child care? Parents have difficulty paying for the high price, and that’s if they can find a spot in a licensed program. Child care facilities don’t have enough space for all the children who need care, and facilities can’t expand because they have trouble retaining sufficient staff for their current capacity. That’s partly because the pay in the field of early childhood education is so low.

“This is one of those things where there are many parts of the onion – you peel back one layer and there’s another issue underneath it,” said Taylor Caswell, commissioner of the state’s Department of Business and Economic Affairs.

Yet, despite the complexity of the problem, there's optimism in the field that solutions can be found for the high cost, limited accessibility and low pay associated with early childhood education. One reason for that outlook is that people like Caswell are starting to make space for young people’s education on their list of priorities.

Gov. Chris Sununu, in his Feb. 14 budget address, said, “a quality workforce starts with early childhood education. I really believe that.” His budget proposal called for the creation of a new position – State Director for Early Childhood Education – the establishment of a QRIS (Quality, Recognition and Improvement System) for early childhood programs, and for the UNH Child Study and Development Center to be rebuilt to world-class standards.

At the federal level, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen introduced the “Right Start Child Care and Education Act” in January. It would increase the tax credits that families could claim for child care, and would increase support for businesses that provide child care benefits to their workers.

Even Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, who is challenging Donald Trump for the White House in 2020, has a plan that would provide universal child care, free for low-income families and affordable for others.

Of course, the proposals from Sununu, Shaheen and Warren are only that: proposals that may or may not make it into law. But the fact that they are paying attention to the issue is encouraging to people like Jackie Cowell, executive director of Early Learning NH, a nonprofit that supports and advocates for education for the youngest of learners.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I feel a shift,” she said. That shift is toward a broader understanding of what people in the industry have known for years: that children are ready to start learning as soon as they are born, and  what they learn between their birth and their first day of kindergarten can build a foundation for later success.

“The years before elementary school are really important,” Cowell said. “This is a window of opportunity, these first few years of life. People are starting to understand it, people are trying to find solutions.”

One of those trying to find solutions is Katy Easterly Martey, executive director of the Community Development Finance Authority. Since 2014, Easterly Martey said, the CDFA has invested $8.3 million to support early childhood education in the state. That money has been used to improve or renovate existing facilities, to create new centers and to allow existing centers to expand.

Easterly Martey said that she sees high-quality child care as providing value to communities beyond education. They allow parents to participate in the workforce, thereby improving a family’s economic condition and helping local companies succeed and grow. Additionally, she said, child care centers can bring families together and provide a space for them to seek information and resources. “(They are) a really important social fabric in our communities,” she said. “We’re seeing that private industry is interested in supporting child care… This issue is something that both businesses, nonprofits and families care a lot about.”

'Game-changer'

For the largest employer in the Lakes Region, LRGHealthcare, having the ability to help with child care would be a “game changer” when it comes to recruiting, said Cass Walker, chief human resources officer.

She said the nonprofit health care organization has 1,400 employees, about a third of whom are nurses. Walker said the only benefit LRGHealthcare offers in regards to child care is a flex spending plan, which allows employees to withhold some money from their pay check for certain expenses.

“Most of us are female and many still have young families and most of us could benefit from having a more robust child care within our community if not on our premises,” Walker said. She said it is “one of our dreams” to offer child care support, and it’s only a lack of resources preventing LRGHealthcare from providing such a benefit.

“Any way we as employers can wrap around the day-to-day services everyone needs for caregiving, the better off we’re going to be not only as an employer, but as a community. And one of the most important things is child care,” Walker said. “The more we can support our younger families, the better off we’re going to be as employers.”

Critical learning

Many early childhood education experts see the ultimate solution being public support for younger ages in the same way that communities assume responsibility for ages 6 through 18.

“If we think of all early childhood education professionals as teachers, that early childhood education is critical learning, and that we as a society (should) pay for that learning,” said Mary Cornish, professor of early childhood education at Plymouth State University. “It’s a policy issue – it’s a big policy issue.”

Cowell, at Early Learning NH, said it would likely take changes at the national level to achieve that solution. However, she said there are things that can and are being done at the state and local level to help.

“What we can do right now is, first of all, advocate for better investment in the state budget.” While Sununu’s address expressed support for early childhood education, his budget proposal actually cut DHHS funding earmarked for child care tuition assistance, Cowell said. Her agency is advocating to keep that assistance. And, she said, there are things that individuals and businesses can do.

“Look where you live or where you work, where are the child care programs? Visit them. Join a board. It’s possible that some of those programs have spaces they need to fill. You can think about spots you can designate for your employees,” Cowell said.

Offering a solution to their employees’ need for child care could be an important benefit that businesses could provide. Cowell said she once ran a child care facility in Henniker, and a sawmill operator established an informal partnership with her facility, ensuring that any potential hires would have a place to bring their children during the work day. “They put that in their ad, they had 10 times as many people respond,” she said.

Meanwhile, agencies such as Early Childhood NH can find ways to support teachers. Cowell said her organization helps teachers advance their training without any cost to teachers, and they leverage their economy of scale to provide discounted fuel oil and insurance options. But those steps, she said, are interim stopgaps to preserve the existing workforce until a long-term solution to the problem is achieved.

“Honestly, figuring out how to fund (early childhood education) similarly to the public (schools). Frankly, these child care teachers should be paid just like the public school teachers,” Cowell said.