Public School Is a Child’s Right. Should Preschool Be Also?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/upshot/universal-child-care-democratic-platform.html

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In the United States, the chance that a child attends a high-quality preschool — which research has shown sets them on a more successful life path — often depends on whether the parents can afford it. But what if government-funded care and education of children started soon after birth?

There’s a growing movement to do so, particularly among Democrats. But they differ on how far they want to go. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders pushed universal birth-to-kindergarten plans during the race for the Democratic nomination. Joe Biden has said he would work with states to provide pre-K at age 3, but he has not offered details, and has not proposed universal child care. Mr. Sanders, who says his plan would help fight family poverty, suggested that he would challenge Mr. Biden on the issue in the debate on Sunday.

The Sanders and Warren proposals — she introduced a bill last June — would raise taxes on the very wealthy, then give the money to existing and new child care providers, via state or local agencies, as long as they met quality and teacher compensation standards. Every child would be guaranteed a spot.

“We have ideas now that we talk about that we just weren’t talking about even a year ago, a two-cent wealth tax and universal child care, that could be real,” Senator Warren recently told reporters.

It hasn’t always been the norm in parts of the United States that public school started at age 5. The first kindergartens, in the late 1800s, started at age 3. Several states and cities already offer universal pre-K, starting at age 3 or 4, including Oklahoma, New York City and Washington, D.C. In Washington, the vast majority of children attend preschool, and 86 percent of them finish ready for kindergarten, as measured by their cognition skills.

But over all, Americans have resisted universal care and education for the youngest children. One reason has been political resistance to a large new taxpayer-financed government program. Another has been the belief held by some that young children should be home with a parent, and that it’s not the government’s role to intervene during this period.

Yet three major things have changed. A significant amount of research has shown that high-quality care and education are important for young children’s development, and that low-income children have significantly less access to these programs. Second, most parents work, including 65 percent of mothers of children under 6 — and women’s work force participation increases when there is public preschool. Finally, the private market for child care isn’t working well: Families are struggling to afford rising child care costs, yet teachers are underpaid.

“From age 0 to age 5 we say, ‘Parents, you’re on your own,’ and then at age 5, we start child care and education, even though we know from child development how much happens from birth to age 5,” said Elliot Haspel, author of “Crawling Behind: America’s Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It” and an education policy researcher at the Robins Foundation.

The public school analogy goes only so far. Under the Democrats’ proposals, governments would not run preschools, as they do public schools, and attendance would not be mandatory. Also, the curriculum would not be academic, but tailored to the needs of early childhood, when learning happens through play.

But researchers and proponents say that thinking about early childhood programs like public school is a useful frame. As schools close because of the coronavirus outbreak, parents are coming to terms with how much they rely on them as a safe place for children to go. The idea treats preschool as an investment that benefits society at large, as primary and secondary education do. Universal programs tend to have broader political support than those that are means-tested — targeted at people below a certain income. And they are simpler to run because people don’t have to submit paperwork to prove they qualify.

For early learning in particular, researchers say, universal options have educational benefits that means-tested programs like Head Start do not. Achievement gaps between rich and poor children are evident by kindergarten, and classrooms with children from various economic backgrounds have been found to improve children’s learning, particularly for lower-income children.

On his campaign website, Senator Sanders cited this as a reason for his plan: “Our means-tested system has created racially and economically segregated child care and pre-K in this country.”

A recent study of 5,100 4-year-olds from 33 states, using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, compared those who attended universal pre-K (available to everyone); targeted pre-K (available to families below a certain income); and no pre-K. Universal programs had much larger effects on children’s academic performance and kindergarten readiness than targeted programs, and this was especially true for low-income children. The study ruled out various explanations, like spending per student and children’s alternative care arrangements.

“This leaves open the possibility that the universal nature of the program gets families invested, and holds the programs to a higher degree of accountability,” said the study’s author, Elizabeth Cascio, an economist at Dartmouth.

Europe provides an example: Many countries there provide universal early childhood programs, free or subsidized. In many nations, more than 90 percent of children are in preschool at age 3; in France and Britain, it’s nearly 100 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In the United States, by comparison, one in three children doesn’t attend preschool. Those who don’t are more likely to be Hispanic, from low-income families or with parents who did not go to college.

In countries where early childhood programs are offered to everyone, it has become the default option, said Gabriele Fain, director of the early childhood practice at the American Institutes for Research. (These countries also tend to have very long parental leaves, so many children do not need outside care until they are toddlers.)

“It’s just inherent in how they think about early childhood education,” she said. “It’s really baked into these countries in a much more cultural way than it is here in the United States, with our pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality.”

France and the Nordic countries spend 1.2 percent to 1.8 percent of gross domestic product on early childhood care and education. The United States spends 0.4 percent. In much of Europe, it is considered a child’s legal right, no matter the family’s income or background, which helps protect government funding for it, according to a report co-written by Ms. Fain.

Republicans have not generally supported universal care, and neither has The Trump administration. It has made child care an issue, though, releasing a set of policy ideas in December, and there is some overlap with Democratic proposals — both support funding more home-based providers, for instance.

Some say any public child care program should also subsidize parents who stay home with their children: “People’s values and needs are extremely diverse,” said Samuel Hammond, director of poverty and welfare policy at the Niskanen Center. “I would say: Just give the parents the money.”

The biggest difference between the Sanders and Warren plans is that his proposes free child care and preschool for everyone. Her bill would make it free for poor families and up to 7 percent of income for others.

There is no indication that any of the Democrats’ plans, as of now, are politically viable. But proponents point to real-world evidence, on a much smaller scale: the cities and states with universal pre-K, where it’s not only been possible, but popular.