early childhood workforce – ��Ӱ��

Q&A: With Childcare Expanding, What Does High Quality Access Look Like?

Jessika Harkay — Wed, 06 May 2026 14:30:00 +0000

The expansion of accessible early care and education has increasingly become a top priority for lawmakers across the country.

New Mexico has recently launched the United States’ first model, followed by Vermont and that are working to build capacity to support similar systems.

A national spotlight has also been cast on New York City’s efforts after promises on the campaign trail from Mayor Zohran Mamdani to expand free care for children as by the end of his term in late 2029.

The conversation is growing at several different levels, with some states focusing on pre-K access and others looking into providing care even earlier. But, most are grappling with major roadblocks in scaling larger – and universal – initiatives, including questions on funding models and accountability.

Shael Polakow-Suransky, a former chief academic officer at the New York City Department of Education, and the current president of Bank Street College of Education, spoke with ��Ӱ�� about childcare trends and what it’ll look like to create higher quality programs as states look to expand access.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

To kick off our conversation with the idea that there is a lot of movement around early childcare right now and accessibility to it, what are we seeing across the country and what are states investing in or considering legislation around?

We’re not getting any help right now from the federal government. During the Biden administration, it was the opposite. There were federal funds flowing to states specifically to do this work, and that’s part of how you got some really interesting, innovative stuff happening in states not that long ago.

Vermont is one of, I think, only two states now that have a really strong program to for early educators. Kentucky guaranteed for childcare workers that their own children or deeply subsidized care.

New Mexico is one of the most interesting examples right now because in November 2025, they launched universal childcare.

One of the things that is striking about their strategy is that they created a dedicated permanent revenue stream for it, … so it’s not conditioned on the federal government being able to support it, or an annual tax appropriation. That makes it stable in a way that’s unusual. They have also specifically said that competitive educator compensation is a goal which is really different.

D.C. is the other place that has done something similar to this. In 2018, they created a that had an explicit call around pay parity [for early care workers], and it gave people initial one time payments [up to $14,000]. Then, they created a salary scale based on educational attainment. They were also trying to push people to get the training that they needed to deliver at a high quality, and during the phase of that project, the employment in the sector grew by 7% and retention rose to over two thirds.

In most places, including New York City, early childhood folks’ turnover is five times the rate of what you see in K-12 settings. That turnover is a function of the low wages and and sometimes the lack of training as well, because if you’re not doing well in your job, you don’t want to stay in it.

In New York, a lot of our workforce is actually in poverty. More than half of New York’s early educators are relying on public assistance. We have more than 16,000 children statewide who can’t be served because of vacant positions and this is where we actually have state funding for childcare seats, but we don’t have people to fill those positions. So I think those models of D.C. and New Mexico are really worth looking at other states.

What about missed opportunities that aren’t being considered when lawmakers are drafting legislation or proposing new funding?

When you think about elected officials and who they’re accountable to, the most clear promise you can make is X number of seats for X communities.

We’re going to have for 2-year-olds in New York City, … that is the thing that will stick in the minds of the public. That other layer, on quality, is harder to boil down into a sound bite.

When you create access, you could create a system that actually does damage if you don’t have quality. Quality is defined by what are the adults able to do with children once they have this time with them? We want it to be something that has real educational impacts, … and taking advantage of this incredible moment of brain development where 90% of your brain architecture is built by the time you turn 5.

What does high quality care look like? What are signs for parents to look for?

A quality learning environment for early childcare allows kids to move around freely and explore and interact with each other and with adults and the materials that are in the space, whether it’s blocks, or art supplies, or a dress up area, or a water or sand table.

In low-quality settings, a lot of times what’s happening is kids are in some way, physically restrained from moving, and this is done in the name of safety. In that low-quality setting, you don’t have enough adults, the physical layout of the space isn’t totally safe for a toddler to be wandering around and the kinds of things that are going to be interesting for that toddler to pick up and stick in their mouth are not available.

In a low-quality environment, that child is maybe sitting in a high chair or in a playpen, and there’s an iPad going that they’re looking at which is not able to interact with them and is not supporting that development. You may be keeping the child physically safe, but if they aren’t able to interact and move, their brain development is not going to progress the way it needs to.

You want to set up the physical space, and you want to have the staffing to support that flexible movement and exploration, because that is how our brains develop – through those types of interactions with people and with materials. If the person is so stressed, either because their own life is so stressful because they’re not able to make ends meet and or their work environment is so stressful because they’re understaffed and working really long hours, that connection is lost.

When we talk about opening seats across the country, what are the odds that these seats are going to be low quality care programs?

There’s been research done over the years that has looked at the quality of early childhood settings and in general, that number of really good settings are like 20 to 30% of what we have. That doesn’t mean that the other 70% are low quality – it’s a spectrum. My guess is probably only 10%, maybe 15%, fall into that low quality bucket, but there’s a lot in between that high quality and low quality that needs work.

How can states and lawmakers take more accountability when they are considering opening more spots up to ensure that it is leaning toward the highest level of care for the youngest kids, especially developmentally?

Building a living wage is the most important thing because that brings people into the workforce. It encourages people to stay in the workforce. And as people stay, they develop experience and relationships with children. You can’t do that without training. So that’s the other big piece of this, what are we doing to train people well?

From birth to 3, there’s not a requirement anywhere in the country that you have to have a teaching license to teach at that level and there can’t be that requirement given the current compensation structure. So then, what is the requirement? If you’re not going to ask people to have a bachelor’s degree or master’s degree, … how do you provide them with training and support that will enable them to accelerate learning and development for children?

The goal is that you build in the resources for professional development for the existing folks who are already in the field, and then resources for people to get trained as they enter the workforce as well.

I’ll give you one example. Bank Street has partnered with New York City during the pre-K initiative because the state actually does require a master’s degree for pre-K teachers here and that’s a relatively new requirement, so there are a lot of teachers who were working before that requirement went into place, and are now out of compliance with that law.

The city asked us at Bank Street to design something specifically for that group that would be attuned to the fact that they already have lots of knowledge and skills and they don’t need to start from the beginning.

We created something called the Advanced Standing Program, which is a mastery based program for teachers who are already pretty experienced, and so they can do it much more quickly than a normal master’s degree. They get credit for their experience, so the cost is lower, and it’s historically been paid for partially by the city or by nonprofits where the folks are working.

So, creating those kinds of programs that are really responsive to the real needs of folks in this workforce, as opposed to a compliance requirement that pushes a lot of people away.

There’s some examples now of universal childcare, but in most states, it is pretty limited to low-income families or at a pre-K level. So, when we’re talking about this quality issue, I want to get into equity also. Childcare programs may be getting some of the highest needs students. How does the issue of quality play a role in development and readiness by the time these students enter the K-12 system?

The achievement gap that we see in K-12 schools between wealthy and low-income students – which is usually like a 20 or 30 point spread in achievement when you look at third grade or eighth grade test scores or high school graduation rates – is visible beginning at 18 months.

If you study toddlers, the same exact graph shows up between upper-income and low-income children. So why is that?

We know that’s exactly that moment where language development is happening in the brain, and so if a child is sitting in front of a TV all day by themselves, or iPad or and no one’s talking to them, no one’s interacting with them, then they’re going to be really low scoring around that language development.

There’s not much that’s different between upper income and lower income children except for the fact that upper income families have much more access to quality care. If we can provide that quality care across the income spectrum, there’s a shot at closing those achievement gaps later on.

We’ve talked about New York City a little bit, and I know through several decades, there’s been a push and pull around expanding this early childhood care access under each mayor. Can you talk a little bit about the history of what New York City has tried, what’s new now under Mamdani’s proposal and whether that will be effective or not?

One of my big regrets, I was senior deputy chancellor under Mayor [Mike] Bloomberg for his third term in office, and it was around that time that we started to expand pre-K, but it was a very modest expansion. As someone who came up as an educator in middle schools and high schools, I didn’t really know what I know now about the power of early childhood. I don’t think any of us at the DOE in those days, other than folks working in the early childhood division who weren’t at the decision making table, understood how powerful the impact on educational equity is if you invest in early childhood.

It took Mayor [Bill] de Blasio making the pre-K commitment as part of his first mayoral campaign to make that the focus for the Department of Education and for the city as a whole. They added 60,000 new seats in pre-K, then expanded pre-K as well in the second term.

Mayor [Eric] Adams made lots of promises about working on this but really didn’t move the ball.

What Mayor [Mamdani] campaigned on is that there’ll be free childcare for kids from birth to 5. It’s beginning with expanding the number of seats for 3-year-olds and expanding 2-year-olds. It’s a fairly modest expansion in this first year, and I think the question that will face the mayor over the rest of this term is how do you get to that larger goal where everyone has access and and how do you do it in a way that pairs access with quality?

I think they’re off to a good start.

I want to pose the question you said Mamdani’s team will have to answer. How do states lead large scale expansion and ensure quality as they try to expand to everyone?

One of the lessons that we learned from the pre-K expansion is that you need to pay attention to the existing ecosystem and not lose capacity as you build capacity.

One of the downsides of the pre-K expansion during de Blasio’s term was that they put a lot of the seats into public elementary schools, and the teachers became part of the UFT. They got regular salary the same way any K-12 teacher, which is great, but then the nonprofits that were running childcare programs as part of the initiative didn’t have the funding to match those salaries, and so a lot of people left the nonprofit daycare centers … and even worse, family childcare, which are small businesses run out of people’s homes that usually serve children birth to 5, were not initially included in the strategy.

We actually saw a loss of childcare seats in the birth to 3 space when some of those folks went out of business.

I think part of the solution this time around, particularly because we’re working with younger children, is how do you support family childcare as part of this? How do you help improve the quality and the economic viability of that?

Last question just to wrap us up. What you had talked about during your time at the NYC Department of Education with not paying attention to childcare, I think is something that was universal for lawmakers early on too. This conversation has really picked up in the last five years or so. How likely is it to continue seeing such acceleration in this movement?

I think one of the interesting things about childcare is it’s a bipartisan issue in most places in the country.

The governor of Ohio, a Republican governor, has done massive investments in early childhood. Nebraska, Louisiana, lots of red states have really prioritized this, and the reason why is that more than three quarters of families have both parents in the workforce, so people need childcare. They need a place for their children to be. They need to be able to afford it, and they want it to be safe, and they want their children to be learning.

From an educational equity standpoint, we need that quality in order to sort of solve our broader problems in terms of achievement gaps in our school system.

We haven’t seen as much investment in the second Trump administration, but the first Trump administration actually saw the biggest increase in early childhood funding since the Clinton administration. Biden went even further. Those were both a Republican president and a Democratic president actively investing in this. We have Republican governors and Democratic governors actively investing in this.

This is something that really speaks to people, and so I think for that reason, we are going to continue to see new public funding flow to this. It may not come as fast as I would hope, but we’re on the trajectory in the right direction.

Shifting Immigration Policies Are Changing Daily Life for Child Care Providers

Ashley Álvarez — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 10:30:00 +0000

For two weeks after President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day, A. Hernandez did not set foot outside her home in Chicago. She stopped grocery shopping. She stopped taking her grandson to preschool — all in fear that federal immigration agents would detain her.

“With pain in my heart, I told my son I couldn’t pick up or drop off my grandson at school anymore,” said Hernandez, who asked to be identified by her first initial and last name in order to protect her safety. “I was scared. If they take me when he’s with me, what would they do to him?”

She cares for her two grandchildren, ages 5 and 6, while their parents are at work. The 5-year-old, who has been diagnosed with autism, attends a preschool with specialized resources. Outside of preschool, Hernandez is the only one his parents trust to care for the boy.

“I dropped him off, picked him up, went on his school field trips, cooked for him after school,” recalled Hernandez. She took three buses to get to the school, a daily roundtrip commute between two and three hours, while carrying a stroller and diaper bag.

But Hernandez had to pull back.

The nation’s child care system relies on the contributions of immigrants like Hernandez. early care and education providers identify as immigrants, and home-based child care — the most arrangement in the U.S. — has a of immigrant providers than center-based programs.

Over the past year, immigration enforcement activities have intensified, leaving providers and families anxious and unsettled. Since he took office, Trump has expanded immigration enforcement and a policy that prohibited immigration activity in certain spaces, including schools and places where children congregate. The administration has also made financial investments in federal immigration enforcement.

These investments and policy shifts have disrupted the child care workforce nationwide, heightening fear and instability among providers. caregivers and child care providers of young children have reported noticing the impact of immigration enforcement activities in their community, according to the RAPID Survey Project at the Stanford Center on Early Childhood. Some have left the field altogether.

A conducted by economists Chris Herbst and Erdal Tekin found that increased arrests by federal immigration officers in the first six months of the Trump administration are associated with 39,000 immigrant child care providers leaving the workforce. It also found that, as a result of the increased arrests and shrinking child care workforce, 77,000 American-born mothers also .

Below are the stories of five immigrant women providing home-based care for relatives and neighbors. Located in California, Colorado, Illinois and Texas, they all reported that intensified immigration enforcement has disrupted their work, with ripple effects on the children and families they serve.

Some shared that the young children they care for have expressed fear that their parents could be arrested. Some said they had to change their routines to limit their time in public spaces, and that parents were doing the same. Others said parents stopped taking their older kids to school.

These vignettes — which draw from interviews conducted in Spanish that have been translated and edited for clarity — offer insight into the experiences of immigrants caring for our nation’s youngest children.

A. Hernandez

Home State: Illinois
Place of birth: Mexico
Number of years providing child care: 6
Still providing child care: Yes
Number of children cared for 2��

After visiting family in the U.S. in 1991 when she was 16 years old, A. Hernandez fell in love with Chicago and decided to stay. She started working at a local restaurant, where she met her husband. She married at 17, had four children and eventually became a stay-at-home mom.

Her children are now adults, and she provides child care for their kids. It’s not uncommon: working parents rely on a grandmother for child care.

But after President Trump was inaugurated, Hernandez said she put cardboard on her windows so no one could see inside and barely left the house.

When she could no longer bring her grandson to and from preschool, his parents changed their work schedules as best they could to account for the disruption in child care. They eventually enrolled their son in a busing program, but the process took over a month, she said. On the days they could not adjust their work schedules, they opted for him to stay home with Hernandez. He missed over a month of school, and a number of sessions with his speech therapist.

“It affected him a lot. Before, he was starting to speak and sing. He was more conversational,” Hernandez said. “Now, he struggles. His communication is more sounds and gestures. He missed over a month of his therapies, and it shows.”

Hernandez said she’s been anxious for months. Once her grandson was enrolled in the busing program, she decided she could pick him up at the bus stop. She began returning to her routine, but said she constantly felt “like someone was following her.”

Then, in November 2025, a Chicago child care provider was at an early learning center on the same street where Hernandez’s daughter works. It happened while children were being dropped off.

Federal immigration agents chased a day care worker into Rayito de Sol, the Chicago center where she works, and dragged her out in front of children before arresting her. The November incident is one of many fueling this week’s demands to keep agents away from Head Start, child care and pre-K classrooms. (Photo by Joshua Lott/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Hernandez recalled hearing the news. The child care provider “was doing something good, working with children. Now we have to explain this to children, that we’re all at risk,” she said.

Worried for their safety, Hernandez and her husband opened a naturalization case in November with the hope of gaining U.S. citizenship. The legal proceedings are expensive, so to help make ends meet, Hernandez has picked up an overnight shift at a fast food chain. (She is typically paid $75 a week to care for her grandchildren.)

Hernandez has tried her best to shield her grandchildren from the increased presence of immigration officers in their neighborhood. “My eldest grandson saw officers near his school,” she said. When he told her about it, he said he was afraid they were coming to take him. “Their uniforms are green. He said that the ‘green men’ were coming to take children in black vans. I told him, ‘No, they won’t take you.’”

Carmela Enriquez

Home State: Colorado
Place of birth: Mexico
Number of years providing child care: 20
Still providing child care: Yes
Number of children cared for: 4

In 2001, Carmela Enriquez came to the United States from Mexico, joining her family in Colorado. She was 15 years old, and enrolled in a local high school as a ninth grader. In 11th grade, she was warned that she would not have access to federal financial aid because, at the time, she was an undocumented immigrant.

Knowing that her family wouldn’t be able to help cover the cost of college, she dropped out of high school. “I was sad, because I always liked school,” said Enriquez.

In 2004, Enriquez got married and the next year, she gave birth to her first son. Soon after, her cousin approached her about caring for his infant, who was around the same age as her son. He liked the idea of his baby being watched by someone in the family while he was at work. Since then, different family members have relied on Enriquez for child care. Today, she cares for four of her nephews, in addition to her two youngest children, who are 2 and 6 years old.

Enriquez said she changed a number of daily routines immediately after Trump came back into office. She typically picked up her four nephews from her sister’s house, but assuming there would be more immigration officers stationed at high-traffic roads, she changed her route.

“I tried not to drive on busy streets,” she said. “But when it snows in Colorado, I noticed they weren’t removing the snow as fast on the roads I traveled on as on the main streets. I told myself I had to stop my fear of officers, because I was also scared of being in a car accident.”

A few months later, Enriquez began volunteering for a local group that alerted community members if federal immigration officers were nearby. Her eldest child, now in college, warned his mother not to participate.

“He said, ‘No, don’t go. You shouldn’t go outside. If you need something from the market, I’ll go,’” Enriquez recalled. “It makes me sad that my children, born here, are scared.”

A woman is arrested by police during a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 10, 2025 in Denver, Colorado. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty)

Enriquez said she has witnessed people get arrested by immigration officers, and fear has swept across the community. “Last September, there was a local celebration for child care providers. There was food, flowers. Only three providers, myself included, showed up,” said Enriquez. “There had been immigration officers seen on a nearby street. I couldn’t tell providers to come anyway. I can’t take away their fear.”

“We are essential workers. We care for children whose parents work in agriculture, dairy farms, food transport,” said Enriquez. “I’m crying because I see so many kind providers, and the quality care they give to children. There’s people saying this country is not ours, and that if [immigration] officers mistreat us, we deserve it. But no one deserves to be treated that way.”

E. Hernandez

Home State: Texas
Place of birth: Mexico
Number of years providing child care: 12
Still providing child care: Yes
Number of children cared for: 7

E. Hernandez, A. Hernandez’s sister, moved to Texas from Mexico with her husband in 2013, when he relocated for work. Then five months pregnant, she became friendly with a neighbor, who mentioned she could not find before- and after- school care for her 7-year-old son.

“It started as a favor. [The neighbor] said it would be difficult to leave her son with someone she didn’t know,” said Hernandez, who requested we refer to her by her first initial and last name in order to protect her safety. “I said I’d take care of him. I’d drop him off at school, pick him up, and care for him until she came home.”

Hernandez cared for her neighbor’s son until the family moved 15 months later.

Over the past 13 years, Hernandez has cared for more than a dozen children through a variety of arrangements — some steady, others occasional. She began by watching the children of her husband’s coworkers and, once her eldest started school, connected with local parents in need of after-school care.

Today, Hernandez looks after her own three children and provides care for others as needed. She regularly supports one family during school breaks and, in health emergencies, steps in for another family, sometimes caring for all five of their children — four of whom she said are immunocompromised.

“It’s a favor,” Hernandez said. “These are children who are ill, so I always say yes — even if it’s two in the morning.”

Such flexible, around-the-clock care is especially common among home-based providers. At some point, children requires care during nontraditional hours.

Last year, Hernandez was advised by a local parent to pursue a child care license so she could provide long-term care to more families. (In Texas, child care providers are from a license if they do not care for more than one unrelated child or sibling group.)

“I was so excited. I’ve always loved children, so I decided to call the local agency,” said Hernandez. When asked over the phone to provide her Social Security Number, Hernandez specified she had anIndividual Taxpayer Identification Number (). “The woman on the phone said that Texas does not give child care licenses to people without a Social Security Number,” Hernandez said.

Though she’s been unable to get licensed, she continues to care for children. “I do it for the good of the community, for the good of our children,” she said.

Blanca Luna

Home State: California
Place of birth: Mexico
Number of years providing child care: 5
Still providing child care: Yes
Number of children cared for: 3

Blanca Luna immigrated to California from Mexico in 2016, when she was 24 years old. She arrived with her then 15-month-old daughter in order to join her husband in the U.S.

She now has two children, 12 and 9 years old. As a stay-at-home mom, Luna began to meet local parents when her youngest son started kindergarten in 2020.

“In our town, many parents work in agricultural fields. Agricultural workers continued to work during the pandemic [stay-at-home orders], and they needed child care because many centers closed,” said Luna. “I wanted to help because they couldn’t stop working. I started providing child care, even if it was an hour or two … If it were me who needed help, I would want someone to help me. I did it out of love, community.”

Luna has continued to provide child care to local families, usually when school is closed for holidays. She provides regular child care on weekdays to a 3-year-old girl, and is compensated between $300 and $400 a month. She also occasionally provides before- and after- school care for two other children. One of those families pays her $25 per day. The other doesn’t pay her at all.

A woman holds a sign during a press event held by family members of people detained by ICE on June 9, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Jim Vondruska/Getty)

Over the past few months, Luna said she has been approached by two local parents who do not have American citizenship about whether she would take care of their children if they were arrested by immigration officers. “I don’t have the heart to say no. But it is a concern for me,” she said. “Taking care of a child needs money, and I don’t have an income. Only my husband does.”

Those fears weigh heavily on the children in her care, Luna said, particularly their mental health. The threat of family separation creates instability, especially when “children see parents being beaten, mistreated and humiliated.”

Luna said there are efforts to support families in her community, but they fall short.

“I’ve seen resources like food banks. That’s good. But people can’t pay rent with food,” she said. “I think people want to go to work safely and build a better future.”

Yanet Martinez

Home State: California
Place of birth: El Salvador
Number of years providing child care: 17
Still providing child care: Yes
Number of children cared for: 6��

Yanet Martinez immigrated to the U.S. 17 years ago, fleeing domestic violence in her home in El Salvador. Her five children stayed behind.

In 2019, Martinez said she qualified for — a program for victims of criminal activity — that has since changed to a, a program for victims of trafficking.

She found her way to Los Angeles and picked up a series of odd jobs. Today, she works at a local community center as a promotora, a Spanish term similar to a community liaison or resource navigator. She’s also a local child care provider.

Four of her children have immigrated to the U.S. She has nine grandchildren, and cares for six of them. She also occasionally cares for her neighbor’s children.

, federal immigration officers and state troopers arrived at a local park on horseback and in armored vehicles in the neighborhood where Martinez lives. One of her children witnessed the raid.

“My daughter was on the way to work, but she ran back inside. I had a doctor’s appointment, and I chose not to go. It was chaos. I saw tanks — tanks I haven’t seen since I was a girl during the [Salvadoran Civil] war,” said Martinez. “Another time, one of my sons saw federal agents at a parking lot close to his job. He managed to see them in time and hid, but six of his coworkers didn’t make it to their cars. The agents pushed them to the ground, beat them and took them away.”

Despite fearing for her safety, Martinez continues caring for her grandchildren, bringing them to and from school. On a local bus, in transit to pick up one of them, Martinez said, “I’m still working in the community. I’m still providing care for my grandchildren. I do it with fear, with precaution. But I do it.”

Reporting for this article was supported by New America’s Better Life Lab Story Fellowship.

Opinion: When Work Isn’t 9-to-5, Child Care Can’t Be Either

Katie Hamm and Juliet Bromer — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 14:30:00 +0000

In New York City and New Mexico, policymakers are making history by rolling out ambitious universal child care plans that offer affordable care for families and invest in the providers that drive our economy. As these bold efforts expand access for young children, leaders must consider a fundamental reality of modern work: Child care that ends at 6 p.m. might not work for parents whose shifts start at sunset, stretch overnight or change week to week.

Child care during nontraditional hours — including early mornings, evenings, nights and weekends — is a growing need for American families. Flexible care with variable hours from week to week is also in demand.

In many homes across the country, work happens outside of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The best available data, drawn from the past decade, suggest that in some states live with a parent who works nonstandard hours, and that accommodate those schedules — though these figures rely on data collected before the pandemic. These data also indicate that work outside traditional hours is common in families that have lower incomes.

Expanding access to equitable child care options requires careful attention to the diverse child care needs of working families. For a parent who starts a shift as a nursing assistant at 7 a.m., works overnight as a hotel receptionist or drives for a ride share service as a second job on the weekend, , as many licensed child care programs follow a more conventional schedule. Challenges also exist for parents who work jobs with rotating shifts, who not only require care outside of normal business hours, but also need the hours to be flexible.

To ensure that working families can thrive, the child care sector needs more public investment in child care settings that offer care during nontraditional hours and increased support for the workforce needed to deliver it. When designing a universal child care system, policymakers must consider the growing population of parents working outside traditional business hours and should incorporate the following three principles.

Include home-based child care providers in policy design. Right now, most child care during nontraditional hours is , rather than by licensed child care providers. In other words, by people families trust who care for children in ways that resemble parental care. This type of arrangement — known as family, friend and neighbor (FFN) care — is in the U.S. child care system. This trend points to both a preference and a gap: Families rely on familiar, home-based care during these hours, yet the supply of licensed child care that is open during these hours simply isn’t there. Building a universal child care system that is responsive to families’ needs will require recruiting and investing in licensed family child care providers and FFN caregivers who operate outside of child care licensing systems. Building policies that include the full range of home-based providers will require creative solutions, such as community-based peer support groups and access to resources and materials related to caring for children.

Create fair working conditions and compensation for providers who offer care during nontraditional hours. Increasing child care access for working families must prioritize investment in the workforce caring for children during . These providers face some of the in an already strained sector: low pay, unpredictable schedules, on-call demands for families that need last minute child care or need to change hours without notice, and the strain of balancing their own family responsibilities with offering child care. Many FFN caregivers provide child care for their families . Expanding child care options that meet the needs of families working nontraditional hours requires intentional strategies that ensure a livable wage for paid child care workers and compensation for FFN caregivers — many of whom indicate for their work. These approaches must also reflect that the cost of care varies by time of day.

Right-size standards and regulations to reflect the realities of providers caring for babies and children during nonstandard hours. Finally, quality and regulatory frameworks must evolve to recognize that care at 10 p.m. does not look like care at 10 a.m. Children’s development during nontraditional hours is shaped by like shared meals, bedtime stories and quiet, unstructured time. Systems that measure quality solely through daytime standards risk missing — such as healthy sleep practices and creating calm and comfortable environments — while placing unnecessary burdens on providers. Universal child care systems should offer tailored professional development that reflects the realities of care at night and on weekends — focused less on building lesson plans and more on developing routines, relationships and supporting children through transitions like bedtime or early wake-ups.

As states and cities build universal child care programs, ensuring access to child care beyond standard work hours must be a central goal. By embracing a mixed-delivery system that values all types of care, investing in compensation and professional development, and developing appropriate standards, early adopters of universal child care initiatives can provide an example of how to create policies that meet the needs of all working families.

As NAEYC Turns 100, Early Education Leaders Reflect on Progress and Gaps

Emily Tate Sullivan — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 12:30:00 +0000

This year marks the centennial anniversary of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), arguably the premier professional organization for the early care and education workforce in America.

The national nonprofit plans to the occasion with an “intentional year of celebration, reflection and doing what we’ve always done — center the voices of educators,” said CEO Michelle Kang.

A century is a long time for any organization to exist. It is a long time — period. Thus, NAEYC’s centennial presents an opportunity for longtime early childhood educators and leaders to recognize the progress the field has made, and to consider why, 100 years later, some systemic issues remain unchanged.

Worthy Wage Day, 1992, in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Courtesy of the ECHOES Project, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment)

Founded in 1926 and first known as the National Association for Nursery Education, NAEYC has a long history of promoting high-quality education for children from birth to age 8, advocating for improved working conditions in the field, and helping families and the general public understand the value of early childhood education. Today, it is the largest early childhood education association in the country, with affiliates in nearly every state, reaching hundreds of thousands of educators through its research, advocacy and membership network.

Over the past century, NAEYC has been involved with a number of the profession’s major . The organization participated in the creation and expansion of , a federal program that provides high-quality early care and education to children from low-income families; collaborated on the development of the (CDA), a nationally recognized credential for the field’s educators; and built the first national to demonstrate quality in early learning programs.

Courtesy of NAEYC

But at the same time, the field has been defined by stagnation in critical areas, such as low compensation, insufficient public funding and a lack of professional recognition.

“It’s a lot of ‘two steps forward, one step back,’” said Marcy Whitebook, who co-founded the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) in 1999. “It’s not that we haven’t made progress. It’s that these problems we’ve had for a long time endure.”

Whitebook, a septuagenarian, recalled meeting with other child care workers in the 1970s and 1980s to campaign for better working conditions. At that time, these teachers felt their contributions to society were underpaid and undervalued.

“People who did the work had no rights, raises and respect,” Whitebook said, referencing the of a campaign from that era. “That’s still true.”

Few would dispute that. Early childhood educators today make an average of to care for and teach the nation’s youngest children, according to the CSCCE 2024 Workforce Index — despite a growing body of research and increased awareness among the public that the early years are foundational for learning and development, and deeply connected to a person’s eventual success.

In a of the early childhood workforce, released by NAEYC in February, educators reported high levels of burnout and increasingly unstable personal financial circumstances. One teacher in California said, “I’m constantly worried about making rent and affording groceries, which distracts me during the day.”

Photos from the Boston Area Day Care Workers United, 1976. (Courtesy of the ECHOES Project, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment)

Many teachers are also dealing with the consequences of working in understaffed programs. Teacher turnover remains high and recruitment challenging, largely because many educators leave the field for better-paying jobs elsewhere.

What would most help them stay in the field, the survey respondents said, is better pay and more employee benefits. Instead, many providers are experiencing stagnant federal funding and a perceived reduction in public support.

Carol Brunson Day, who became a NAEYC member in 1969 and later served as the organization’s president, believes that wages and compensation remain the biggest issue facing the field.

“That problem was there when I entered, and it’s still there,” she said. “We’re working on it, but we don’t seem to be getting the kind of traction we should be.”

Day added: “Until we solve that problem, we are still going to have high turnover, which is not just not good for teachers, it’s not good for young children.”

Day also spent 20 years as president of the Council for Professional Recognition, a nonprofit that NAEYC helped form in the 1980s to oversee the administration of the CDA credential.

That credential, she said, has not only helped “produce competent caregivers,” but has also created a pathway for a racially, culturally and linguistically diverse workforce — primarily women — to advance their careers in early childhood education. As a result of getting many community colleges to recognize the CDA and award credits toward an associate degree, some early educators have been able to use their CDA as a springboard to earn four-year degrees and beyond. “It’s not perfect yet,” Day said, “but it’s there.”

Kang called the credential “one of the best first steps into the field of early learning,” noting that at her own son’s high school, students can pursue coursework to earn their CDA before graduation.

“It has represented the path for so many people who would not otherwise have been able to be part of the field,” Kang said.

Even still, it’s not a solution to the lack of professionalization that early childhood educators face. There is still, among much of the public, a perception that adults who care for babies and toddlers are not teaching, but “babysitting.”

Courtesy of the ECHOES Project, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment

“We have not gotten to a place where we fully understand, as a community and a country, that these are professionals doing this work,” Kang acknowledged. “We push back against the narrative that anybody who loves children can do this work.”

That misconception likely perpetuates the low compensation in the field and the limited federal investment it receives. If the public and policymakers recognized the importance of the early years, they would, theoretically, want to pay the professionals who work with young children a living wage while also investing public dollars to boost quality and accessibility.

“The entire system depends, basically, on very underpaid people doing the work,” said Whitebook. “The whole thing has been operating on cutting corners with the people who do it.”

Indeed, the current structure of the system is unsustainable, said Kang, resulting in a “” of early care and education. And yet she finds herself thinking back to at least one point in the field’s history when that was perhaps not the case.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, in early care and education allowed the field not only to survive the disaster, but to come out of it, in some respects, stronger than before. That was also a time when many families and government leaders referred to early childhood education as “essential,” though Kang said she hasn’t heard that sentiment expressed for several years now.

Courtesy of NAEYC

“There is very little about COVID that I would say we want to go back to,” Kang said, “but I do want to go back to that moment where policymakers on all sides of the political spectrum, families, community leaders recognized the importance of early childhood education and the investment needed to have it work well.”

It proved that it is possible for public dollars to buoy early childhood education and to raise the stature of the professionals who work in the field, she noted.

“I don’t want to see us have another global calamity to get there,” Kang said. But when she reflects on NAEYC’s 100 years and the narrative around high-quality early learning, she said one thing is clear: “We need to support the professionals who are doing this work … so children can get everything they need to become the citizens we want them to be.”

ParentCorps Builds Relationships from the Ground Up

Mark Swartz — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 12:00:00 +0000

If hearts and minds don’t change, neither will the social structures holding us back. But what’s the best way to change hearts? For a long time, the convenient or even polite approach involved skipping over race and culture. Too painful, too intrusive. But some people and organizations are recognizing that to achieve real change — in the household, in the classroom, in the marketplace of ideas — so-called politeness matters less than sincere and deep engagement about the things that matter.

You have to go there.

goes there.

Founded in New York City by Laurie Brotman, Bezos family professor of early childhood development, in NYU Grossman’s School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, ParentCorps offers professional development for educators, a social-emotional learning curriculum for pre-K students and a parenting program. Prioritizing racial equity, the team honors families’ culture and their lived experience and expertise, and supports teachers in establishing authentic relationships.

“You can’t just tell people to change,” explained Kai-ama Hamer, who has been with the organization since 2018, serving as director since last May. “You have to know their values, what they’re doing, why they do this work, what moves them? And then once you unearth that, then they feel open.”

It starts the moment a parent or educator comes in the door.

“We want them to understand that even if our values are different,” Hamer said. “Even if we don’t speak the same language, ‘I see you and I care for you.’ And that is the basis for everything else.”

Beyond the Five Boroughs

Randomized control trials of the ParentCorps model have demonstrated improvements in home and school environments, as well as the health and development of children and parents.

In light of the evidence, it’s no wonder that the model is expanding. Detroit was the first pilot beyond New York City. Since 2015, when then-CEO Ann Kalass met Brotman as fellows, ParentCorps and Starfish have teamed up to build relationships with the early childhood workforce, social workers, facilitators and teachers, and to embed ParentCorps programming for children and families in Starfish sites. “We want Starfish to own the model in ways that work in their setting,” Hamer said.

In its 19 early care and education centers, Starfish provides integrated, high-quality care and support services that build on the strengths and assets of families in and around Detroit. Lindsay LaBoda, a social worker and a clinical therapist with Starfish, points to widespread trauma among the families they serve. “Trauma-informed care,” she said, “means fully supporting our children by identifying the signs of stress and responding with respect, care, and kindness. We don’t ask, ‘What’s wrong with this child?’ but ‘What’s strong about this child?’”

Kecia Rorie, operations director at Starfish, acknowledges that when people think of Detroit, they picture “blight, unemployment and an educational system that has failed a lot of children.” At the same time, she points to resiliency and a strong sense of community. “When parents walk through our doors,” she says, “you can tell right away, they’re very protective of their children, and we are honored that they allow us to come in their homes to take care of their most priceless, precious possessions, to just help guide them along the way.”

Ironically, for a city built on the automobile industry, Family Engagement Specialist Mary Woods-Miles notes that viable transportation is one of the biggest challenges for many Detroit families. Starfish provides $500 or more in Family Stability Funds for car repairs, insurance, down payments and other expenses, which helps parents get to and from work, and to drop off and pick up their children.

A New Twist on an Old Adage

ParentCorps reboots the adage, “build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” by building better training, using old-fashioned mousetraps. The trainers have asked me not to reveal the specifics of how the devices are used, but I can say that the activity also involves balloons. This is a distinctly low-tech approach.

Rorie recalls her first exposure to ParentCorps: “A colleague and I flew out to New York City just to observe. But by the time we got to lunchtime on day one, we looked at each other and said, ‘This is amazing.’ And by day two, we were like, ‘We have to take this back.’” At the time, Rorie said, “We were having trouble engaging with families. Our network of six Head Start grantees had just come together, but it was still new, and people weren’t used to it.”

One of the people she took it back to was Woods-Miles.

“The mousetrap game did it for me, too,” Woods-Miles said. “I knew that ParentCorps would be effective, but I didn’t anticipate it being as effective as it is.”

The experience made Woods-Miles reflect on her time as a single parent of a young child and all the multitasking involved. About 30 years ago, she tells me, the Head Start class misplaced her son. “I was going to community college, and it was finals time. When I went to get him, he wasn’t there. So I literally kicked in every locked door, broke some doors and went in the men’s bathroom until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. And I went outside, and there was my slippery kid saying, ‘Ma, what took you so long?’ He had gotten out with another family.”

Three Little Words

The ParentCorps approach boils down to three words: safe, nurturing and predictable. Woods-Miles acknowledges that not all the parents at Starfish go for it right away. One mom told her it wasn’t going to work for her children, but Woods-Miles persuaded her to try it. The mom came back the next week and admitted that letting the kids know what was going to happen in the evening helped her to be more organized, and as a result she had a few hours to unwind.

LaBoda appreciates the fact that ParentCorps doesn’t tell parents how to parent. “You’re the expert on your child,” she said. “Your know your child better than anyone else.” The point of the programming for pre-K caregivers is to get them to realize they already have everything they need to be a parent.

Recently, a grandmother in LaBoda’s parenting group announced, “Y’all can’t tell me nothing. Ain’t nothing new under the sun and y’all can’t tell me a thing.” Just a few hours later, she reported, “I actually learned a lot. I have to admit that I was wrong.”

For Hamer, the parents, grandparents, Head Start professionals and other educators contribute immense value to our communities that often goes unrecognized. “Once you understand the value of early education,” she said. “You see the value of those people who stay, who choose to stay because they really care.”

Child Development Associate Credential Opens a Career Path, Serving the Child Care Industry

Mark Swartz — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 15:12:25 +0000

When the Council for Professional Recognition issued its millionth Child Development Associate credential in September 2023, it was cause for celebration. Jada Vargas, an 18-year-old from Arizona and a member of the Apache Tribe, received the millionth credential. Vargas had graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School last May.

The CDA requires significant coursework and teaching. Vargas had to gain 480 hours of experience in the classroom, besides taking 120 hours of coursework either in person or online. She admits that it was a lot of work, but says “It’s so worth it. Earning my CDA taught me new and different ways to work effectively in the classroom, so I continued pushing myself each day.” Like many CDA holders who use the certification as a steppingstone to further career development, Vargas plans to pursue a degree in early childhood education.

Calvin E. Moore, Jr., CEO of the Council, says, “CDA holders know the demands of a real-world classroom and increasingly have what it takes to meet them. I’m gratified that the number of CDA earners between 18 and 34 has been increasing.”

The CDA Credential dates back to the start of Head Start — part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty — when the supply of educators fell far short of the demand in the communities the program was meant to serve. In 1971, at the annual meeting of the told the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Edward R. Zigler, director of the U.S. Office of Child Development, declared:

“We must develop a middle-level profession to care for our country’s children. The need for the Child Development Associate, an individual who has not had as much scholastic training as those with college degrees, but nevertheless has the competencies to care independently for children, is central to a major issue in child care. Are we going to provide the children of this nation with developmental child care or are we going to provide them merely with babysitting?”

Before the Council took the helm in 1985, Bank Street College in New York City administered the CDA. “Providing child care is a profession,” said Ellen Galinsky, who taught at Bank Street for 25 years and went on to found . “Child care,” she added, “is a profession that requires a solid background in such fundamentals of child development as knowing what curriculum is appropriate to a particular age group, the basics of health and safety, and how to form effective partnerships with parents.”

Nearly 5,500 members of the CDA community have lent their voices and views to a survey on ways to bring more equity, ease and access to the CDA process. Nearly 90% of CDA holders report feeling more prepared for the classroom because they’ve gained a foundation in early learning and best practices for the profession. “The CDA was a wonderful way to get into my current position,” one teacher said, “and get into the job market I wanted to be in.”

Another respondent observed, “CDA holders appear to be better at interacting with children and communicating with parents. They also stay on the job longer and seem more committed to their work.”

According to Moore, remote learning is on the rise. He also sees increased recognition of the value of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, with an emphasis on advancing communities that are underserved. “That is the Council’s central mission,” he says. “We have always been committed to ensuring equity for all children and for the teachers who provide them with the quality learning they need.”

Ten U.S. territories and states that have embedded the CDA in their child care licensure and career ladder for professionals in the early learning field: Puerto Rico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alaska, Wyoming, Ohio, Michigan, Florida and Washington, D.C. Florida requires every child care center to have at least one staff member with a CDA. In the District, a 2016 law mandates that all assistant teachers must have a CDA.

Scholarships and support are making it easier for teachers to earn the CDA. For example, the Council and the Maryland State Department of Education are now partnering to provide thousands of the state’s early childhood teachers with financial support to help them earn or renew their CDA. These financial awards cover application and other fees, as well as books required for the program, and the state considers this a wise investment in the future.

The Maryland-Council partnership is also promoting the high school CDA, incentivizing teens to imagine a productive future at a time when they’re searching for a path from high school to careers. The CDA helps them take their first steps into the early learning field because it “provides you with knowledge if you have no knowledge of child care,” as one novice teacher said in the Council’s recent survey.

College may not be the next step for everyone with a high school diploma. Exorbitant tuition and other factors are encouraging more high school graduates to explore nondegree pathways. for those without a college education, but child care is a worthy and essential field, especially if the passion for building brains in young children is there.

Asked what advice she would give to a high school student contemplating the rigorous CDA process, Vargas said. “If you keep going forward, you will see the benefit of the journey.”

“High schoolers who earn a CDA,” Moore said, “give us high hopes for the future of our field.”

Voices and Visions for Transformative Change from Child Care NEXT

Mark Swartz — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 11:00:18 +0000

, a new initiative of the , supports diverse coalitions in states “ready to mount long-term campaigns to achieve transformative change in their child care policies and funding.” It grew out of calls for more ambitious and equitable advocacy that emerged from the devastation that the pandemic brought to the early care and education system. As Albert Wat, senior policy director with the Alliance, explains, “In order to create and sustain bold policy changes, we recognized we needed to invest in campaigns that combine the power that comes from traditional advocates and other policy and research organizations, with the power that comes from grassroots organizers and the leadership of those who are most impacted, but often left out of the decision-making process.”

Currently, Child Care NEXT funds six state coalitions . I had the honor of attending the inaugural summit and meeting tireless, fearless advocates from five of the six state coalitions selected for the first round. A bit later, I caught up with the sixth advocate via Zoom.

Inclusive Louisiana

Libbie Sonnier and Rochelle Wilcox are co-chairs of Louisiana, a coalition that centers the voices of early childhood providers as well as parents. Their partnership — Sonnier leads the , Wilcox runs and cofounded — exemplifies the balance of voices that powers change in their state.

Libbie Sonnier and Rochelle Wilcox/ Photo: Ian Wagreich Photography.

“We’re here to make sure early learning looks more inclusive,” said Wilcox. “That means every stakeholder having a seat at the table. They’re not just tokens.”

“We’ve come a long way,” reflected Sonnier, pointing to how they’ve called attention to the importance of perinatal and maternal health and well-being.

Wilcox emphasized factors beyond home and school. “Addressing the whole child means addressing the ecosystem,” she said. “Housing, the environment, everything.”

Although Louisiana has a long history of fiscal conservatism, Wilcox and Sonnier pointed to at the state level as well as a voter-approved as evidence that elected officials can and will make needed investments if held to account. “When you make the business case for early care and education, it becomes a nonpartisan issue,” said Sonnier.

Sonnier and Wilcox cited a custom among the Masai tribe of Africa. Instead of greeting each other with, “How are you?” they say, “Kassaerian Engeri?” which means, “And how are the children?” The expected response: All the children are well.

Putting the Mind in ‘A New York State of Mind’

When I caught up with Janna Rodriguez of the , she had just come from a Capitol Hill meeting with the staff of Senator Chuck Schumer. Although she was disappointed to learn that Congress wouldn’t be increasing funds for early education through budget reconciliation, she remained focused on the positive. “It didn’t get done right now,” she said, “but it’s a topic of conversation. That will make it easier the next time around.”

Janna Rodriguez/ Photo: Ian Wagreich Photography.

Born in the Dominican Republic, Rodriguez grew up in a single-parent household and was the first in her family to attend college. Today she is an entrepreneur. As owner of Innovative Daycare Corp in Freeport, New York, she strives to serve families with similar backgrounds in a “space that inspires children.”

For Rodriguez, it’s a fundamentally American principle: If we want children from diverse backgrounds to grow up and become entrepreneurs and business leaders, we can’t wait until kindergarten to start their education. “Zero to five is when it all starts,” she asserted. Furthermore, child care holds the key to other pivotal issues that affect the whole country—immigration, housing and workforce—to name just a few.

This year’s federal budget isn’t Rodriguez’s main focus. She’s in this for the long haul. “We’re going to be so proud in 20 years,” she promised. “That’s why I wake up with a smile on my face.”

Being Undeniable in Virginia

“Our mission is to ensure that the people who can least afford child care have one choice: the best,” said J. Glenn Hopkins, who has led Northern Virginia’s since 1991, (He is unrelated to the nonprofit’s namesake, physician .) While the region that Hopkins House serves is, for the most part, wealthy, progressive and educated, there are a number of families lower on the economic ladder, and the organization’s three preschool academies educate young children as young as six weeks old from these families. Collaborating with colleges and research institutions keeps its educators on the leading edge of the field.

J. Glenn Hopkins/ Photo: Ian Wagreich Photography.

Hopkins is a member of the (VPP) Provider Advisory. Launched in December 2020, VPP centers the voices of providers and parents as they work to secure quality, affordable child care for all Virginia families by 2030. Due in part to VPP’s leadership, the latest Virginia budget makes critical investments towards improving access, choice and quality, and sustaining the early care and education workforce.

Hopkins signed up to attend Child Care NEXT to stay abreast of the future of child care in the new political and economic environment. Advocacy figures heavily into the picture. “There’s a big gap between what working parents can afford and what it costs to deliver quality,” he said. “That’s where government support comes in.” Hopkins is looking for new approaches to educating the public and pressuring Congress.

Reflecting on his own trajectory, Hopkins recalled his father, who never went to college, pushing him to apply to Ivy League institutions. “He’d say to me, ‘You have to have options,’ and later in life I’ve come to understand better what he meant.” (Hopkins attended Columbia University.) “Our preschool academies seek to nurture the best in our young scholars: be so good no one can deny you.”

Bipartisan Support in Oregon

Voices like Marchel Marcos’s are often left out of conversations that take place at conferences like Child Care NEXT, but because the Alliance sprang for child care, Marchel was able to bring her six-year-old, Kenji. A single mother and survivor of domestic violence, Marcos now serves as political director for (APANO). She noted that summer, when school is closed, is the hardest time to find someone to watch the children. “That fact that Kenji and I are here,” she said, “shows that the Alliance affirms and validates my experience.”

Marchel Marcos, Courtney Helstein and Dana Hepper/ Photo: Ian Wagreich Photography.

Courtney Helstein of and Dana Hepper of were also part of , the state’s delegation at Child Care NEXT. Before we spoke, they had met with staffs of Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. According to Helstein, bipartisan support is vital to achieving anything in their state. Representative Suzanne Bonamici . The imminent retirement of state representatives Karin Power (D) and Jack Zika (R) poses new challenges.

. Hepper also described the state’s newly formed Department of Early Learning and Care and as major accomplishments. Changes to the subsidy program—including lower copays, expanded eligibility, inclusion of undocumented kids, and payments made according to enrollment rather than attendance () — make the state’s program more equitable.

In Colorado, Advocacy Runs in the Family

Like Oregon, Colorado recently launched a state-level . Lorena Garcia and Melissa Mares are seizing this opportunity to push for sweeping change, co-leading Colorado’s coalition, which is called Growing Our Future: Cultivating Caregiving Communities. Garcia is executive director of , which her father originally founded. (Her mother was the founding executive director of another group, — Engaging Latino Parents to Advance Student Outcomes.) Like her parents, Garcia advocates for funding and policies to make education work for all families in her state.

Melissa Mares and Lorena Garcia / Photo: Ian Wagreich Photography.

According to Garcia, the pandemic has contributed to an awakening that school readiness efforts must reach as early as possible into children’s lives. “My dad always said, ‘Kindergarten is too late’,” she told me. There’s also been an overdue recognition of the role that family, friend and neighbor (FFN) care plays in the lives of children. “On one hand, status quo stakeholders say they want to close the achievement gap,” Garcia said. “On the other, they’re saying FFN — where 50% of the children are learning and more than 50% of providers work — is unsafe.”

Child Care NEXT’s approach to change resonates for Garcia because it emphasizes how families directly affected by poverty and racism can and do win policy victories.

Mares, director of Early Childhood Initiatives at the , previously taught kindergarten at a Spanish immersion school in Eugene, Ore. “I came to see my job,” she told me, “not as training my students to be successful, compliant adults but as fiercely defending childhood. Let them be kids.”

For a long time, Mares was going against the grain, but researchers and experts are increasingly recognizing that without self-regulation and other social emotional skills, academic learning just doesn’t happen.

Mares’ experience teaching young children also left her with a bad taste in her mouth about how society perceived her work. “People would always talk about how cute kids are, as if that—rather than a living wage—should be the most rewarding aspect of the job. As if it made sense that women would be in a job like that. The disrespect of female labor is deeply entrenched.”

“And you know what?” she told me. “The work of caregiving is critically important. And the kids weren’t always cute.”

A Winning Streak in New Mexico

Shortly after Child Care NEXT, I Zoomed with Matthew Henderson, executive director, , part of the New Mexico coalition. Last year, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced a plan to make New Mexico the first state in the country to offer free child care to nearly all families. (.) Henderson calls it a bold move from the governor, and says it follows a related victory — formation of the state’s . Next up: enshrining a dedicated funding source for early childhood programs. A broad network of allies has begun canvassing for the amendment, which will be put to voters in November.

Yet much remains to be done in the Land of Enchantment, says Henderson. Enrollment in Lujan Grisham’s plan is falling short, and the state has lost nearly a thousand early educators since the start of the pandemic. “It’s no wonder that there isn’t enough child care to meet the demand when there’s no job that pays less,” he says.

“Providers are telling us, ‘We went to college for this. We have debt. We’re tired of juggling bills and having the power turned off.’ Some are leaving the sector for public schools. Some are leaving it for fast food jobs.”

He adds, “We need to put an end to this racist system that depends on paying BIPOC women poverty wages.”

The energy coming out of Child Care NEXT encourages Henderson, as do demonstrations like the this past May. “You’ll see early educators and parents returning to the streets soon,” he says, “ until policy makers are committed to change.”