Learn about the main early childhood education systems and the ways they affect who receives access to them. Get tips for equitably covering caregivers, especially those who are immigrants or aren’t fluent in English. Plus, discover data & research and questions to ask during your reporting.
Photo credit: Allison Shelley for EDUimages
K-12 education in the United States is, for the most part, seen as a public good. The vast majority of K-12 students – more than 90% – attend public schools. The country spends roughly hundreds of billions of dollars on K-12 education, approximately $14,000 per student. That’s on top of the billions public schools received in pandemic-era relief funding.
Early childhood education (ECE) is a different story. The U.S. spends less than half a percent of its gross domestic product on child care and early childhood education, which typically concerns children ages 0-5. That worked out to just $6,571 per child in 2021-2022, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research. Many families effectively receive zero dollars from the government.
This lack of investment is an American problem: The U.S. has for decades trailed most other developed nations in ECE spending. Scandinavian countries, for example, dedicate nearly 2% of their budgets to child care and early learning services. And while the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the educational and economic consequences of this lack of investment, funding increases have been spotty and fleeting. Pandemic-era relief for ECE – including an expanded child tax credit that resulted in a drastic reduction in childhood poverty – has expired.
We as education reporters play a key role in shedding light on the consequences of these inequities, particularly for the children who get the short end of the stick but arguably need it most. These include low-income students of color, children with special needs or children whose families are homeless, recent immigrants or who speak a language other than English.
As reporters, we can probe into the funding disparities and hold policymakers accountable for their promises at a time when ECE is in vogue. We can interview parents of young children in our communities, asking about the toll costly child care has taken on their jobs and livelihoods and bottom lines. We can help readers with a stake in the issue better understand the art and science of ECE, from pedagogical models to developmental science.
At the end of the day, all of these inequities – from uneven access to uneven pay – can significantly shape kids’ long-term outcomes.
Largely because of the funding issue, ECE is incredibly decentralized in the U.S. Here’s an overview of the main ECE systems and types, and the ways in which they affect access:
These programs serve roughly 4 million children annually, according to an April 2023 analysis by the left-leaning think tank New America. That’s just a subset of the 23 million total U.S. children ages 0-5.
“There’s so many different types of child care settings that I think are really important and you know, overall, every single one of them plays a role [in] the system,” said Alejandra Londono Gomez, a researcher at The Center for Law and Social Policy who studies child care. What accommodates the needs and desires of an upper middle-class family, for example, may not suit the schedule and budget of a single mom who works unpredictable hours.
The onus is on us as reporters to write just as much about the home-based or informal-care settings as we do the centers that serve middle-class families. Most young children, when they are in care, are in the former. Yet ECE reporting tends to focus on the centers.
“Many of these caregivers are immigrants and/or speak a language other than English, which could require extra work on our part to hire translators, but it’s critical to understand the broader scope of caregivers in our country and include their voices,” veteran The Hechinger Report ECE reporter Jackie Mader told me.
Mader, who’s embarking on a Spencer Fellowship project on the topic, stressed that elevating these voices requires flexibility. “Keeping in mind the long hours these professionals work is important,” she said. “It’s not a job where a teacher can walk away and chat with a reporter for an uninterrupted period of time, so incorporating more of these voices often requires flexibility on our part and patience when it comes to connecting and getting responses.”
ECE is not a cure-all, nor is it consistent in its benefits. But there’s little doubt that enriching, interactive and safe early childhood experiences are crucial to our development as humans.
An ever-growing body of research underscores the benefits of ECE for kids’ social-emotional development and academic readiness, as well as for parents’ ability to and choices of work. On the flipside, an ever-growing body of research shows the consequences of what are known as ACEs or adverse childhood experiences. They make clear that when the parents of young children suffer or struggle, so too do those young children.
According to Diana McClarien, vice president for Start Early’s Early/Head Start Network, laypeople would benefit from a greater understanding of how much the brain develops in the first few years of life. This can help them connect the dots for why it’s so important.
There’s also a need for more coverage spelling out for readers the economic stakes of the issue. Lacking ECE costs the country $122 billion in lost earnings, productivity and revenue. Ask parents how child care has interfered with their ability to work and live comfortably.
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