How Early Education Intersects With Other Beats

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the undeniable fact that access to early childhood education, or lack thereof, has a massive effect on society. Similarly, reporting on early childhood intersects with many facets of society and several beats. 

Despite that, early childhood coverage is still lacking, according to veteran reporters like Bryce Covert, an economy reporter who frequently covers child care. 

“I actually think [early childhood] is one of those issues that doesn’t get its due because it touches on so many different things,” Covert said. That could be a benefit for reporters though, she added. “There’s a lot here, especially if you’re coming at it from a different angle; you’ll probably find lots to cover.”

Here are some tips and story ideas to help reporters cover early childhood within other beats. This is not an exhaustive list; other beats, such as climate change and immigration, also have a direct impact on young children and the early years. 

Business and the Economy

In an acknowledgment that a lack of child care affects access to employees, especially women, some business leaders have attempted to provide child care or stipends to offset the cost of care. Asking employers to contribute to child care costs has been growing state-level policy. On a federal level, the business sector has been recognized as a previously untapped but potentially important partner in alleviating child care challenges for families:

• Child care as a benefit: Across the country, a growing number of companies are offering child care benefits to their employees, including lower-wage workers. While employees of large companies like Goldman Sachs and Publix have long had access to such benefits, there has been an influx of companies with lower-wage workers adding child care as a benefit. This includes Dollywood Theme Park in Tennessee, Mazda Toyota Manufacturing and Hy-Vee, a retail and supermarket chain. Experts have pointed out there are caveats to this, including a lack of stability for a child if their parent leaves their job and then must leave their employee-sponsored child care.
• Innovative, cost-sharing models: The “Tri-Share” model, which first launched in Michigan in 2021 is a cost-sharing model between an employee, their employer and state government. Through this model, families have seen their monthly child care payments shrink, but the state has still struggled to recruit employers willing to take on an extra expense. This model has been piloted in different iterations in several other states, including North Carolina and Kentucky.
• Federal incentives: In 2022, the Department of Commerce started requiring companies applying for grants – worth more than $150 million from the CHIPS and Science Act – to offer affordable, high-quality child care to workers.  The Trump administration is renegotiating some grants through this program, and reporters should follow the impact on child care offerings.
• Child care as a women’s employment issue: A lack of child care has long been seen as a barrier to employment for women. For Covert, covering child care has long been a given on the economics beat.
  
  “Child care just seemed like it was almost the number one thing [impacting employment],” Covert said. “Do you have somewhere safe and reliable to send your kids if you’re going to work? And if the answer is no, that makes it much harder to be an equal participant in the workforce and economy. I’ve always come to it from that angle.” 

Politics and Government 

America has long embraced the idea that child care is a private, family matter. This is evidenced by a longstanding investment of minimal funding for early learning. The United States spends about 0.3% of its GDP on early learning, compared to the average of .07% for wealthy nations that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Some countries spend up to 1.8% of their GDP on such programs.

Past federal efforts to create universal early learning programs or fund early childhood to a greater extent have failed. Politicians hold immense power in allocating resources or pulling back funding of early learning. Often this comes down to views and opinions on early learning—many lawmakers to this day refer to child care work as “babysitting,” a stereotype the child care industry has long been fighting against. 

Some issues, such as child care regulations, tend to follow a red-blue divide, with Republicans pushing for deregulation and Democrats advocating to maintain regulations and increase funding. However, not all early childhood issues fall on a red-blue divide. Some traditionally red states, like Oklahoma and Florida, have some of the first and most extensive public pre-K programs in the country. 

Here are some early childhood angles that intersect with the politics and government beat:

• Federal allocations for programs that impact young children, including Temporary Aid for Needy Families, Medicaid, Child Care and Development Fund, child tax credit and Head Start.
• State legislative sessions are often ripe with bills and laws that address and affect early learning programs – including child care regulations, child care workforce funds and pre-K.
• Governors’ budgets and annual speeches often show priorities (or lack of) concerning young children and families.
• Policies that establish pilot programs, such as guaranteed income or wage enhancements for child care workers.
• Ballot initiatives, and how they fare during elections, can be a key indicator of how community members feel about early childhood regardless of state or federal policy. Last year, for example, ballot initiatives proposed to support child care and families passed widely across states.
• Protests and organizing mass support for child care have become more common over the past few years. Similarly, early learning itself has become more political, and parents have said child care and early learning is an issue they consider when voting. Covert said these are all trends that reporters on the political beat should watch.

Science

The first five years of life are when the majority of brain development occurs. That brain development is affected by environmental factors and caregiving, which dovetails well with the science beat. Reporters should delve into:

• The science of brain development and the science of learning in the early years are two meaty topics that can give both science reporters and early childhood reporters an abundance of stories.
• New research findings in the early childhood world. Translating these findings to a general news audience can help inform policy and practice. Research journals, such as Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Early Childhood Research Quarterly and JAMA Pediatrics, often publish research applicable to parents and child care providers.
• Environmental factors like climate change and pollution can impact a child’s development and are ripe for stories.

Health 

There’s a reason why one of the most well-known early childhood models, Head Start, infuses health services into its model: A child’s well-being is influenced by intertwined factors, such as access to high-quality education, economic stability and access to health care.  Each factor is known as a “social determinant of health.” Immense research shows  access to healthy food, medical services,play time and other factors can affect a child. 

Health inequities play a huge role in outcomes for young children, said Hoda Emam, a journalist and journalism lecturer at the University of North Texas. “There’s a major domino effect that happens when kids do not have access to basic needs,” Emam said.  

Within the health beat, reporters can dig into several angles, including:

• Health and developmental outcomes for children in early childhood programs;
• The importance of play and how that contributes to a child’s health and brain development
• How health intersects with the ability to learn
• Access to nutrition and how early learning settings play a role in educating families on nutrition
• Access to basic needs like diapers, as well as family related needs like food and housing.
  
  “I think if reporters look at the ramifications of not having those basic needs, so many stories open up,” Emam said. It’s also important to dig into what communities can do about these issues, she added.  “What is the solution and how can we work backward?
• Access to developmental services and screenings in the community, including early intervention therapies.
• How maternal and family health factors impact young children 

Higher Education

Although reporting on higher education seems to be greatly removed from the early childhood years, the two beats intersect considerably. 

Here are a few stories that cross both beats and highlight important issues across education levels:

• Access to child care for college parents is a key lever to graduation. Reporters should explore efforts to provide or expand such access, which is often a strategy to improve student retention and graduation rates.
• The federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program, or CCAMPIS, provides grants to higher education institutions to create or expand on-campus child care services, primarily for low-income students. In recent years, the number of public college campuses with child care programs has declined. In May, President Trump’s budget proposal called for the elimination of CCAMPIS.
• College-based teacher preparation programs are ripe for stories. How teachers are trained to work in early education, enrollment trends in those programs and alternate ways to train and certify early educators are all possible topics for reporters.