Invest in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

We need expanded federal leadership in early education to develop an excellent, coherent, and equitable system. The authors recommend 13 ways for the government to develop a universal and sustained approach to early childhood education. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The federal government's role in early education has a long and contentious history. While the nature and amount of federal engagement has shifted in response to changing social, political, and economic needs, the lack of long-term planning or coordination has yielded an array of programs, dispersed across federal agencies and legislative committees, which begs for greater excellence, coherence, and equity in early childhood education. The history of American early education is one of changing roles and goals. From the privately funded Infant Schools for indigent families in the earliest days of the republic, to the federal government's foray into early childhood with Depression-era nursery schools, to more recent investments in Head Start, federal early education policies can best be understood as a series of responses to shifting social, economic, and political phenomena (Beatty 1981; Cahan 1989; Cohen 1996). Amid these changes, four durable polemics have shaped the federal response. First, American society has long questioned whether young children should be served outside their homes at all. From the nation's birth, the primacy and the privacy of the home were ideological mantras, forcing early education programs to legitimate their existence; such programs have never been considered an entitlement akin to K-12 education. Second, because public values haven't generally supported out-of-home, nonmaternal care, federal support for early education grew during times of national crises and declined as the crises ebbed, leaving early education bereft of three essential mainstays: vision, permanence, and infrastructure. Third, there has been an enduring ambivalence regarding which children should be served and how. Most public programs have targeted children from low-income families, while the private sector has served children from middle- and upper-income families. Leaving a legacy of services segregated by income, which often translates into quality differences, early education policy defies deeply held American values regarding the equal opportunity that all young children need in order to thrive and learn. Fourth, there is no consistent agreement about the mission of early education. Should early education focus on care as the day nurseries did? Should it focus on socialization and education as nursery schools purported to do? Although increasingly regarded as a false dichotomy because good early education does both, federal and state policy makers still must tussle with the question as they debate early education's departmental jurisdictions and funding amounts. 5 Cornerstones Recognizing this historical context and building on the past, we first recommend five cornerstones for American early education: * Keep early education voluntary before kindergarten. * Maintain a diverse delivery system with both public and private providers for both fiscal prudence and choice for parents. * Foster developmentally oriented pedagogy that stresses cognitive, language, social, emotional, and physical development for all children. * Honor linguistic, cultural, and programmatic diversity. * Conceptualize early education as a partnership among families, programs, and communities. Second, we see a need for expanded federal leadership and investments in early education. However, such investments must be guided by clearly defined roles for federal and state governments. These roles must frame and bound the public early childhood policy agenda. In addition to role clarity, the goals of federal intervention must be clear. Early education efforts should focus on advancing excellence, coherence, and equity. …