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Children are getting older every minute. For any given child, the opportunity to harness the extraordinary potential of the earliest years of brain development is less tomorrow than it was yesterday. It will be less still a month from now.
Given the high stakes, Gov. Holcomb was right to prioritize expanding access to quality, affordable early learning in his recent advice to the next governor.
By almost any measure, the past few years have accelerated construction of a more effective early-learning system. Holcomb highlighted early learners in three successive legislative agendas, and the Indiana General Assembly matched his action with its own, most recently with the nearly unanimous adoption of Senate Bill 2.
Despite this progress and after more than $1 billion in “extra” pandemic-era funding, the child care system still isn’t working optimally for young children, their families or Hoosier communities.
The next governor could sidestep the hazards of states that have merely extended down their K-12 system without addressing its pitfalls. This future governor could avoid making incremental changes to the regulatory environment intended to slow the pace of disruption but inevitably braking the pace of progress instead. The governor could trade chronic underinvestment for a robust strategic bet in which today’s early learners form the skills to become the critical thinkers, problem-solvers and communicators driving our economy decades from now.
The biggest barrier to action is the sheer magnitude of the task. It seems nearly impossible to add the 40% capacity required to serve all young children in need of care. Or to drive the remaining 60% of early-learning providers to achieve the quality of classroom practice necessary to deliver the best outcomes. Still, the path to close this distance is relatively straightforward:
◗ Back to basics. Complete the already-underway, blank-sheet exercise establishing the handfuls of regulatory measures necessary to provide parents with a reasonable assurance that their young children will be healthy and safe in a child care environment. These simplified requirements must lower the current “complexity tax” facing any brave new market entrant.
◗ Make it matter. Fully and expeditiously implement the recent recommendations of Indiana’s Early Learning Advisory Committee that reframe Indiana’s quality rating system, Paths to QUALITY, around streamlined and objective measures that are most closely connected with learning and development outcomes, especially including early literacy skills. Among other recommended changes, require participation for early-learning providers serving families who are leveraging public vouchers.
◗ Build the workforce. Expand the top of the funnel with attraction efforts targeting youth apprentices, men and other atypical candidates to the early-learning profession. Retool workforce preparation models to be more competency-based and job-embedded, providing greater confidence that the individuals employed in early-learning settings are efficiently prepared with the skills they need to be successful.
◗ Offset the price of access. Attracting the talent required to fulfill the promise of the early years will require higher compensation levels. Employers are already motivated to cover a share of this added cost to retain and grow their workforce in our competitive jobs environment. It’s in the state’s interest to join them by increasing the income eligibility threshold for child care vouchers and offering scholarships to working families exceeding this threshold on a sliding scale, based on ability to pay.
◗ Empower families. Minimize the paperwork burden and simplify processes for eligible families accessing public subsidies. Invest in digital wallets to facilitate family choice among early-learning providers and encourage use of the Early Learning Marketplace, an online platform enabling families to search child care availability in real time.
The potential of the early years to build foundational skills is significant. Our next governor should take meaningful steps to capture it for generations.•
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Weber is CEO and president of Early Learning Indiana.
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