Fighting for Affordable, High Quality ChildCare

Between school closures, daycare disruptions, the juggle has been real these last two years, for babies, big kids and busy parents alike. But even before the pandemic, the financial and other pressures on families in the nation’s capital were already way too high.

With some of the highest housing and daycare costs in the nation, it has become far too difficult to raise a family in the District.

To state the obvious, expanding access to childcare is a gender equity issue. We tell our girls they can do anything when they grow up because we see their strength and resilience right before our eyes. But when we’re complacent about childcare affordability we ignore the systemic barriers our daughters face as they become women.

High quality, accessible childcare would give each family a real and conscious choice between full labor force participation or having one caregiver pause to do the important work of raising children at home. Today’s girls deserve a better future than one where their careers can be pushed aside or put on the back burner by default if they choose to pursue parenthood.

Further, if we focus only on price and availability, without doing a deep dive into what comprises childcare quality, we do a disservice to the young minds and hearts spending hours a day in these settings. Childcare workers play an essential role in shaping the cognitive abilities and emotional health of our future workforce and it’s time they are given the training and compensation they so greatly deserve.

As your Councilmember, I will put the needs of kids and families at the top of the priority list. That means fighting every day to make high quality childcare and preschool affordable for all Washingtonians.

My Plan in Brief:

Expand Pre-K3 and Pre-K4 Options
Fully fund and implement Birth to Three
Ensure that early childhood educators receive appropriate compensation.
With respect to early childhood centers, set high expectations for quality and training.
Direct DCPS to develop a long-range plan for universal, free early childhood education for infants and toddlers within the public school system.
Develop a universal Early Childhood Family Education program aimed at parents and caregivers of young children.

A Comprehensive Plan to Help Ease the Burden of Childcare and Help Families Thrive

Expanding Pre-K3 and Pre-K4 Options

When DC expanded public education to include Pre-K4 and later Pre-K3, the District wisely took an equity-driven approach to building the program, opening classrooms in lower income communities first before expanding to higher opportunity areas. This is the right way to build universal programs because it ensures that the families that stand to benefit the most are served first and not crowded out by those with the resources and time to game the system and jump the line.

It is time to make the vision of universal Pre-K a reality in DC. There are still no DCPS-run Pre-K3 classrooms in Ward 3. Private providers have stepped in to fill this gap, but a mismatch between demand and supply within the ward continues. Some families are able to lottery into other schools and centers and manage the increased commuting times, but others simply cannot manage it and find themselves effectively denied access to free, high quality Pre-K.

Investing in Early Childhood Education to Reduce Costs and Raise Quality

Many parents are not okay right now. Parenting has always had its challenges but parenting in a pandemic is another order of magnitude more difficult. The challenges of these last terrible, horrible, no good, very bad two years have hit mothers particularly hard.

Three months before the pandemic struck in full force, however, WAMU was reporting on how some DC parents could not afford to work because childcare was simply not affordable. At the same time, while progress has been made in recent months, the professionals that care for our infants and toddlers are still paid far too little for the important work that they do.

Every parent knows that interacting with a baby or toddler is as complex, if not more, than engaging an older child. Creating an environment where an infant or toddler can feel safe, explore, and experiment – where learning is fostered, not dictated - requires finesse, skill, and training. And this work is not just complex, it is critical. At present, however, we do not treat the professionals who work in early childhood centers like we do other educators, paying them less and requiring fewer credentials and qualifications than we do for Pre-K-12 teachers. As a nation, we need a paradigm shift in how we think and talk about ages 0-5. We can lead the way in DC. It is time to tap into the critical thinking, empathy, and ingenuity of our District’s youngest residents.

As your Councilmember, I will work to:

Ensure that early childhood educators receive appropriate compensation. Despite the importance of their work, early childhood professionals are severely underpaid. A lack of fair compensation is not just unjust, it is also ultimately harmful to the goal of raising quality because it leads to job dissatisfaction and excessive turnover. Educators who invest in their own education (something we would like to encourage) may not see a benefit unless they leave the classroom. The Council took a significant step towards ensuring staff in early childhood centers receive fair and adequate compensation. It is essential that the Council continue to provide funding to raise wages and study whether additional support is needed. In addition to being the right thing to do, adequate compensation helps with retention and makes it easier for centers to attract highly qualified educators.

Set High Expectations for Quality and Training. We know definitively that access to high-quality early childhood centers improve outcomes for kids. But teaching young children is not always intuitive. Learning by doing is not a substitute for training and formal study of child development concepts. In recent years, the Council has made important steps to increase education qualifications for early childhood teachers. As we move forward, the Council should ensure that educators are receiving high quality professional development and have access to the continuing education opportunities that they need to be successful and grow as educators.

Direct DCPS to develop a long-range plan for universal, free early childhood education for infants and toddlers within the public school system. Looking beyond the next few years, it is time for a serious conversation about expanding the ages served by DCPS beyond age 3. Free Pre-K has been transformative for so many families in the District. Eliminating the cost of childcare for infants and toddlers would certainly do the same; enabling working families’ abilities to earn and save more will increase housing and health opportunity throughout the district.

More importantly, in a universal system administered by DCPS, more children will be able to attend high quality centers staffed by highly trained educators, each of whom will be paid the same, and subject to the same education qualifications, as other DCPS teachers. Such things do not happen overnight. It will be expensive and the impact on the existing childcare ecosystem could be highly disruptive if not properly managed. But these are all solvable problems, just as they were when DCPS began offering public Pre-K.

Fully fund and implement Birth to Three, which includes provisions aimed at ultimately capping the cost of childcare for all DC families and improving health outcomes.

Develop a universal Early Childhood Family Education program aimed at parents and caregivers of young children. Building on a fully funded Zero to Three, we can do more to help parents transition to, and manage, the tough job of parenting. Raising a child is complex, stressful, and not always intuitive. A well-designed, universal Early Childhood Family Education program—“Parenting 101”—can help make the transition to parenting easier. While this concept may sound novel, it shouldn’t. Since 1974, the state of Minnesota has offered Early Childhood Family Education to all families young children. By 2010, the program had served around 128,000 parents and caregivers and 122,000 children. Minnesota’s program seeks to give parents the knowledge and tools to support their child as he or she grows and to create a healthy and stimulating learning environment at home. It is also school-based, which means that participating families form a relationship with their local public school, its teachers and leaders, years before their child actually enters school.

Some elements of such a program exist in DC, but not at scale and not with universal reach like in Minnesota. Although it would likely need to be phased in over time, broad participation should be priority because it can help de-stigmatize parenting courses and support services. No matter one’s income or educational status, few parents have degrees in early childhood psychology, a robust and well researched field with a lot of insights to offer. Insights that benefit children first and foremost. Our understanding of the brain and how it develops has become increasingly more sophisticated. We know that the early months and years of a child’s life are incredibly impactful. Most of us are doing the best they can and even when we are doing a “pretty good job,” we all can benefit from additional support. I know I certainly struggled as my son hit the toddler years, especially once I found myself caring for, and educating, him at home with a new baby in the mix.
Investing in parents so they can be successful is, above all, about helping kids. We now have a much deeper understanding of Adverse Childhood Experiences and how they can profoundly impact a child as they age. Thus, in addition to the benefits of arming parents with knowledge on how children learn, Early Childhood Family Education can help dissipate unhealthy behaviors before they escalate and become damaging. It is far more valuable to engage families before unhealthy or toxic dynamics become entrenched.