DALLAS, TX – The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical role that high-quality early childhood education plays in the economic health of our region and state. Long overlooked, it is now recognized as an essential service for working parents and the businesses that employ them. Despite its essential nature, the child care industry is at risk. The strategic use of federal pandemic relief funds can, if invested wisely, improve this broken system.
This crisis has had a dramatic negative impact on an already fragile child care system. This is significant here in North Texas. Nearly 1 in 10 children in America live in Texas, and 1 in 4 children in Texas live in North Texas. For most of these children, both parents are in the workforce. While our schools and Head Start programs had the option to teach remotely, child care centers did not. Reduced and unpredictable enrollment and additional expenses for meeting COVID-19 protocols (average of 47% increased operating costs), presented the child care system with its greatest challenges ever. As a result, 25% of Texas child care centers closed.
The largest expense of operating child care facilities is paying skilled teachers to provide nurturing and stimulating early education. The fact that child care is a people-centered business drives the current reality that annual child care costs rival that of annual tuition to state universities. Yet unlike college, parents with young children rely on this essential service in order to work.
Despite the high cost, child care wages are only slightly above minimum wage and profit margins are low. The salaries for early childhood educators don’t reflect the job’s complexity or long-term value, and low wages drive high turnover, which is difficult for young children and programs. The weak infrastructure has resulted in providers battling to sustain their businesses while parents simultaneously struggle to afford high-quality care. This is a lose-lose proposition.
New federal stimulus dollars provide an unprecedented opportunity to build a working child care and early education system that addresses these complex problems. Already, the Texas Workforce Commission’s insightful investments of the original Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act made important gains to temporarily stabilize the impact of COVID-19, but continued progress is needed. Through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Texas will receive significant federal funds to support the industry.
This one-time funding provides the greatest opportunity we have ever had to begin to tackle the most significant systemic challenges for this sector: unlivable wages for the professionals who are responsible for our youngest learners, and uncoordinated systems that make access to child care difficult for parents.
The funds should be used to pilot incentive programs that incorporate stipends and benefits to ensure that child care professionals earn enough to incentivize the best workers to stick with child care as a career. The state should also invest in infrastructure in the form of a coordinated early learning referral and data system. Since the federal government has indicated a commitment to continue increased allocations, future funds can be allocated based upon what is learned with these time-limited funds, if spent well.
Smart, intentional uses of these dollars should include:
-Stipends to support the child care workforce.
-Multi-agency coordinated early learning referral and data systems.
-Stable funding through contracts to high-quality providers in areas of high need to supplement the voucher-based subsidy program.
-Shared supplementary family services such as mental health consultation and health care services.
-Business support including back-office services and business coaching.
We must take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to use federal dollars to build an effective early childhood education and child care system. Not only is high-quality, stable child care key to our state’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, it will ensure a stronger Texas today and in the future.
