Jones and Herring: Strides made in education but more needed
Lynn Jones is the president of the Rotary Club of Wilmington, which is committed to increasing access to high-quality early care and education, and the president of the Delaware Academy of Medicine/Delaware Public Health Association. Logan S. Herring Sr. is the CEO of The WRK Group, which includes early care and education programming at the Kingswood Community Center in Wilmington, and a member of the Vision Coalition of Delaware’s Leadership Team.
As the pandemic began to recede, we began to see a “silver lining”: how it forced us to see how critical and indispensable child care is to our society.
Gov. John Carney used his eight years in office — especially the last few — to invest in high-quality early care and education in Delaware. In the last eight years, Delaware added funding for purchase of care, a state subsidy for child care, and prekindergarten, totaling more than $60 million and leading to 2,600-plus more children being served.
Those numbers are significant. Like most states, Delaware invests in young children at a much lower level than K-12 education. But brain science tells us it’s the earlier years that matter most for brain development. And, when children don’t receive care, they typically arrive at kindergarten behind their peers, after which research proves it’s incredibly hard to catch up.
But, as state investment rates increase, providers can hire and retain more staff, open more classrooms and, ultimately, serve more families with quality care and development. At places like Kingswood Community Center, most families qualify for a state subsidy known as purchase of care. The idea is for POC — a payment from the state to providers — to cover the cost of care for a low-income child. But, for years, this rate hasn’t come close to matching what it actually costs providers to deliver quality care — in fact, even today, with these increases, it covers only 40% of our costs for a classroom.
Previously, Delaware was also inconsistent in how it gave out purchase of care funding, resulting in Kent and Sussex county providers receiving less money for the same services. However, Gov. Carney’s administration created an equal statewide rate — which has become a game-changer for Downstate providers.
While Delaware has made substantial and historic progress over the last several years, it has been incremental, rather than the transformational change our families deserve.
Today, we are still only serving 1 in 5 children (10,091 out of 59,000 kids) under age 5 in state-funded programs. And we still rank 25th and 41st nationally in 3- and 4-year-olds served, behind all our regional neighbors and states like Alabama and Mississippi.
Delaware’s next crop of leaders will need to build on the momentum underway and invest at a level that enables every family to access a quality program for their child and so educators are paid a family-sustaining wage with benefits. The other big opportunity is to consolidate state early care and education programs into a single state agency to streamline access for families and programs, as a number of states have done.
Kingswood and the Rotary Club of Wilmington have joined the growing coalition of advocates urging lawmakers to make those transformational investments in our children and families. We know the deeper impact those quality early experiences can have not only on a child but on families, communities and our state.
Right now, too many families from all backgrounds are struggling. They can’t afford their bills, they’re skipping meals, they’re losing quality time with family, or they’re not participating in the workforce. Due to Delaware’s narrow eligibility standards, many working families find themselves stuck in the middle — earning too much salary to qualify for state funding but not enough to afford paying for bills and tuition.
Join us in thanking Gov. Carney and his administration for making child care a priority. And join us in asking Gov.-elect Matt Meyer, Lt. Gov.-elect Kyle Evans Gay and state officials to accelerate the momentum by streamlining access and making transformational investments to significantly increase access to high-quality early care and education.
Visit firststateprek.com to learn more and to take action.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
