According to your report, in 2008, the average cost of child care ($9,100 for one child) was more than 10 percent of Connecticut’s median family income, which forces parents to make tough choices.
Studies have found that the higher the cost of child care, the less likely the mother of a young child is to remain in her job or enter the work force.
The high cost of regulated child care (e.g. licensed child care centers or family day cares) also means that some parents are forced to rely on unregulated care (e.g. unlicensed programs or “kith and kin”), which may be less reliable and can consequently affect the parents’ job attendance and length of employment.
What’s the educational impact from substandard early care and education programs? Does it result in a less-educated workforce?
What we know is that high-quality early care and education programs result in a more educated workforce.
Studies have shown that children served by high-quality programs, as compared to similarly-situated children not served by such programs, have a lesser need for special education services and are less likely to be retained.
They are more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to complete an additional year of schooling, and more likely to hold a job.
You talk about the importance of the first thousand days of life (slightly less than 3 years old). Can’t children overcome problems or deficiencies from this stage of child rearing?
Certainly children are not “lost” by age 3.
The Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University, led by Dr. Jack Shonkoff, is one of the leaders in the study of neuroscience and the young child.
Its research shows that windows of opportunity for skill development and behavioral adaptation do indeed remain open for many years, beyond age 3.
However, Dr. Shonkoff’s work shows that trying to change behavior or build new skills on an inadequate foundation requires more work and is much more expensive than getting it right from the start.
Your report finds that “Connecticut’s overall investment in early care and education has declined over this decade.” What has the corresponding population been? Has it grown or declined? How has spending tracked on a per capita basis?
The corresponding overall population for children under 5 in Connecticut declined roughly 6 percent from 224,662 in 2002 to 211,984 in 2007.
Over the same period, the amount spent on early childhood declined 21 percent from $240.2 million in 2002 to $188.65 million in 2007.
Seen on a per capita basis, the amount Connecticut spent per child under 5 declined from $1,069 in 2002 to $890 in 2007.
The number of children under 5 in CT who live in families below the poverty level — a better indicator of the need for child care assistance — has not changed in a statistically significant way between 2002 and 2007, worsening the implications of budget cuts over this period.
