New Studies Bolster the Case for Child Care and Early Education Investments

Three new studies provide additional evidence of the importance of early childhood investments for ensuring children’s successful development and future well-being.

A study published in the journal Child Development found that children whose families received child care assistance were able to attend higher-quality child care than children whose families were eligible for, but did not receive, child care assistance. Given that that higher-quality care can help boost children’s growth and learning, this new study shows the importance of helping more low-income families pay for child care so they can afford good options. However, the study also found that the quality of care used by families receiving child care assistance was not as high as the quality of care for families using Head Start and public prekindergarten programs, suggesting that even more can be done to improve families’ access to high-quality care.

Another study looked at the long-term impacts of the Michigan prekindergarten program and found that children who had attended were less likely to be retained a grade in school and more likely to graduate on time from high school than children from similar backgrounds who had not attended the program. The study estimates that the savings from reduced retention as a result of the prekindergarten program would cover nearly half the costs of the program, before even accounting for the other benefits of the program, such as reductions in crime and increases in employment and income among those who had participated in prekindergarten as children.

A third study, by the Institute of Education at the University of London, found that children who experienced persistent poverty performed more poorly at ages three, five, and seven on assessments of their cognitive skills (including vocabulary, pattern construction, picture recognition, and reading) than children who had not experienced poverty. The study raises serious concerns, because when children lag behind at a young age, it is difficult for them to ever catch up. Strategies that lift children out of poverty—including by helping their parents afford stable child care so they can work (or obtain the education they need to get a job) and earn more income—could improve children’s chances of keeping pace in their learning and development.

With the recent approval of a funding bill that would increase investments in the Child Care and Development Block Grant, Head Start, and other early care and education programs, the Senate Appropriations Committee has shown it recognizes what these new studies confirm: investing in child care and early education now will benefit children and all of us in the future. Hopefully, the full Congress will take heed of these studies as well as it makes its final funding decisions for the next year.