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Early Education Policy Recommendations

From the beginning, the quality of the education that children receive has an enormous impact on their well being, including their future employment, earnings potential, ability to build assets, and ability to participate meaningfully in the larger community. Below are recommendations for early care and education for
2010-2012:

Support Quality Early Care and Education Initiatives to Meet the Needs of Working Families

1. Create a Statewide System for Early Learning

Wisconsin should take a major step toward a coherent statewide system that supports an effective early learning system to ensure that young children get a great start. The vast majority of our young children are served in early care and education settings prior to Kindergarten. Wisconsin needs a supportive system to make sure they are thriving in their first five years.

A statewide system should include key elements of a functioning system: quality standards, professional development, technical assistance and consultation, monitoring and accountability, ongoing financial assistance, and engagement with parents and communities.

The system would provide support to a wide range of early care and education programs, including child care centers, family child care, Head Start, Early Head Start, 4-year-old Kindergarten, services to children with disabilities or special needs, and home visiting programs.  Analysis of these service areas reveals a strong need to strengthen statewide infrastructure to support evidence-based, high-quality services in child care and in home visiting. The system would include a specific focus on infant/toddler care and development, as well as an emphasis on preschoolers.

2. Implement a Strong Child Care Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS)

Wisconsin should launch a robust QRIS to help child care centers and family child care homes provide effective early learning programs, with an emphasis on those receiving Wisconsin Shares funding. Well-designed child care programs can be a central vehicle for providing children with essential early learning experiences and for strengthening families. The majority of Wisconsin’s young children in out-of-home care are in child care settings. Wisconsin should ensure that tax dollars going to child care programs is going to programs that meet reasonable standards of quality, not to programs that could be harmful to children. Wisconsin should invest in early learning by helping child care programs meet standards of excellence.

A Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) is a systematic way to support child care programs move on a graduated pathway to high quality. A strong QRIS provides training and education, on-site technical assistance and mini-grants to help programs improve, moving step-by-step to higher levels of quality. A well-designed QRIS sets quality benchmarks that programs can strive for, and that communities can embrace, and prevents public funding from going to substandard programs. Nineteen states have implemented statewide QRIS, and states with evaluations are showing measurable change in child care quality and positive outcomes for children.

3. Expand Evidence-based Home Visiting Programs

Wisconsin should expand voluntary evidence-based home visiting programs to help new parents and parents with very young children enhance their children’s healthy development and early learning. Expanded home visiting would be targeted to children at risk. Research indicates that well-designed home visiting programs are effective in strengthening parent-child relationships and improving child development and early learning, particularly when targeted to children where risk factors are present, including children with disabilities.

Additionally, home visiting programs have proven to be effective in improving school readiness, reducing child abuse, identifying physical, cognitive and social emotional delays early on, and enhancing birth and health outcomes. According to the Pew Center on the States home visitation fact sheet released in December 2009, “Evidence-based home visiting programs are proven to produce positive outcomes that improve the quality of life for our citizens and deliver fiscal returns of up to $5.70 per dollar invested”.

4. Expand Community Approaches to 4-year-old Kindergarten (4K)

Wisconsin should continue to provide incentives and support for 4K using community approaches (contracts or agreements with community-based programs).  4K provides strong early learning experiences for young children. Research shows that well-designed pre-kindergarten programs improve student achievement.  Delivering 4K through community partnerships offers options to parents, strengthens community-based early learning, and provides opportunities for inclusive settings for children with disabilities.

5. Increase Continuity of Child Care Access to Wisconsin Shares

Wisconsin should adjust eligibility requirements to increase the stability and continuity of care for children from low-income working families.  Research shows that consistent, reliable caregiving is important to positive development for young children.

Feb. 24, 2010