Op-Ed: Early learning must be priority in WA state budget
Early learning must be priority in WA state budget | Guest Opinion
By Jess Agi and Ryan Murphy
As our state – together with our nation – grapples with the devastating impacts of a global pandemic, economic crisis, and reckoning with systemic racial injustice, the Washington State Legislature must come to the realization that investment in early childhood education (ECE) is a vital part of how we can move forward.
Since 1985, when the Washington State Legislature established the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP), Republicans and Democrats in Olympia have worked together to create high-quality early care and education opportunities for families who would otherwise not have access to them. Now, 36 years later, the Washington State Legislature must carry on this legacy, and continue to invest in early education programs. These programs are essential for young children’s healthy development, critical for parents to maintain stable employment, and vital to a strong economy.
Research overwhelmingly shows that quality ECE lays a strong foundation for a child’s cognitive, physical, and socioemotional development. In fact, children who are benefiting today from Washington State’s birth-to-five investment will likely go on to earn higher incomes, are more likely to graduate from high school, and are less likely to be arrested for a violent crime.
However, even before the pandemic, far too many children in our state lacked the early learning opportunities they needed to thrive – with children of color disproportionately impacted by this access gap. As a result, many of these children arrive to their first day of kindergarten 18 months behind their peers who attended early education programs.
And, unfortunately, many will never have access to the supports needed to catch up.
Children lack access to early learning for many reasons, with cost and availability being the primary contributing factors. The pandemic has only exacerbated the problem, as many child care and early education providers have permanently closed their doors due to low enrolment – in part due to parents having lost their ability to pay tuition – paired with provider costs almost doubling due to the need to limit class sizes and purchase expensive personal protective equipment.
And, worryingly, these additional widespread closures have the potential to perpetuate our society’s vast inequities further, disproportionately affecting people of color. For example, women of color make up 40% of child care workers. In contrast, parents of color are less likely to have the work flexibility and financial resources to manage without early learning and care options for their kids.
If the Washington State Legislature needs more convincing, let’s look at the findings of Nobel Prize-winning economist, James Heckman. After decades of research, Heckman found that ECE has a 13% return on investment per annum, which is undeniably huge.
Therefore, it’s no wonder that a Senate Special Committee on Economic Recovery report listed the expansion of child care as its first recommendation for the state’s long-term economic recovery. It’s clear that prioritizing child care is essential for our businesses to reopen, for our parents to get back to work, for our society and economy to flourish, and for our kids to have the best – and most equitable – start in life.
Given the simultaneous crises we are facing, this is precisely the moment to make early care and education a top priority in our state budget, while also establishing a progressive revenue source to fund vital children and family services. Washington’s status quo of only spending one percent of the budget on these essential programs will no longer cut it. More must be done, and now – our state’s development, success, and recovery depend upon it.
Join the Children’s Campaign Fund and Save the Children Action Network (SCAN) in urging your state representatives and senators to invest in – and expand – Washington State’s early learning and care programs. Then, together, we will lay the foundation for Washington’s brighter, stronger, and more equitable future.
Jess Agi is the Executive Director of the Children’s Campaign Fund. Ryan Murphy is the Associate Director of State and National Campaigns for Save the Children Action Network, and a current Children’s Campaign Fund Board Member.