Early Years Education and Care: A Student Project
This week Anysia Nguyen, another student on the Evidence Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation (EBSIPE) MSc course, discusses her experience of the Social Policy Analysis Module, looking at policies for early childhood education in the United States.
Early childhood education and care in the United States: a policy perspective
In Michaelmas term, as part of our Masters at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention, we undertook an analysis of a number of policy problems. The goal of the exercise was to suggest durable and feasible policy responses on the basis of a precise and evidence-driven interpretation. For the exercise, we first researched the problem, breaking it down by analysing the political, social and economic dimensions. We then interrogated the available evidence on the constituents of the problem, the issues and actors involved and how it has evolved within and across countries. Thirdly, we assessed the resources needed to satisfactorily address the problem and suggested a policy response, being mindful of the factors making for likely success.
Below is an outline of the early childhood education and care policy problem in the United States, as well as insights on the problems and some recommendations for future policymakers.
Background
The childcare system in the United States (US) is unique among OECD countries in that it is heavily based on private market providers. The US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) manages funding for federal childcare programs, but policy and provision of childcare are state jurisdiction which leads to a heavily fragmented education system. The maps below give an idea of how unequal access and quality is across states. The lighter the blue colour, the lower the quality. According to some experts, licensing standards in nearly one third of states are so low that they threaten children’s physical health and safety (Helburn & Bergmann, 2002). While these maps illustrate variation across states, it is important to keep in mind that variation within states exists too.
Source: National Public Radio (2017)
The policy problems: Low take-up and low quality
Many programs have been launched in an attempt to improve the quality of early education and childcare, and reduce inequality in access. One example of a program targeting low-income families is the means-tested program Head Start. Like a lot of means-tested programs it suffers from low take-up and only serves fewer than 20% of low-income children aged 3 and 4, and fewer than 3% of low-income children under three. Furthermore, it is a very expensive program which costs $6 billion per year to the federal government while only reaching less than 20% of the target population. Funding would have to reach $14 billion to cover 50% of the target population (Barnett and Friedman-Krauss, 2016). This low take-up should ring alarms amongst evaluators. More research focusing on the black box between intervention and outcome is necessary to identify underlying mechanisms and assumptions about how Head Start works. This could inform policymakers and practitioners about whether low take-up is due to programme implementation failure or programme theory failure (Funnell and Rogers, 2011).
An additional problem concerns the lack of consistent quality. The experiences of children and the services they received varied. Approximately 30% of the Head Start group children had teachers with a BA degree, and 30% had teachers with at least an Associate’s degree, leaving approximately 40% of the children with teachers without a post-secondary degree (Westat, 2010). This proves that ensuring access does not necessarily lead to quality. A separate focus on both problems is thus necessary, and while we chose to focus on the latter, we also tried to outline some recommendations to start thinking about access inequality, as suggested in the previous paragraph.
Layering and learning from others
The education arena in the US is a crowded space with limited ground for erecting new programmes and requires new measures to take into account neighbouring programmes. This creates a context problem for proponents of a new policy, for its innovative value will depend on how different it is from what was before, and yet its success will depend on how well it integrates with other programmes to which it must relate in the same field. Consequently, our group chose to propose a policy that could be layered over existing programmes. However, policy layering affects the interest configuration and has an important impact on whether or not actors remain passive or mobilize in support of—or in opposition to—the changes. This, in turn, determines the durability of the reform trajectory. Mapping stakeholders can help with identifying potential dissenting voices to plan a mitigation strategy.
Keeping in mind that universal provision of childcare is not popular in the US and would thus encounter a lot of resistance, the US could still inspire itself from other countries to secure the provision of quality early education and care to low income families. France, for instance, possesses a centralised body that checks the quality of education. Quality standards include health and safety but also professional qualification of teachers and carers (OECD, 2006). Consequently, our policy proposal suggests an introduction of a basic standards checklist and free training to attain those standards.
Interestingly, communication can help with minimising resistance to an early childhood education and care policy. In fact, policymakers framed Head Start in terms of education instead of care as the latter is seen as a rather private matter by the American public. In addition, the Pew Charitable Trust has shown how framing early education as an essential matter of economics and workforce efficiency can increase support for a program. Subsequently, we also chose to frame our policy proposal in terms of education and economic efficiency and competitiveness.
What to take away from this experience
In conclusion, this project made us realise how intricate policymaking is. There is never one problem, and while my group tried suggesting a policy that would tackle both problems of quality and access, for parsimony and efficiency we chose to tackle one problem only. Additionally, we realised the importance of existing programmes and policy in limiting policy options, and how important mapping stakeholders is.
References:
Barnett, W. S., & Friedman-Krauss, A. H., (2016). State(s) of Head Start. New Brunswick, NJ: National Institute for Early Education Research.
Funnell, S. C., & Rogers, P. J. (2011). Purposeful program theory: effective use of theories of change and logic models (Vol. 31). John Wiley & Sons.
Helburn S.W. and Bergman B. R. (2002) America's child care problem: the way out, New York, Palgrave Macmillan
National Public Radio. (2017, May 24). Preschool, a state-by-state update [online], https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/05/24/529558627/preschool-a-state-by-state-update , Accessed 18/12/17
OECD. (2006). Starting Strong II: Early Childhood Education and Care: France, [online], http://www.oecd.org/edu/school/37423446.pdf, Accessed 18/12/17
Rose, R. (2005). Learning from Comparative Public Policy: A Practical Guide, New York, NY: Routledge
Westat (2010). Head Start Impact Study Final Report, Executive Summary. [online], https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/executive_summary_final.pdf, accessed 01/01/18
About the Author
Anysia Nguyen is reading for an MSc in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation. Before coming to Oxford, she obtained a BA (hons) in International Politics from King's College London where she graduated with a first. Her undergraduate dissertation analysed the social and economic factors explaining second-generation immigrants re-migration. During her time at King's College London, she also assisted Dr. Rubén Ruiz-Rufino in his research on the institutional and economic factors behind electoral violence in Africa.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect any editorial policy.