In this blog, Kristin Bernhard, Start Early senior vice president of policy and advocacy, identifies measures voters overwhelmingly approved to improve access to early childhood education at community and state levels.

While large questions remain about the results of yesterday’s presidential election, we are proud and thankful for the overwhelming approval of measures that improve access to early childhood education at community and state levels. Across the country, voters expanded the reach of core early childhood development programs and supports, from paid family leave to universal pre-K. These election results are worth celebrating, as state and community systems are closest to families with young children and play a critical role in building an ecosystem that fosters their well-being.

Voters in Colorado approved a ballot measure that creates a statewide paid family and medical leave program, joining eight other states that offer this imperative benefit. Colorado is the first to accomplish it at the ballot box rather than through the legislature. With this new program, workers can take up to 12 weeks of paid time off to care for a new baby or adopted child, recover from an illness or care for a seriously ill relative. Increasing paid family leave is a positive step toward reducing infant mortality, improving maternal health outcomes and allowing more individuals to stay in the workforce.

Voters also approved new funding mechanisms to help finance the creation and expansion of high-quality pre-K programs. In San Antonio, Texas, voters approved Proposition A, renewing a one-eighth-cent sales tax that will continue funding pre-K programs in the city for the next eight years. Additional investments were approved for workforce development and infrastructure. Colorado voters approved a nicotine tax measure that will fund universal free preschool for children of age 4 statewide beginning fall 2023. In Multnomah County, Oregon, which includes Portland, voters approved Measure 26-214, known as Preschool for All. Through a tax on high-income residents, the county will provide tuition-free preschool to all 3- and 4-year-olds, while also raising the pay of preschool teachers to parity with those of kindergarten teachers. Assistant preschool teachers will be guaranteed a minimum wage of $18 per hour.

In St. Louis, Missouri, voters endorsed a property tax that will raise an estimated $2.3 million annually for birth to age 5 programs and services through the St. Louis Mental Health Board’s Community Children’s Services Fund. This successfully passed measure builds on a collective focus of establishing the city and county of St. Louis as a regional leader in early childhood education.

While we await answers on control of the Senate and the presidency, we applaud these states and communities who have come together to build strong, inclusive and equitable places where families with young children can flourish – from before birth through kindergarten. While the need remains for a more robust national system of early care and education, these victories demonstrate that progress on early childhood can and will continue regardless of what happens at the federal level. We are encouraged by this broad community level engagement to grow support and investment for young children and their families.

In 2020, Start Early was selected to lead the implementation of the National Center for Parent, Family and Community Engagement (NCPFCE), one of four National Centers that develop evidence-based best practices for Early Head Start and Head Start programs across the country.

The NCPFCE identifies, develops and disseminates evidence-based best practices to support the growth and development of young children and strengthen families and communities.

Start Early will focus on creating high-quality responsive training and technical assistance, rooted in equity and cultural and linguistic responsiveness, to support staff, families and communities nationwide.

Our Work & Focus on Equity

Our belief that all change happens through relationships will shape the project activities, training, technical assistance, and resources produced by the NCPFCE.

Working with a consortium of partners, Start Early will lead the NCPFCE to support family well-being, effective family and community engagement, and children’s school readiness, including transitions to kindergarten. These partnerships will integrate the research-practice knowledge of family and community engagement, human services, early childhood, social work, mental health, parenting, leadership, and family economic mobility into the NCPFCE content and activities.

The NCPFCE will have a strong equity focus and seeks to bring program, family and community voice to the forefront of early childhood education. Throughout the project, schools in the Educare Learning Network and other Early Head Start and Head Start grantees will serve as on-the-ground labs for piloting and field-testing innovations in parent, family and community engagement.

Our Partners

• Child Trends
• LIFT
• Early Learning Lab
• Fred Rogers Center
• UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute

Our Funders

The National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement (NCPFCE) is jointly administered by the Office of Head Start and the Office of Child Care.

Head Start offers a critical opportunity to improve the quality of home-based child care and bolster the sustainability of providers, while enabling Head Start to meet its mission to meet the comprehensive needs of young children and families facing the greatest adversity.

Start Early and its partners supported Home Grown, a national collaborative of funders committed to improving the quality of and access to home- based child care, to organize and deliver resources and technical assistance opportunities to potential Round 4 Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships (EHS-CCP) applicants to increase the number of high-quality EHS-CCP applications supporting family child care home (FCC) providers.

Individuals from 40 states took advantage of the technical assistance opportunities offered to support new and existing Head Start grantees to include family child care in their EHS-CCP proposals. These included well-attended webinars; an online resource library housed on Home Grown’s website; and technical assistance through group and one-on-one peer learning calls.

Bolstered by recent data demonstrating that more parents are seeking smaller home-based child care settings during the pandemic, partnerships between Head Start and home-based child care providers offer promise for dramatically expanding access to high-quality, comprehensive early care and education services in home-based settings and establishing family child care network models that provide critical supports to sustain home-based providers.

Diana Rauner, president of Start Early and Dr. James Heckman, the Nobel prize-winning professor of economics at the University of Chicago kicked off last month’s ASU-GSV Digital Summit with a discussion on the state of innovation in early childhood.

Their discussion ranged from Heckman’s work on long-term impacts of early childhood investments, new ways of measuring social and emotional outcomes, and the importance of investing in parents during these unprecedented times. A video of the discussion and key takeaways are below.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the ground beneath us. It has illuminated the injustices that have existed in our communities for generations, from access to health care to affordable housing. And it has magnified stressors for our youngest children and families — disproportionately families of color — who are experiencing homelessness, food insecurity, lack of child care or financial instability.

Starting early is important to me because I am a dreamer. I have been a dreamer since I was a young child growing up in New York. I dreamed of being a singer, a doctor, a lawyer and eventually an educator. My dreams were nourished by my family, my community, and my teachers. All played such an important part in my world. “Dream big,” my parents would say and “Keep dreaming,” my teachers would cheer. I believe all children deserve the opportunity to dream and reach their full potential. Dreams fuel our goals and a quality early childhood education provides the means for us to attain those goals. Now I am an educator and can cheer on young children and their families to dream big and look beyond.

In 1993, Lori was living in poverty with her husband and young children when she had the opportunity to enroll her family in Head Start. The program gave her the skills, support, and confidence to succeed. She gained a new perspective of herself, from “just a mom” to a leader and champion for early learning. After being served by Head Start, she decided it was her turn to serve. Nearly 30 years later, Lori has dedicated her life to helping parents change their lives for the better through early learning. In 2013, she was honored as a White House Champion of Change for her vision of and commitment to Head Start and elevating parent leadership and voice. Lori is currently the Early Learning Policy and Advocacy Advisor at Educare Seattle, a school in the Educare Learning Network — a partnership between Start Early and early learning champions across the country, Puget Sound Educational Service District, the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP Parent Ambassador Program Director, and co-chair of the Educare Learning Network’s Policy Workgroup.

Born in Englewood, an under-resourced community on Chicago’s South Side, Marina got an early start to her education at Educare Chicago, a program operated by Start Early, as a precious 6-week old. Her mom wanted her to develop her love for learning at a very young age. Since then, she became a student leader at Herzl Elementary School, where she graduated Valedictorian in 2017. Now a senior at Northside College Prep, Marina leads her peers as the president of the Yearbook committee and vice-chairman of the Black Student Union. To this day, she continues to embrace her love of learning and looks forward to starting her journey to becoming a psychologist in the fall of 2021. It all began with her mother making the decision to Start Early for her to become a success!

ShaLaya was seeking a more enriching learning environment for her daughter, but she ended up finding her calling. Just two months after enrolling her daughter at Educare Milwaukee, a school in the Educare Learning Network — a partnership between Start Early and early learning champions across the country, ShaLaya joined the staff as a teaching assistant. Once hired, she quickly wanted to do more. She wanted to give her students the same services that the teachers were giving to her child. Her goal was to become an Educare teacher and provide a better life for her family through education and a higher salary. In 2016, she achieved her goal by earning her bachelor’s degree, a teaching requirement at the center. Today, she loves seeing her children grow and looks forward to impacting many more children and their families down the road. She could not be prouder of her daughter, who is currently thriving in her local elementary school, or herself.

In our fast-paced world it can feel like issues of violence and racism are dominating the content we consume from the news to social media to conversations with our friends and loved ones. While we are all working to process our thoughts, feelings and emotions around these difficult topics, so are our little ones. They are seeing these topics play out around them and, more importantly, they’re watching how the adults in their lives are responding. They might not be able to fully grasp what is going on, but even our youngest learners are picking up on our emotions in these challenging times.

That’s why here at the Start Early we created this series, Tackling Tough Topics with Your Little One, to give you helpful advice from our experts as well as tips to navigate discussing difficult topics such as violence, racism and loss with your children.

Why Racism?

The racially charged murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have been in the spotlight recently, but for every high-profile death that makes national news, thousands of similar incidents are quickly dismissed or ignored. As our country works to dismantle and rebuild in the wake of these violent events, it’s important to remember that even though your child may be too young to understand it, they are seeing how racial injustice and anti-Black sentiment are playing out on a national stage. Children as young as 6 months old begin to notice race-based differences, and by age 2 children are beginning to internalize racial biases. That is why it is so important to talk to your children about racism and discrimination early on and in an age appropriate way.

How to Address the Topic of Racism

• Five things to remember as a parent when talking to your child about racism:
  • Remember to take care of yourself. Do not binge on news and social media. Watch what you need to stay informed and then make sure you process the information in a health way.
    • Use mindfulness activities, exercise, spending time with your family, or music and movement activities, etc.
  • Practice what you want to say ahead of time. These conversations can bring up a lot of uncertainty and fear in parents, too. It’s ok to call a friend or family member and practice ahead of time so that you will feel more comfortable when the time comes to talk to your child.
  • Be aware of your own biases. Your child is paying attention to your behavior and learning from how you act and react in different situations.
  • Be open to your child’s questions around racism and encourage them to come to you with them. Remember, it’s ok if you don’t have all of the answers.
  • Consider that this conversation is approached very differently between Black and white parents.
    • The “talk” in Black families is often started very early, usually around when the child is 4 years old and includes:
      • Don’t resist police.
      • Don’t run when approached by police
      • Don’t talk back
      • When in a store, do not run and keep your hands visible at all times
      • Don’t think that just because your white friend can do it, you can to
      • Do stay close to your parent at all times
    • For white families sometimes the talk happens much later, or not at all, and parents don’t know where to start. If you are struggling to have the “talk” with your child, here are a few things to keep in mind:
      • Children aren’t colorblind, all children develop racial prejudices unless their parents engage them directly about it, which is why talking about racism is so important.
      • Be direct and intentional, use the words race and racism when talking about this topic.
      • Lead by example to help your child understand why it’s so important to be anti-racist
      • It’s ok to point out that skin color doesn’t have much biological significance, but skin color does have a lot of historical importance.
      • If your child does say or do something racist, help them to understand that it’s not ok. You can thank them for being honest, and even admit if you’ve felt that way before. But explain why it’s racist and wrong. Intention doesn’t matter, even if they didn’t mean it, comments and actions still do harm, and they need to know that.

• For Infants and Toddlers
  • Read picture books—make sure they see images of themselves reflected in the pictures at storytime.
  • Make sure you present different races and cultures through books, toys, food, languages, etc.
  • Reinforce that difference is not bad—recognize and celebrate differences.

• For Children Ages 3-5
  • Read books
    • If all of the characters in the book look the same, ask your child what they think about that.
    • Add different books that show black and brown children of different cultures being the hero or solving the problem.
    • Introduce age appropriate books the discuss topics of Civil/Human Rights, Discrimination.
  • This might sound simple, but it’s actually pretty important—ask your child how they feel. You know your child best and can sense when they are upset. Try asking what they might be worried about or afraid of so you can reinforce that you are there to protect and support them.
  • Use the idea of fairness to help describe how racism is unfair and unacceptable; young children understand the concept of fairness very well, and this will help them understand why we need to work together to make it better.

Other Resources

• A Kids Book About Racism
• Recommended books with characters of color
• Recommended books on social justice

Stay tuned for the next article in our series which will cover how to talk to your little ones about loss. Connect with us for more resources, tips and expert advice.