While low-quality childcare adds to gaps left by children’s home environments, high-quality childcare can help fill them by providing supportive, stimulating environments that supplement the resources children have at home. A strong childcare market will increase access to the high-quality care parents seek, which, in turn, benefits children, the schools they go to, working families, and American business.
Minnesota’s Early Learning Scholarship Program Minnesota’s Early Learning Scholarship program provides a good model of a marketbased, choice-driven approach. The program provides scholarships to poor and low-income families to pay for early care and education at a broad range of state-approved providers. With support from the business and philanthropic sectors, the state of Minnesota operates Parent Aware, a system that rates the quality of early education providers on a scale of one to four stars. Parent Aware helps parents choose the best place for their child by providing accessible, user-friendly information on providers’ characteristics and quality. Providers must participate in Parent Aware to qualify for the state’s approved-provider network and be eligible to receive scholarship dollars. Over time, providers are required to meet a three- or four-star level to participate and are thus incentivized to raise quality to remain in the network and better attract parents.119
The Key Role of Business Leadership America’s business leaders have long understood the importance of a well-educated workforce to support a strong economy, keep America competitive globally, and ensure a vibrant democracy. And the business community has long played a leadership role in strengthening the education pipeline so crucial to our nation’s economic growth and prosperity. Since “A Nation At Risk” warned of “a rising tide of mediocrity” more than 30 years ago, American business has become deeply engaged in improving the nation’s schools and colleges.120 Business leaders have been prominent supporters of ongoing efforts to close the achievement gap and improve the quality of American education. In 2015, 29% of major corporate giving was directed to K-12 and higher education, with additional contributions through employee volunteering and in-kind donations.121 Yet progress is slow and generations of students are being left behind. A root cause of low K-12 performance is that we’ve neglected the critical first link in the human development chain. Children’s earliest experiences shape their cognitive, social, and emotional abilities and determine their aptitude to learn. Instead of trying to close achievement gaps after children have entered school, it’s far more efficient to prevent those gaps from emerging in the first place. Business can make a pivotal difference in the lives of our nation’s young children by advancing highquality, developmentally and educationally sound childcare, which ensures that children have the chance to develop well and begin kindergarten ready to thrive in school, work, and life. High-quality childcare makes a two-generation contribution to a prosperous and sustainable
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