Arkansas鈥� child care system needs additional funding to avoid widespread closures and layoffs due to changes to the state鈥檚 financial aid program for low-income families, providers told the state Early Childhood Commission during a Wednesday work session.

A survey of providers found that about a quarter of them, spread out among 50 of Arkansas鈥� 75 counties, expect 400 layoffs by November, said Shahid Sheikh, owner of four Northwest Arkansas child care centers. Sheikh was among several child care providers and experts invited to the commission鈥檚 work session for discussion.

Eighty of the 250 facilities who responded to the survey are likely to close in the next 60 days, and many of them are located in low-income communities where child care is already scarce, Sheikh said.

Sheikh and other child care providers have in recent weeks about the Arkansas Department of Education鈥檚 proposed changes to the . In September, the agency announced a new reimbursement structure and a sliding-scale copayment structure, with the goal of reducing the four-digit child care waitlist and making the program more financially sustainable.

Child care advocates said the changes would create for families in need. The education department responded to the pushback by delaying cuts to providers鈥� reimbursement rates until Nov. 1, but moved forward with participant co-payments on Oct. 1 as planned, according to the .

The reimbursement rate cuts are expected to cost providers statewide $727,000 per week, according to the survey. That adds up to $37.8 million in lost revenue for local economies, Sheikh told the commission Wednesday.

鈥淲e stand to lose more money by not investing in [child care] than we do by investing, so while this may be a budget problem right now, in a year鈥檚 time, it鈥檚 going to be a budget disaster for the state,鈥� he said.

Education department officials are 鈥済oing through our budget with a fine-toothed comb鈥� in search of solutions, said Stacy Smith, deputy commissioner for the department鈥檚 Division of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Families who are working or enrolled in school with income at or below the state poverty level will not pay a copayment for children before kindergarten, and families above the poverty level will pay a copay scaled to income and the age of the child, .

Providers said their concerns about the copays being too expensive have come true.

鈥淭he amount that we鈥檙e asking families to pay is unreasonable for most of them, especially as such a quick ask,鈥� said Jenny Castillo, who owns five Spanish language-immersion child care centers in Northwest Arkansas. 鈥淔or it to be so fast, they have no time to prepare, to pivot.鈥�

Castillo said she hopes the state finds a way to ensure that families pay no more than 7% of their household income for child care, a national recommendation.

The increased copayments as of Oct. 1 have already forced some Arkansas child care centers to close because parents could not afford to pay anymore, Sheikh said.

鈥淲e鈥檝e already heard from some who have essentially [said], 鈥業t鈥檚 easier for me to quit my job and get on SNAP and have food stamps cover me than for me to go and work鈥欌�� to try to afford child care, Sheikh said.

The School Readiness Assistance Program is funded by the federal . Education department officials are currently unable to seek help from the federal government regarding the program because of the ongoing government shutdown, Smith and Education Secretary Jacob Oliva both said.

The might force the department鈥檚 Office of Early Childhood to lay off federally-funded staff, Smith said.

The state Legislature will meet in April for its regularly scheduled fiscal session, but child care providers said Wednesday that they can鈥檛 wait that long for financial aid.

State Reps. Denise Garner, D-Fayetteville, and Julie Mayberry, R-Hensley, were the only lawmakers who participated in Wednesday鈥檚 discussion. Rep. Kendra Moore, R-Lincoln, and Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock, were also present at the work session.

Mayberry said she appreciated the input from the providers, particularly the data, and said a special legislative session might be necessary to address the problems presented. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is responsible for calling a special session, and Mayberry urged providers and the education department to involve Sanders鈥� office in discussions of next steps.

Garner, a member of the commission, said she hopes the discussion will soon create 鈥渁ction items.鈥�

鈥淭he things we need to know as legislators are what pots of money we actually have鈥ow much money is that and where to pull money from the rest of the state budget and put it into early childhood [education],鈥� Garner said.

The commission is scheduled to meet again at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

When you look at a toddler, what do you see? The young child gleefully caroming around a room, grabbing at every object that looks like it might go in her mouth, stacking and restacking blocks like a pint-sized Sisyphus? Or do you see who that child may be as she ages, the elementary schooler studiously following along with her teacher鈥檚 instruction, the high school graduate, the future doctor? While it may be natural to superimpose our envisioned futures over that child, there is harm in doing so: increasingly, the early childhood education field has embraced ideas of competitive, meritocratic sorting 鈥� and nowhere is this more evident than the pervasive concept of school readiness.

Linking the benefits of early care and education to later life success is such an article of faith that I don鈥檛 think we even realize it鈥檚 happening. Here is President Obama in his 2013 State of the Union , calling for a major expansion in preschool funding:

鈥淭hese initiatives in manufacturing, energy, infrastructure, housing – all these things will help entrepreneurs and small business owners expand and create new jobs. But none of it will matter unless we also equip our citizens with the skills and training to fill those jobs.

And that has to start at the earliest possible age. Study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road. But today, fewer than 3 in 10 four-year-olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program. Most middle-class parents can鈥檛 afford a few hundred bucks a week for a private preschool. And for poor kids who need help the most, this lack of access to preschool education can shadow them for the rest of their lives. So tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America. That’s something we should be able to do.

Every dollar we invest in high-quality early childhood education can save more than seven dollars later on – by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime. In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children, like Georgia or Oklahoma, studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, form more stable families of their own. We know this works. So let鈥檚 do what works and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind. Let鈥檚 give our kids that chance.鈥�

This rhetoric is echoed by governors of both parties. In 2019, of governors mentioned early childhood education in their State of the State addresses, with many riffing on the sentiments of Alabama鈥檚 Kay Ivey (R), 鈥淔or a child to reach their fullest potential later in life, they must first build a strong educational foundation,鈥� or New Mexico鈥檚 Michelle Lujan Grisham (D), 鈥淭o truly and meaningfully transform public education, we must be proactive, and we must begin at the beginning. The research is unanimous and unequivocal: Children who attend preschool are far better prepared than those who don鈥檛. It鈥檚 really as simple as that.鈥�

These may seem like generally unobjectionable statements until you dig a little deeper.

Children as the Unit of Change

First and foremost, the current school readiness rhetoric puts the onus to change on young children. The question is about what the child is learning, what skills he is gaining, what he is prepared to do at the next stage. Little to no attention is paid to the surrounding conditions.

I鈥檝e touched on this before, but now want to extend and deepen the ideas. I that

Modern ideas of school readiness first emerged in 1989 as part of the National Education Goals Panel. Convened by President George H.W. Bush amid growing fervor for educational improvement spurred by the , the panel鈥檚 first goal stated simply: 鈥淎ll children in America will start school ready to learn.鈥� This brief sentence led to much controversy. Early learning luminary Samuel J. Meisels, founding executive director of the Buffett Early Childhood Institute and someone deeply involved in these first conversations, wrote in 1998 of the types of questions which arose:

鈥淪ome pointed out that all children are ready to learn from birth. They need not wait until they are five years of age to be 鈥榬eady to learn.鈥� Others pointed out that the goal ignores individual differences in learning. It will never be the case that all children will attain the same level of performance at a single culturally defined point in time. Individual differences and variations in development associated with both endogenous and exogenous factors make a mockery of our chronological benchmarks when we try to apply them across the board to all children.

Moreover, the term 鈥榬eadiness鈥� is conceptually confusing. Is 鈥榬eadiness鈥� something we wait for? Is it something we impose? Is it a within-the-child phenomenon or something outside the child? Finally, the simplistic or mechanistic interpretation of readiness that can be derived from the goal contains within it the potential for encouraging policies harmful to young children. In an educational world that is oriented toward efficiency and accountability, it is easy to imagine that someone will be penalized if we 鈥� find that some children are not ready for school. Often, the least advantaged in our society are blamed when public policies intended to assist them go wrong.鈥�

Meisels was prescient. We have largely lost the essential truth that the great American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner taught us: children develop not in vacuums but in ecosystems. In , child development occurs as a dynamic process between the child 鈥渁nd the changing environments in which it actually lives and grows. The latter include not only the immediate settings containing the developing person but also the larger social contexts, both formal and informal, in which these settings are embedded.鈥� These contexts include everything from the parents鈥� financial and relational stability to the broader socio-political stability of the child鈥檚 nation.

The narrow view of school readiness, which is now dominant, blinkers our thinking. To use an extreme example, helping parents avoid eviction and homelessness will reliably have more influence on a child鈥檚 academic and psychological development than ensuring that child attends a high-quality preschool program. Yet today, we do not think of an eviction prevention program as a school readiness intervention.

I say 鈥渢oday鈥� because, ironically, the initial development of school readiness measures was far more holistic. We forget, but in the early 2000s there was a major effort between 17 states and several philanthropic foundations called the National School Readiness Indicators Initiative. The Initiative鈥檚 , released in 2005, bears little resemblance to our current school readiness discourse. It is worth quoting the introduction at length:

鈥淔amilies and communities play critical roles in helping children get ready for school. Children from families that are economically secure and have healthy relationships are more likely to succeed in school. Infants and young children thrive when parents and families are able to surround them with love and support and opportunities to learn and explore their world.

Communities are vibrant when they provide social support for parents, learning opportunities for children, and services for families in need. Schools can improve the readiness of young children by making connections with local child care providers and preschools and by creating policies that ensure smooth transitions to kindergarten.

Children entering kindergarten vary in their early experiences, skills, knowledge, language, culture and family background. Schools must be ready to address the diverse needs of the children and families in their community and be committed to the success of every child.

Children will not enter school ready to learn unless families, schools and communities provide the environments and experiences that support the physical, social, emotional, language, literacy, and cognitive development of infants, toddlers and preschool children.鈥�

The report authors go on to posit a 鈥渞eady child equation鈥�: Ready Families + Ready Communities + Ready Services + Ready Schools = Children Ready for School

Sit with that for a moment. The child鈥檚 development here is now the output of the equation, not the input. Instead of demanding that children clear a certain bar鈥攁nd implicitly or explicitly declaring those who do so 鈥渞eady鈥� and those who do not 鈥渦nready鈥濃�� this equation demands the ecosystem surrounding children be set up to succeed. It still accepts that children will need the building blocks for important advances like learning to read, but their clumsy fine motor skills no longer have to set up the tower.

As a first step, then, we should reclaim this broader view of school readiness and take the load-bearing weight off toddlers and preschoolers. Yet, even so, the concept is still haunted by the specter of meritocracy.

The 鈥淩ace of Life鈥�

鈥淪o let鈥檚 do what works and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind. Let鈥檚 give our kids that chance.鈥�

Obama鈥檚 line, applied there directly to early childhood education, embraces an inherently competitive view of American society. It is part and parcel of what philosopher Michael Sandel calls the 鈥�.鈥� Sandel writes that 鈥淢orally, it is unclear why the talented deserve the outsize rewards the market-driven societies lavish on the successful,鈥� given that many skills (such as raw cognitive processing power or working memory) are mainly inborn as opposed to earned. Yet, he continues, our society makes winners of those who can navigate our education system versus 鈥渢hose who may be equally hardworking but less endowed with the gifts a market society happens to prize.鈥�

Sandel further suggests that those who put education and so-called merit on a pedestal not only miss this key point, they 鈥渁lso ignore something more politically potent: the morally unattractive attitudes the meritocratic ethic promotes, among the winners and also among the losers. Among the winners, it generates hubris; among the losers, humiliation and resentment.鈥� Merit is even tyrannical for the winners, because it fuels a relentless need to prove one鈥檚 worthiness through achievement.

While we see the tyranny of merit most active in K-12 and higher education, school readiness is the Trojan horse through which it has breached the world of early childhood.

Consider again the very concept that a child either has or does not have the skills, knowledge and behavioral foundations to be 鈥渞eady鈥� for kindergarten. As Samuel Meisels suggests, any early childhood educator鈥攐r parent who has watched multiple children develop on radically different timelines鈥攃an tell you this is a continuum and not a binary. Yet it is presented all too often as exactly that.

For instance, in 2019 data was released in Florida showing that 42 percent of the state鈥檚 pre-K students were 鈥渘ot ready鈥� for kindergarten. Governor Ron DeSantis declaring that 鈥渁 42% failure rate is simply not defendable and certainly not good enough for Florida鈥檚 youngest learners,鈥� while the state鈥檚 education commissioner pledged 鈥渨e must have a real accountability measure for all our school readiness programs.鈥� This is not partisan; similar stories can be found in many blue states.

Already, then, by the time children are five years old, they are being sorted in categories of failure and success. A race, after all, has winners and losers.

It is worth noting that these ideas have been lurking beneath鈥攁nd at times above鈥攖he surface for some time, at least when it comes to poor children and children of color (one cannot go far in a discussion about early childhood within reckoning with classism and racism). When President Johnson announced the Head Start program in 1965, :

鈥淔ive- and six-year-old children are inheritors of poverty’s curse and not its creators. Unless we act these children will pass it on to the next generation, like a family birthmark.

This program this year means that 30 million man-years鈥攖he combined life span of these youngsters鈥攚ill be spent productively and rewardingly, rather than wasted in tax-supported institutions or in welfare-supported lethargy.鈥�

This tyranny of merit drives a vicious cycle. If children are 鈥渇ailing鈥� to be ready for kindergarten and already headed for the abyss, then surely the solution is more academics, more 鈥渁ccountability.鈥� The downward pressure from a hypercompetitive college admissions process鈥� with a bachelor鈥檚 degree increasingly seen as the only reliable path to prosperity鈥攈as arrived. Contrast this again with the Indicators Initiative comment that 鈥淐hildren entering kindergarten vary in their early experiences, skills, knowledge, language, culture and family background. Schools must be ready to address the diverse needs of the children and families in their community and be committed to the success of every child.鈥�

We have already seen tremendous changes in kindergarten itself. that by the 2010s kindergarten had become 鈥渢he new first grade,鈥� with teachers devoting 鈥渕ore time to advanced literacy and math content, teacher-directed instruction and assessment, and substantially less time to art, music, science and child-selected activities.鈥� For children who tend to struggle more with academics, they thus encounter a higher and higher wall earlier and earlier.

I want to be clear here that I am not suggesting there is no place for assessment. Assessments are useful tools for educators, and from a policy standpoint some commentators rightly warn of an 鈥渉onesty gap鈥� in not wanting to acknowledge that some children perform at different levels than others. My point is that the tyranny of merit twists that fact into a logic where the answer is merely to try and boost as many kids as possible over the wall, regardless of the fact that some significant number will remain trapped, waiting for someone to open a door instead, for years and years, often until they simply give up on thinking they are worth anyone coming to fetch.

A question, too, remains hanging over all of this: what鈥檚 on the other side of that wall?

Continue reading this column in Part 2.

Utilitarian Goals

Think of the elected leaders鈥� language that I have quoted throughout this essay: inevitably, the argument comes back to jobs. I have made this argument many, many times myself. It鈥檚 compelling, and I don鈥檛 deny the political utility. As the U.S. Chamber of Commerce put it in 2017, high-quality early care and education supports the . If you鈥檙e a lawmaker, you don鈥檛 have to particularly care about young kids to get behind that. Thus, if the question is 鈥榮chool readiness鈥� for what?鈥� the answer most commonly is 鈥榝or a decent job鈥� with the implied addendum 鈥�…and so kids don鈥檛 become a burden on society.鈥� In essence, the underlying argument posits that school readiness provides equality of opportunity.

While having a decent job is of course one key component of a flourishing adult life, placing employment and economic productivity as the Grail impoverishes the conversation in two ways. First, it loses the special nature of early childhood; second, it misses an opportunity to ground the conversation in the good life and the common good.

Early childhood is a unique period; with a base of love and support, young children鈥檚 exploration of their universe provides unparalleled levels of discovery and growth and joy. They truly are, in more ways than one, what psychologist Selma Fraiberg famously termed 鈥�.鈥� The more we focus on contemporary ideas of school readiness 鈥� what we can now see as mainly a raw utilitarian ideal 鈥� the less we focus on maximizing the early years themselves. As Billy Powers, a former preschool teacher and now PhD student at Columbia Teacher鈥檚 College, :

鈥淎n unintended consequence of positioning early childhood in terms of negative benefits is that it centers nearly everything but early childhood itself when making the case for it. Through this prism, early childhood education and care is no longer solely focused on fostering early childhood development, but instead a tool to prevent crime, drug use and dropping out of high school. Additionally, early childhood scholars have recently voiced concern that implicit in this framing is the view that the need for early childhood education and care is contingent on the continued existence of such 鈥榞aps, risks and deficits.鈥�

Viewing early childhood through this frame will inevitably be reflected in the systems we construct. This, along with the enduring influence of intersectional discrimination, helps to explain how providing a living wage to child care staff is still a topic of discussion 鈥� If we were a society that truly prioritized young children, their parents and their caregivers, what would that system look like? We must follow their lead and construct a system of education and care that reflects the same sense of respect and urgency for the early years as the rest of the life course. Early childhood can speak for itself.鈥�

Along the same lines, equality of opportunity is a remarkably limited frame. Sandel, again, has something to teach us:

鈥淚nspired by the heroic rise of a few, we ask how others might also be enabled to escape the conditions that weigh them down. Rather than repair the conditions that people want to flee, we construct a politics that makes mobility the answer to inequality.

Breaking down barriers is a good thing. No one should be held back by poverty or prejudice. But a good society cannot be premised only on the promise of escape.

Focusing only, or mainly, on rising does little to cultivate the social bonds and civic attachments that democracy requires. Even a society more successful than ours at providing upward mobility would need to find ways to enable those who do not rise to flourish in place, and to see themselves as members of a common project. Our failure to do so makes life hard for those who lack meritocratic credentials and makes them doubt that they belong.

It is often assumed that the only alternative to equality of opportunity is a sterile, oppressive equality of results. But there is another alternative: a broad equality of condition that enables those who do not achieve great wealth or prestigious positions to live lives of decency and dignity – developing and exercising their abilities in work that wins social esteem, sharing in a widely diffused culture of learning, and deliberating with their fellow citizens about public affairs.鈥�

One thing I like about observing young children 鈥� part of the magic years 鈥� is their inherent conceptual grasp of equality of condition. Three-year-olds don鈥檛 particularly care who is the fastest. My oldest daughter (now 7) was a very early reader, while my youngest (now 5) is still working at it. Instead of one lording it over the other, they quickly made a game of their differences: my youngest would tell my oldest what sign or book to read, and together they would develop shared adventures.

All of this to say: the aspirations of early childhood education must go beyond mere job preparation.

Where To?

The early care & education sector does not have to make the same mistakes as our K-12 and higher education brethren. The infection has not yet set in too deeply to be excised. I offer five suggestions.

1. The first step is, as I suggested earlier, recalibrating the very idea of school readiness. No 鈥渒indergarten readiness assessment鈥� should be undertaken without, in the same report, noting indicators about family, school, service (child care and health care) and community readiness. Improving the ecosystem surrounding children should be seen as improving school readiness not merely as a matter of rhetoric, but as a matter of policy.

Moreover, quality rating systems 鈥� which have come recently for failing to take into account a comprehensive view of quality, and which often have weak correlations to child outcomes 鈥� should be designed to bolster child care programs not only in serving their young charges well, but as key elements of the social fabric of neighborhoods and communities. These programs, many of which have served their areas for decades, can be vital arteries for supporting parents and bringing together community members; they are a highly underutilized asset in an era of increasing social dissolution.

2. Secondly, the early care & education sector should tie itself much more closely to other family support issues. Whether framed as child care or pre-K, early care can often () skate above more controversial policy areas like paid family leave or child tax credits. School readiness is something of a political skeleton key; education and workforce development are generally bipartisan concerns. The cost of using this key, however, is accepting meritocratic ideas that ultimately silo the sector and damage the goals of child and family flourishing. The sector should also forge stronger alliances with advocates in what have previously felt like far-flung topics, particularly around housing and , issues which deeply color the child development ecosystem.

3. Thirdly, the early childhood field should explicitly reject the use of language or measures that promote meritocratic 鈥渨inners鈥� vs. 鈥漧osers鈥� mentalities, or which encroach on the inherent dignity of all children regardless of their developmental trajectories. There have been admirable moves in this direction recently. For instance, in 2020 the National Association for the Education of Young Children put out on what鈥檚 known as 鈥榙evelopmentally appropriate practice,鈥� which began:

鈥淓ach and every child, birth through age 8, has the right to equitable learning opportunities 鈥� in centers, family child care homes or schools 鈥� that fully support their optimal development and learning across all domains and content areas. Children are born eager to learn; they take delight exploring their world and making connections. The degree to which early learning programs support children鈥檚 delight and wonder in learning reflects the quality of that setting.鈥�

This is a notable advance from the 2009 version of the position statement, whose was on 鈥淩educing learning gaps and increasing the achievement of all children.鈥� Such reflection and evolution should be applauded, and similar steps taken field wide.

4. Fourth, the early childhood sector should unwind efforts to enforce faux-meritocratic credentialism within the field – an approach sure to seep into the work itself. The early 2010s featured long and contentious debates about whether early childhood educators require bachelor鈥檚 degrees, culminating despite mixed evidence in a that lead teachers gain a baccalaureate.

Washington, D.C. has implemented such a requirement, although the timeline has been continually delayed. Many jurisdictions that are considering 鈥減ay parity鈥� between early childhood educators and elementary school teachers similarly rely on an equivalency of credential (although progress has again been made with inserting experience as a substitute for education level). While training is certainly important, the value of early educators鈥� work 鈥� as reflected most literally in compensation 鈥� should not be tied to a degree. Just because the K-12 system has long since acceded to a does not mean early childhood must follow suit. Particularly since the pandemic fired an asteroid into the early childhood workforce, now is the time to reconsider both the practical and philosophical implications behind those recommendations.

5. Fifth, advocates and policymakers should start making a case for a healthy, thriving early childhood on its own terms. These years are children鈥檚 first opportunity to begin making meaning of the world around them – and if you don鈥檛 think they鈥檙e paying attention, you haven鈥檛 seen near enough young kids. They are also formative years for parents. The transition to parenthood is a well-established crucible, one of the few life shocks that causes people to reconsider their identities and stances. If we plunge parents into a competitive Mad Max wasteland of early care options, that sends a message to them how they need to show up in order to create stability for their families.

What, in the end, do we want young children (and young parents) to be ready for? For a nation that forces you to run a race before your legs can even hold your own weight, or a nation that says 鈥榳e鈥檝e got you, take your time鈥�? For a nation that is always looking to the next step, or a nation that takes life in its seasons, allowing space to cultivate deep relationships and pass our stories and values from one generation to the next? For a nation that only honors a person鈥檚 worth as their economic productivity, or a nation that honors everyone鈥檚 inherent humanity? For a nation that claims the individual should rise or fall by their own effort 鈥� never minding that the risers have almost always won some combination of the wealth lottery, genetic lottery and luck lottery 鈥� or a nation that accepts we all owe each other something, that for our hard work to reliably translate into results, we need to be surrounded from the beginning by supportive family and supportive community? What lessons do we want them to learn?

School readiness, indeed.

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