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I have been involved in early care and education for four decades and the early care and education system has been in a perpetual crisis in one form or another.
In the 70’s the crisis in the system was identified as a “trilemma”. The experts in early care and education have always been concerned with the “uneasy triangle” that described the incompatibility of quality childcare, affordability of childcare and the accessibility of childcare.
The cost of childcare four decades ago was already out of reach for many families, particularly for low-resourced families. Today, as many experts have pointed out the cost of infant and childcare is as high as the cost of tuition for a four-year college degree.
The “trilemma” of childcare looks at quality, affordability and accessibility as being incompatible and creates this uneasiness for policymakers as well as providers. All childcare providers would like to reach the highest level of quality of their programs.
Colorado Shines is the mechanism that is used in Colorado to determine the quality of licensed providers. There are five levels of quality and to reach the highest level is costly for the provider. Each level has its own requisites from simply being licensed to having highly trained childcare providers as well as excellent childcare environments. In order for childcare providers to pay for all of the improvements to move up the scale of quality, the cost in turn is passed on to the consumer making it highly unaffordable for the family especially if you have more than one child that needs childcare. The cost of quality goes up, affordability makes it tough for families and pretty much inaccessible for low-resourced families, thus the “trilemma”.
There are significant gaps in the childcare world and the most affected are the families that are priced out of childcare. Many of the families that are priced out look towards their family, friends or neighbors to care for their children; some of the FFN providers have received extensive training to provide safe and quality care to the children. Unfortunately, for the majority of FFN providers, the training is often not available due to cost.
Children that come from low-resourced families and families of color need early care and education that prepares them to enter kindergarten school ready to learn. The “trilemma” makes it more difficult for families to place their children in quality childcare programs due to cost. Many of these children ‘fall into what we understand as the learning achievement gap. The gaps in learning between children get wider as they move up to higher grades. Some children leave our public school system and enter a workforce that they are not prepared for … creating generational poverty.
Attempts have been made to fix the “trilemma” but have not been successful. The passage of HB22-1295 which guarantees 10 hours of free preschool to qualifying families was a beginning, except for the families that have 0-3 year old children, and for families that need full-time childcare for 4 year olds.
There is an answer if we see early care and education as a public good. The Early Childhood Alliance is a group of individuals from across Boulder and Weld counties that would like to put a ballot question in November’s election that would address this issue and finally make childcare available for all regardless of income. It will support the providers in improving their services, including Family, Friend and Neighbor (FFN) childcare providers and increase the compensation for childcare providers. This is a win-win proposal for all.
Richard Garcia
