2024 Equity Challenge Day 2: Early Childhood Education is Crucial in Closing Equity Gaps

From infancy through high school, children’s educational outcomes are dependent on the quality of their learning experience. Inequities in education start early and have lifelong impacts on children and communities.  This opportunity gap is not due to individual actions but is profoundly shaped by social and economic conditions and systems. Quality early childhood education has been shown to have a significant positive effect on future success because brain circuits are actively developing during that period. In fact, 85% of the brain’s development happens before a child enters kindergarten.

Did you know?

• High-quality child care is costly – ranging from an average annual cost of $8,890 for a 4-year-old up to $10,861 for infant care. This means that married parents of two children living at the poverty line pay up to 74.1% of their household income for center-based child care.
• The Michigan League for Public Policy created a list of “child care deserts”– regions where three children compete for every available slot at an in-home or group center. A total of 20 counties have so few childcare options that they qualify as deserts . . . Another 23 Michigan counties, including Detroit’s Wayne and Macomb counties, are rounding errors away from qualifying as deserts as well.”
• Researchers have found that the persistence of the educational achievement gap — the disparity in academic performance between groups of students — in “the United States is the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.”

Social and emotional health are also key to children’s development. Research has shown us that poverty, trauma and other adverse childhood experiences (ACES) can have sustained negative impacts on children’s ability to succeed. ACEs act as a toxic source of stress with the potential to disrupt a child’s ability to learn, relate, grow, play, communicate, and problem-solve. In 2020, a culturally-informed ACEs model was presented for the first time to make visible “the intergenerational and multilevel impact of racism on the mental health of Black youth.”

ACEs disproportionately impact children of color. This is a downstream impact of the toxic environments created by institutions and systems that differentially shape our lived experience (e.g., the justice, education, and healthcare systems). Healthy school, community and home environments are critical to preventing children from experiencing ACEs and appropriately supporting children living with chronic stress so that it does not limit their opportunity in life.

It’s important to note that even amongst ACEs there is HOPE. HOPE is a program from Tufts University that stands for Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences. The HOPE National Resource Center sees a world that honors and fosters positive experiences as being fundamental to everyone’s health and well-being. Their model builds on the four building blocks of hope to support children: relationships, stable environments, social/civic engagement and emotional growth.