Increasing access to early care and education

Before making investments in this strategy, city and county leaders should ensure it addresses local needs.

The Urban Institute and Mathematica have developed indicator frameworks to help local leaders assess conditions related to upward mobility, identify barriers, and guide investments to address these challenges. These indicator frameworks can serve as a starting point for self-assessment, not as a comprehensive evaluation, and should be complemented by other forms of local knowledge.

The Urban Institute's Upward Mobility Framework identifies a set of key local conditions that shape communities’ ability to advance upward mobility and racial equity. Local leaders can use the Upward Mobility Framework to better understand the factors that improve upward mobility and prioritize areas of focus. Data reports for cities and counties can be created here.

Several indicators in the Upward Mobility Framework may be improved with investments in expanding high-quality ECE. To measure these indicators and determine if investments in this strategy could help, examine the following:

• Access to preschool: Share of children enrolled in nursery school or preschool. These data are available through the Census Bureau’s Public Use Microdata Sample.

Mathematica's Education-to-Workforce (E-W) Indicator Framework helps local leaders identify the data that matter most in helping students and young adults succeed. Local leaders can use the E-W framework to better understand education and workforce conditions in their communities and to identify strategies that can improve outcomes in these areas. Several indicators in the E-W Framework may be improved with investments in high-quality ECE. To measure these indicators and determine if investments in this strategy could help, examine the following:

• Access to child care subsidies: Percentage of eligible families receiving assistance to pay for child care through subsidies.

• Access to early intervention screening: Percentage of children with identified concerns who are connected to services or percentage of children needing selected special education services in kindergarten who were not identified and connected to services before kindergarten.
• Access to quality public pre-K: Percentage of public pre-K programs that meet Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) state benchmarks of quality, or other state quality benchmarks in states without QRIS.
• Access to full-day pre-K: Percentage of public pre-K programs that are six hours per day for five days per week.

• Cross-sector coordination: Convening partners across sectors can help jurisdictions establish a shared vision, align on roles and responsibilities, and develop a clear roadmap for expanding access to ECE. As a first step, local leaders should map current supply and demand for ECE along with the full landscape of providers, programs, funding streams, and regulations in their area. City or county-level early childhood coordinating councils, such as Michigan’s Great Start Collaboratives, can help partners align on responsibilities for family engagement, program expansion, licensing and compliance, quality assessment, recruitment and enrollment, data collection, and reporting.

• Supply that meets demand: Millions more ECE slots are needed across the country to fill the gap between supply and demand. Research suggests that universal, unconditional programs produce better outcomes than targeted programs that use income thresholds to award limited slots, so states and localities committed to expanding supply should aim to serve all children without eligibility requirements other than age and residency. Jurisdictions should develop a phased multi-year plan that defines when, where, and how offerings will expand, such as Multnomah County’s Preschool for All implementation plan.

• Workforce development incentives: Increasing the number of ECE slots requires significantly growing providers’ capacity to deliver quality care. State and local leaders can increase the supply of qualified educators by elevating recruitment as a policy priority, offering incentives for workforce training programs, and supporting measures toward fair compensation and burnout prevention. Partnerships with community colleges and universities can help build local talent pipelines, including through Grow Your Own programs, which recruit individuals from the community served for jobs in education. Governments can also dedicate public dollars to pay parity, such as in Washington D.C., where the city council led an effort to boost early educators’ pay and increase retention, or in New Mexico, where eligible educators can receive state-administered wage supplements.

• Streamlined enrollment processes: Increasing access to ECE means not just expanding supply, but also ensuring families can easily enroll in their preferred programs. Coordinated enrollment helps alleviate challenges posed by complex eligibility and application systems by allowing families to use a single application to apply for multiple programs, reducing paperwork and simplifying applications. Examples include South Carolina’s statewide First 5 SC portal, where families can check their eligibility and apply for dozens of programs, and New York City’s coordinated enrollment system, which matches families with seats in their preferred programs under the city’s universal pre-K system.

• Rigorous but flexible quality standards: As states and localities expand ECE offerings, research-based quality benchmarks should remain central throughout planning and implementation. Key features of effective programs include high-quality curricula, full-day schedules, developmentally appropriate and safe facilities, and low staff-to-child ratios. States play an important role in setting rigorous quality standards through Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) and other benchmarks. At the same time, states should build in flexibility for local jurisdictions, recognizing that needs and preferences vary by community. One approach is to establish a “menu” of pre-approved curricula or classroom observation tools, allowing districts or individual providers to choose the option that is most culturally responsive and relevant in their area.

• Serving families of diverse backgrounds: Culturally and linguistically responsive recruitment and programming can help reduce disparities in access by race and ethnicity, home language, and immigrant status. Because English-only recruitment and application materials can create barriers for non-English speaking families, local leaders should partner with trusted community organizations to develop outreach materials and offer enrollment assistance in families’ home languages. Local leaders should also ensure that programs are available in a variety of settings so families can find a program that matches their cultural preferences. Program leaders can increase equitable access by hiring staff from the community, providing professional development on culturally and linguistically responsive practices, and offering translation services for family communications and engagement.

• Increasing access to specialized services: Families of children with disabilities and chronic health conditions disproportionately experience challenges finding care that meets their needs, often due to a shortage of qualified providers. To address these gaps, workforce development efforts should include a focus on special educators and educators trained to meet children’s health needs. States and localities can also invest in expanding special education itinerant services, in which licensed special education providers travel to a child’s location to deliver individualized services, expanding the range of options for where children can receive care. See this policy brief and this guide for more guidance on inclusion best practices.

• Increasing affordability: Federal child care subsidies are significantly underutilized. Local leaders can reduce obstacles to receiving these benefits by supporting centralized eligibility screeners and streamlined enrollment processes. Trusted local organizations, libraries, and schools can help with hands-on navigation, especially for families with limited access to technology at home. States or localities can also consider implementing cost-sharing models, like in Michigan's Tri-Share program, where child care costs are shared among public and private partners. Cost-sharing can make financial support available for families who earn too much to qualify for federal subsidies but still struggle to afford child care.

• Enabling workforce participation: In addition to positively influencing children’s outcomes, expanding ECE also enables more caregivers to participate in the workforce. Some jurisdictions formally support working parents through two-generation programs that combine intensive, high-quality adult-focused services – often focused on economic security – with child development and early education programs. Local leaders can support workforce participation by aligning child care, workforce development, and human services systems so caregivers can access affordable care, job training, and employment supports through a coordinated network.

• State governments: Governors and state legislators play an important role in elevating early learning as a policy priority and mobilizing resources to expand state-funded programs, such as New Mexico’s universal child care program and California’s transitional kindergarten program. States also establish QRIS systems and quality standards, administer federal funding, oversee licensing and compliance, and coordinate with counties and cities on program administration. Some states have dedicated early childhood departments to oversee these functions, whereas others have inter-agency early childhood governance structures.

• Local governments: Elected officials such as mayors and city councilmembers can spearhead efforts to expand public funding for ECE, including through local tax levies, such as in Philadelphia and Seattle. Leaders from the mayor’s office or youth-serving agencies, such as the local departments of education or family services, can convene and coordinate individual providers, local education agencies, health systems, and social service organizations. Where permitted by state policy, county agencies can also act as a bridge between states and local providers, administering funds, coordinating services, and providing technical assistance.

• ECE providers: School districts, child care centers, and home-based providers should collaborate with local government and advocacy leaders on initiatives to expand access and increase enrollment. This can include hiring qualified staff from local workforce training programs, co-designing enrollment processes, developing culturally responsive recruitment materials, and supporting flexible program models that meet families’ needs.

• Families: Policymakers and program leaders should actively involve families in decisions about program offerings and enrollment processes. State and local leaders can establish formal parent advisory councils, include parents on governance committees, or conduct outreach campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of early learning and gather parents’ input on their preferences.

• Advocacy groups: Advocacy organizations help elevate early childhood education as a local priority and build commitment among community leaders. These groups are often well-positioned to lead or support community engagement, either through helping local leaders convene parents or gathering information directly from parents on their needs and preferences.

• Private industry: Local leaders should partner with businesses in their community to expand financial support and workplace flexibility for families who need child care, such as through employer-sponsored child care benefits. Businesses can also offer on-site child care, which can be especially useful for parents in industries with non-traditional work schedules, such as warehouses with around-the-clock fulfillment and delivery functions. If private businesses offer on-site care, they should partner with an expert provider to ensure programs are run in developmentally appropriate spaces and with evidence-based curricula.

• Health and social service providers: Health providers such as public health agencies, hospitals, and pediatricians screen children for developmental or health needs and refer families to appropriate services. They can partner with ECE providers to integrate health services and help connect children with chronic health conditions to programs that meet their needs. Social service organizations such as behavioral health providers or housing agencies might also offer referrals to child care services.

• Community colleges: Recruiting early educators from the community served can help build a workforce that reflects the local culture. Community colleges can help build this talent pipeline, recruiting local high school graduates to early childhood training and certification programs. They can also partner with local providers to place graduates in centers or classrooms, supporting the expansion of programs with qualified staff.

• Build public awareness and support: Initiatives to increase public funding for ECE may encounter resistance from residents concerned about rising taxes. However, investments in early learning often pay for themselves: one study found that each dollar invested in universal pre-K yields a return of approximately $10. Public awareness campaigns can help build support for investments in program expansion, such as in Seattle, where voters overwhelmingly approved the renewal of a $1.3 billion tax levy in 2025 to support early learning and other youth services. Vocal public support can also create incentives for elected officials to support expansion, such as in New York City, where New Yorkers United for Child Care played a key role in elevating universal child care as a top priority.

• Center families’ needs and preferences: Local leaders should collaborate with community-based or advocacy organizations to gather information on families’ needs and preferences, then use that information to guide program expansion. This may include preferences about the preferred setting (home-based or center-based), caregiver characteristics (such as religion and culture), location, curriculum, and schedule. Engaging parents may also surface insights about external barriers to participation such as food security or access to transportation. Focus groups, surveys, and advisory councils can be effective ways to gather parent input, and parents should be compensated for their time providing input or serving in advisory roles, where possible.

• Partner with trusted messengers: Local and program leaders can use a variety of channels to reach families with information about ECE options, including text messages, emails, social media marketing, in-person events, and door-to-door recruitment. Leaders should engage trusted messengers to assist with personalized recruitment and outreach. Trusted messengers can be influential and respected community leaders, such as faith leaders or healthcare providers, or they might be other parents who have experience with ECE systems. For example, Georgia has implemented a family peer ambassador program in which caregivers with young children are trained and paid to assist with recruitment and outreach to other families, building trust in the system through warm connections.

• Measure and communicate program quality: As ECE offerings expand, information about program quality should be made publicly available, easy to locate, and clear to caregivers. State and local governments can require that quality ratings be published in clear, searchable online dashboards with user-friendly summaries (such as through star systems and plain-language explanations) so parents can easily compare programs. They can also offer outreach materials or community events to help families interpret the data.

• Support children's transitions: Program leaders can reduce barriers to participation by actively supporting children’s transitions into pre-K, from pre-K to kindergarten, or between programs. Children who require specialized accommodations are especially likely to transition between programs to find the care they need. Transition support activities can include conducting on-site orientations (including translators, if appropriate), aligning curricula and instruction with the local kindergarten, and hosting classroom visits for rising kindergarteners.

• Securely share data across providers: Systems to share data across providers can increase accessibility for parents by minimizing the need for duplicative paperwork as their children enter or transition between systems. Data sharing also benefits providers, children, and researchers: ECE providers are better able to create continuity for children when they have insight into children’s prior experiences, and researchers and policymakers can better understand the long-term impacts of early learning when ECE data are linked with other education and workforce data. Some states and localities have formally established early childhood integrated data systems (ECIDS) that allow for the safe and secure transmission of data across programs and agencies.

• Supply and demand: Local supply can be measured through data on licensed slots and provider capacity, while demand in an area can be estimated based on the total number of young children, information on parents’ labor force participation, and/or waitlist information. Local leaders can measure the gap between child care supply and demand by comparing these figures. The Child Care Gap Map shows supply, estimated need, and gaps by state, county, and metropolitan area.

• Enrollment rate: Leaders can measure the local enrollment rate by dividing the number of children enrolled in early learning programs by the total number of young children in the area. Enrollment rates should be disaggregated by age, geography, income, race/ethnicity, special education status, and home language to illuminate any disparities in access. The American Community Survey regularly reports information on the number of children ages three and older enrolled in pre-K. To measure enrollment for children younger than age three, local leaders can collate administrative data from individual providers or establish central data collection mechanisms.

• Program quality: Local leaders can measure the availability of quality care through data on the number and geographic distribution of slots in licensed programs that meet state quality standards or benchmarks as a percentage of the total number of available slots.

• Geographic accessibility: State and local leaders should consider the availability of care within a reasonable distance from children’s homes. The Buffet Early Childhood Institute defines “reasonable” as within a 3.5-mile radius of the home for urban areas and within a 10-mile radius for rural areas.

• Affordability: State and local leaders should also measure how much local families spend on child care as a total percentage of their income. Federal guidelines indicate that child care should comprise 7% or less of a household’s total budget to be considered affordable, though costs in most areas are much higher.

• Family engagement: Jurisdictions or community-based organizations focused on increasing enrollment can track the total number of touchpoints with families (such as phone calls, emails, and text messages) related to recruitment. Family engagement can be measured at the program level through participation rates in outreach events, surveys, or family support services. At the neighborhood or community level, leaders can gather feedback on families’ awareness and understanding of early learning options through surveys or focus groups.

• Website engagement: For states or localities with centralized, web-based enrollment portals, website analytics can yield insights about visits to early learning information and enrollment pages, including unique visitors, page views, and time spent on key pages. Web analytics can also offer insights about how many applications have been started and completed, as well as where in the application process users tend to drop off, signaling opportunities to make the application more user-friendly or offer additional support to complete and submit forms.