Solving America's Child Care Crisis: Highlights From a Hearing

In early February, the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education held a hearing on America’s ongoing child care crisis. Dilemmas around parents’ inability to find and afford high-quality care, the growing paucity in provider availability, and reprehensibly low compensation for early educators were brought before the committee by a panel of expert witnesses.

Taryn Morrissey, associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University, spoke first. Her testimony conveyed the ways in which underinvestment by the government preserves and deepens economic inequality for early educators and families alike. “More public investment is needed to help ease the cost burden for families and ensure that a trained, stable workforce has adequate compensation,” Morrissey explained.

The second testimony was given by Nancy Harvey, a family child care (FCC) provider from Oakland, California. Harvey described the struggle of maintaining a financially solvent business amidst rising costs, which has often left her “coming up short,” juggling overdue bills, and witnessing colleagues closing programs or relocating. “How are we supposed to teach children to grow up with dignity and respect,” she asked, “when all too often it’s so hard to feel this ourselves because we struggle to pay bills, plan for a financially secure future, and have our critically important jobs overlooked by so many of those in power?”

Linda K. Smith, director of early education at the Bipartisan Policy Center, was next to testify. “Layering on programs and funding streams has resulted in a maze of programs that both parents and providers have difficulty navigating, ” Smith asserted. “It’s time to rethink child care in America.” She proposed several principles to “make reform a reality,” which included prioritizing families’ preferences and families with the greatest need; inciting greater participation from businesses, philanthropies, and states; supporting early educators; learning from programs that work, like Early Head Start and military child care; and ultimately reconstructing the entire system.

The final testimony was given by Angélica María González, who is a member of MomsRising, a law clerk, and a single mother raising three children in Seattle, Washington. “The child care crisis that’s happening right now has had a profoundly harmful impact on my family,” she began.

González described the challenges of being a new mother at age 17 and needing child care to finish high school. Facing a waitlist of over a year, she relied on intermittent, unlicensed care while she earned her diploma and bachelor’s degree. Stable in her early career, an unexpected one-time child support payment of $200 caused González to lose her child care subsidy. Her costs suddenly escalated from $15 to $800 each month, and despite attempts to take on multiple jobs and find alternative care, “the lack of access to child care led to loss of employment.” Soon after, the family lost housing.

From the shelter, González applied and was accepted to law school, and once again needed child care. To be eligible for subsidies, she had to work full-time while attending school. The financial burden nearly caused her to drop out, but with the help of her community, she persisted. “I have worked hard to have a career and independence. If I’d had access to quality, affordable child care from the start, my career and kids’ lives would have looked very different.”

The hearing continued with questions from legislators on the subcommittee. Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.) inquired about the steady decline of FCC providers, and whether regulations are to blame. Smith dismissed regulations as the root cause, instead positing that FCC providers are retiring, younger early educators are not stepping into their roles, and costs for FCC providers can be burdensome.

Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) asked how the lack of early learning opportunities entrenches racial and socioeconomic opportunity gaps. Morrissey responded that achievement gaps begin before kindergarten, citing evidence of disparities in babies’ cognitive scores by family income, and differences in pre-K participation by income and geography. She asserted, “the lack of availability cascades and leads to gaps in achievement which are present at kindergarten and are very hard to narrow at that point.”

When Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) prompted panelists to share the biggest misconceptions about the child care crisis, Harvey underscored the low wages of early educators. “Many of our staff workers themselves are in poverty. We are actually keeping America working, but ourselves are falling short and struggling to pay our own bills.”

Later, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), inquired on the appropriate salary. “I think child care workers should be paid commensurate with their educational attainment and their skills and experience,” replied Morrissey. “Kindergarten and K through 12 educators are paid much more relative to child care providers, yet they’re doing the same work.”

Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.) asked the fundamental question. “We spent decades filling in the gaps and, in fact the military taught us something very important, and that is: they didn’t fill in the gaps. They fundamentally rethought their child care system and invested whatever money was necessary. Should we continue to fill in the gaps or should we rethink the entire system?” Smith, who assisted in the transformation of military child care, erred on the side of rethinking the system. She explained, “one of the reasons that we were successful in the military, is that we decided early on that we had to fix it all.”

Rep. Kilili Sablan (D-CNMI), who co-sponsored and made reference to the Child Care for Working Families Act, concluded the hearing by calling his colleagues to action. “I hope that this hearing is the start of getting congress to start really moving forward legislation to provide some relief to this crisis that we have. I look forward to working with our colleagues to ensure that our country sets all families on the path to a healthy and thriving future.”