Smart Start Child Care
There is a shortage of quality, affordable childcare options in communities across America.
Securing reliable child care is an everyday struggle for millions of American families.
In nearly every state in the country, full-time day care for a four-year old child costs more than a year’s tuition at a four-year public college.3 This cost is barely affordable for many moderate-income families, let alone for the low-income families who are raising more than one-third of America’s children.4
Budget cuts are taking their toll on the well-being of thousands of children.
Facing budget crises and shrinking federal funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) programs, states have substantially reduced childcare subsidies for low-income working families. These cuts lengthened waiting lists for child care by ten percent in just one year.5 By 2009, the President’s budget would eliminate funding for about 365,000 childcare slots.6
The Smart Start program pioneered in North Carolina is one viable solution.
North Carolina established the “Smart Start Initiative” to provide funding and technical assistance to county-level public-private partnerships for design and implementation of childcare programs that focus on local community needs. The program is designed to increase access to child care for all families, improve quality of care, make child care affordable, and to provide placement referrals, parental education, and literacy programs.
Smart Start is a proven success.
Over the life of the program, Smart Start has been evaluated extensively and repeatedly found to be a success. At the core of this success is the fact that solutions are locally implemented and locally funded by both the public and private sectors. The program allows counties to engage local expertise and resources to address their own specific needs. The process ensures community ownership and enthusiasm among a broad base of constituencies. Because Smart Start is “owned” by a variety of stakeholders and offers benefits to an array of families, the program has developed the broad-based support necessary for expansion.
Smart Start increases access to child care, improves its quality, and makes it more affordable.
Through both new construction and improvement of facilities, over 56,000 new childcare slots were created in North Carolina between 1993 and 2002.7 Smart Start programs tackle the key problem of recruiting and retaining childcare providers. The T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood Project offers thousands of scholarships to childcare providers for professional training and development. The WAGE$ program provides wage incentives to preschool teachers to advance their education. After just five years, 30 percent of preschool classes were classified as providing “good” or “excellent” care, up from 14 percent in 1994.8 In 2003, 82 percent of childcare workers in North Carolina had college degrees.9 Smart Start earmarks 30 percent of funding to help children who live in poverty. More than 93,000 receive subsidized services each month, up from 60,000 in 1995. Smart Start has also been able to lower overall costs to the government by at least ten percent by soliciting contributions from businesses and volunteers. Local partnerships are required to raise one dollar in cash for every ten dollars they receive from state funds. Corporate sponsors have contributed millions of dollars.
Child care is a profitable investment for our communities.
There is a strong consensus among researchers that childcare programs provide a substantial payoff. Studies estimate that early childhood programs generate a return of at least three dollars for every dollar spent. Even economists who are skeptical about government programs note the benefits of high-quality early childhood development programs. Follow-up studies of poor children who have participated in these programs have found solid evidence of markedly improved academic performance, lower rates of criminal conduct, and higher adult earnings than their non-participating peers. If nationwide programs started next year, benefits would exceed costs by $31 billion within 25 years.10
Other states have adopted childcare programs modeled after Smart Start.
Early childhood initiatives modeled on Smart Start have been implemented in several other states, including AL, AK, AR, CO, GA, IA, KS, KY, MI, OK, SC, TX, VT and WY. Wyoming enacted its law in 2006. In addition, Maine recently doubled its state investment in child care by offering grants, a revolving loan fund, and tuition assistance for child care providers, as well as tax credits to businesses that assist with childcare expenses or offer on-site care. Also in 2006, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire announced a plan to work with the Gates Foundation to improve early education and child care.
Endnotes
- Children’s Defense Fund, “Child Care Basics,” 2001.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Employment Characteristics of Families in 2005,” 2006.
- Children’s Defense Fund, “The State of America’s Children 2004,” 2004.
- National Center for Children in Poverty, “Basic Facts About Low-Income Children: Birth to Age 18,” September 2006.
- Children’s Defense Fund, “Low-income families’ access to child care shrinks as states cut child care assistance programs,” March 15, 2004.
- Richard Kogen and David Kamin, “President’s Budget Contains Large Cuts in Domestic Discretionary Programs,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, June 7, 2004.
- North Carolina Smart Start, “Smart Start’s Impact on North Carolina’s Children, Families, and Communities,” 2002.
- Carolyn Kroll and Michele Rivest, Sharing the Stories: Lessons Learned from Five Years of Smart Start, 2000.
- “Smart Start’s Annual Report to the Community,” June 2003.
- Louise Stoney and Mildred Warner, “Child Care as Economic Development: Theoretical and Empirical Challenges,” presented to the Child Care Research Bureau, April 2003; Robert Lynch, “Exceptional Returns: Economic, Fiscal, and Social Benefits of Investment in Early Childhood Development,” Economic Policy Institute, 2004.
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