State Representative Kate Farrar: It's really been building blocks, right. Every year, you are building blocks towards how can we make sure that this early childhood care and education system is working for parents, is working for educators, is working for businesses.

Jamee Herbert: I'm Jamee Herbert, CEO of BridgeCare, an organization that helps make navigating the minefield of early care and education easier. I've spent years trying to understand why our childcare system feels impossible to work through. Across this season, we're talking with parents, providers, and experts across the country to unpack how this system really works and why it breaks down. Every episode, we'll be looking at a different part of the equation, from the economics to the workforce, to the policy barrier shaping what care looks like on the ground.

By the end of the season, you'll have a clearer picture of why America's childcare system has been set up to fail. More importantly, we'll find some answers around what we can do to fix it. This is Child Care Matters: Built to Break. This episode, we look at the policy and regulation driving or getting in the way of quality childcare. And we highlight the bright spots where policy is improving the lives of childcare providers and parents.

Erica Phillips: There have been some really well-intentioned policies that have intersected to make it more difficult for family childcare.

Jamee Herbert: This is Erica Phillips. She's the executive director of the National Association for Family Child Care, a national nonprofit supporting early childhood educators.

Erica Phillips: Universal Pre-K is a great program to have universal pre-K for three or four-year-olds. But unfortunately, when we've seen those roll out, it's been primarily in schools or in centers and not in home-based environments. And so that means that a big chunk of the children that they would be caring for, those families are removing them from the family childcare program and putting them in other options, which is great for the families.

But then the family childcare program is left to figure out, "Can I balance my budget? Can I make this work with only infants and toddlers?" And often it's not. And so in communities where universal pre-K has been rolled out to be inclusive of family childcare, it's actually been really positive. And we have some examples of that. In places where it wasn't, it's been very detrimental and has really destabilized the models and the earnings for those providers, and they've often had to close.

Jamee Herbert: Erica paints a stark picture of the difficult situation providers face.

Erica Phillips: Over the last 15 years, we've lost over 100, 000 licensed family childcare programs. That is about half of the overall capacity for family childcare.

Jamee Herbert: To understand how we ended up in this situation and what policymakers have historically done to try to fix it, we need to take a step back. In the late 1800s, childcare in America wasn't public. It was mostly charitable. Between 1910 and 1930, reformers pushed for mothers' pensions, help for women to stay home, while childcare stayed in the shadows. The first federal investment came in 1933 with the Emergency Nursery School Program, serving tens of thousands of families during the Great Depression. The Lanham Act was passed in 1946, supporting families involved in the war effort. Then came a major turning point.

In 1971, Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act, which would've created and funded a universal childcare program in the United States. It was brought to a halt when President Nixon vetoed the bill despite campaigning on the issue. This was a major setback for the field. With one of the Bill's co-sponsors later saying that the opposition to the sliding scale based on income approach, "Poisoned the well for early childhood programs for a long time, indeed ever since." In 1990, the Child's Care & Development Block Grant sent funding to states to subsidize childcare.

And in 1996, welfare reform folded various programs into a larger Child Care Block Grant. But despite the lack of congressional momentum to increase federal funding over the last 30 years, it isn't all bad news for the childcare system.

Sarah Rittling: Congress recently passed a tax reconciliation bill that increased the amount going into tax credits, particularly childcare tax credits to families. That's a meaningful impact. It's felt at the bottom line at the kitchen table when you're thinking about it, so those are impactful.

Jamee Herbert: This is Sarah Rittling, the executive director of the First Five Years Fund, a bipartisan advocacy group. She spends her time in Washington, DC, influencing federal early education policy.

Sarah Rittling: There's a bipartisan proposal in the Senate called the Child Care Modernization Act, that's a bipartisan package, and it could do things like introduce cost estimation models and provide some supply grants.

Jamee Herbert: Sarah knows from her work that there is a real appetite to do better, but she also understands the incredible challenges of passing child care funding legislation.

Sarah Rittling: So Congress is having a hard time putting things forward, and that's been a long time coming. It's just kind of where we are, and it comes down to kind of must pass. We're having a hard time. We just are coming out of a government shutdown that lasted longer than we ever had. So some of those things create barriers in that we're not seeing active movement of proposals and ideas.

I believe my personal approach to that is, "Okay, well then what do we need to do?" Not necessarily, "Well, here's Congress is having a hard time, so I guess we're just going to have to wait it out. " No, no, no, no, no. So I believe we just need to spend time thinking through what are the other avenues? How can we undo some slowness?

Jamee Herbert: That slowness that Sarah's talking about is just one problem. Another problem is how policies are implemented. Policy decisions need to be made in the context of the whole system and with extensive input from those who will be impacted. This can be especially hard to do in such a fragmented system.

Erica Phillips: Another policy piece is requiring a family childcare educator to attend a specific class at a specific location at a specific time, which is it could be during the day.

And if they don't get there, they lose their license, but they're caring for children and so there's no ability for them to be able to get there without taking away the care for the family.

So that sometimes we'll see policies like that and have to encourage, can we make it virtual? Can we do it on the weekend or in the evening so that people can actually get there?

Jamee Herbert: This is what can happen when rules are made in silos. Legislation that's meant to help providers can cause chaos when the realities of their businesses aren't taken into account. That's why some states are trying a new structural fix. Take states like Georgia, Washington, Colorado, or Connecticut, which are states that have established a single front door to bring together all the different functions of early childhood under one agency.

State Representative Kate Farrar: Getting that Office of Early Childhood established 10 years ago was a very big, pivotal part of this for Connecticut.

Jamee Herbert: Connecticut State Representative Kate Farrar says the Office of Early Childhood is a case study in how well-planned and organized policy and legislation can improve lives and make a difference.

State Representative Kate Farrar: I know there's many other states around the country that are trying to take that first step for their state because that is a pivotal way of not just elevating the work of early childhood education, but more making it easier for the state to coordinate the funding streams that come into the state and work as effectively and directly with parents and providers and businesses as possible from that one office because it's really been building blocks, right.

Every year, you are building blocks towards how can we make sure that this early childhood care and education system is working for parents, is working for educators, is working for businesses. And that meant how can we make sure we're taking a comprehensive approach that is lifting up and supporting each of those folks who have a stake in this?

Jamee Herbert: It's a very multifaceted approach to solve these problems around childcare, and we can see in places like Connecticut and Colorado, the impact and power of having that consolidated state agency. And in addition to the problems around fragmentation at the state level, not everything about the childcare system happens at the state level.

There are building codes and local organizations and funding sources at the local level that will likely, for a long time, continue to be there, if not forever. And so when we think about the solutions for childcare, it is great to have a consolidated approach at the state level, and we still need to think about collaboration and partnership and systems thinking as we think about how we create a holistic approach to solving what's broken about childcare.

So, Justice here in Connecticut passed S.B. 1 to create early childhood endowment, HB 5003 to create a single point of entry system to make it easier for families in HB 728 to support the construction renovation of childcare facilities. We were hoping you could explain why it's important to have these three distinct pieces of legislation. How are they complementary? How are they different? What was the thought behind that?

State Representative Kate Farrar: The endowment is really pivotal because it is meant to be a historic and sustainable funding source, both now and in years to come. The endowment is meant to expand both the care for our families and also bring down the costs of that care, and also increase the pay and benefits for educators.

And that meant that, for us, getting this up and going and getting the full support of both the House, the Senate, and the governor's office in championing this, the first step around the funding was that we are dedicating our surplus dollars. So this year we put $300 million, which was in surplus, into the fund that is managed by the treasurer's office.

And in statute, those surpluses will all be put into the endowment. And then in the first two years, we'll be drawing down 12% of that endowment for those uses that I mentioned, making sure that we open more spaces, bringing down the cost of care for families, and raising educator pay.

Jamee Herbert: Sustainable funding is one piece of the equation. The next part is whether families and providers can actually access the programs and services.

State Representative Kate Farrar: The complementary piece around the HB5003, which was one of the components, was this online portal. That is a tool that we know is essential for both families and providers to make all of this work just better and more easily. And therefore, as we're expanding this state investment, we wanted to make sure that both on the family side and the provider side, it's just easier for those matches to be made and for people to find that care and to find the provider that works for them.

The third piece with the capital side of this in supporting the way it's written in the bill is it would be multiple years of bonding dollars, and that would be $11 million each year, and it goes up to $80 million investment. And the purpose of that is that we know for our early childhood care and education providers, they often want to upgrade their space or reconsider having a playground, but they don't often have the ability to do that.

And we also know, based on how we want to make sure there are spaces available in our childcare deserts, there may be spaces that need full new childcare facilities. And therefore, this capital fund is meant to offer a way for early childhood providers to apply for those funds and then implement either those upgrade projects or build new facilities.

Jamee Herbert: Funding, navigation, supply. It's a strategy, and these collections of policies will move the needle for people in Connecticut. However, Rep Farrar admits it's just a starting point. She's cautiously optimistic. Can you talk about have you run into barriers? Do you continue to run into barriers? What barriers do you see in successfully? And now the real work begins, right?

State Representative Kate Farrar: It does.

Jamee Herbert: Implementing.

State Representative Kate Farrar: There's only barriers ahead. Yes. There's only barriers ahead. Yes. I mean, it's one thing, just as any legislator will say, to pass legislation and to have it be law, it's another thing to implement the law.

Our Office of Early Childhood just announced in the last couple of weeks that there will be a thousand new spaces that are receiving dollars next year, and that the educator pay increases will also start next year, with up to 8% increase of rates to providers.

So those steps are happening. Again, those are prior to when the larger increases of the investment will go towards bringing down the cost and the educator pay in 2027. But all of this is essential because we want to make sure that in both the system and for parents, they're seeing that we're making progress.

Jamee Herbert: What's so successful and exciting about what's happening in Connecticut to me is the holistic approach that they have taken toward looking at the problems of childcare. Time and time again, across the country, we'll see a push for universal preschool, or expanded funding for childcare, or a quality initiative, but they happen almost always in isolation. And childcare is a system. It is an interconnected and fairly fragile system that needs to be thought of as a whole. Because if we, for example, say access for families is our number one priority and affordability is the priority, what we'll unintendedly do is create problems for then not properly compensating providers.

Or if we think about reducing costs, we compromise on quality. And so what's really special about what Connecticut has done is that they've passed three separate bills in coordination with each other that achieve and focus on those different parts of the system that all need to be thought of together in order to successfully land a really solid progress in their program for childcare. The good news is that there continues to be a bipartisan appetite for change and improvement. We're seeing more political capital behind childcare, and that's something we hope continues to grow, as Erica and Sarah explain.

Erica Phillips: One policy change has been positive. We've seen that in both liberal and conservative states, passing legislation that helps to support family childcare. Another one is the interdependence between liability insurance and licensing. The licensing records for family childcare programs are publicly available, and that's great for families. They can go and find different data on a family childcare program in terms of their track record.

Sarah Rittling: Over the past decade, the trends on policies affecting children, particularly birth through five, early care and education, we went from a trend, honestly, where this issue was doing great work, saw meaningful investments. It was very positive, to now, is it a tier one issue? You're not hearing it on the Sunday to talk shows, morally necessarily, but the growth in the number and breadth politically of members of Congress who are engaging in this issue and engaging in it publicly, engaging in it legislatively has been the trend that I would point to.

We've had multiple presidential elections, frankly, where both candidates have talked about it in various ways. That's a huge positive. We didn't see that in 2012, so if we're going back 10 years, and that's huge. Prioritizing something politically is part of a puzzle of getting you to prioritize it when you're in office, and we saw that play out last year in congressional races as well. So the trend of public engagement, political engagement on the issue is one that I would point to, and it's promising.

Jamee Herbert: The patchwork of early education legislation was built over decades, and while progress is being made, we have to think long-term if we want these policies to bear fruit. A handful of states across the political spectrum, Florida, North Carolina, California, and Alabama, just to name a few, have made universal pre-K part of their vision. Leaders in Connecticut are following suit and shared that it's a priority for them as well.

State Representative Kate Farrar: When I say we're going to get to universal pre-K by 2032, that can seem really far off if your child needs pre-K immediately, right. And therefore, we want to make sure that we are showing that progress. But at the same time, one of the biggest barriers that is a potential barrier is we need to make sure that we're fulfilling what is in the law, and that the surplus dollars keep going into the endowment, right. Because that is essential to getting us to the goals like universal pre-K in 2032.

Jamee Herbert: Few states have managed to successfully implement universal pre-K at scale, but it's a theme that has generated significant momentum over the past few years. Colorado went from middle of the pack in four-year-old preschool enrollment to third in the nation almost overnight. They were able to do this due to overwhelming voter support, historic investments, and a departmental commitment to fast, meaningful progress.

We know it's possible. As exciting as some of these state-level investments are, families who don't live in places experiencing these changes are still struggling to find and afford quality care, and recent interruptions in funding at the federal level have been cause for concern among advocates. We still have a long road ahead of us. With that in mind, I asked Sarah what gives her hope for the future.

Sarah Rittling: It's the conversations you have with members of Congress, senators, staff offline. Sometimes we're like, "Man, this issue, I'm hearing about it from my constituents, and we really got to do something. And what more can I do, and how can we?" And that's across the board. That's not Republican, it's not Democrat. It's really everybody's feeling it and hearing it. So it gives me hope that it's proactively part of conversations that we're in.

Jamee Herbert: Across this series, we're showing you every piece of the puzzle of a system that has been built to break. In the next episode, we explore how closing the gaps in data across the sector may hold the key to better childcare in America.

Sabina Andersson: We can't get there without data, right. And we can't get bills without data, and we can't... I mean, I wouldn't expect people to vote without data on what they're voting on.

Jamee Herbert: We can only fix the system if we first understand why and where it's broken. So subscribe and share this podcast with others who are navigating the system too. And go to getbridgecare.com if you want to learn more about what can be done to help families access high-quality, affordable childcare. The link is in the show description.