Quality of Early Care and Education

Fact Sheet: Using Federal Preschool Grant To Build State Early Learning Systems

The Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five program is a valuable tool for increasing families’ seamless access to early care and education programs.

Governors Are Calling for Investments in Early Care and Education

Echoing 2023, governors from both political parties prioritized child care and pre-kindergarten in their 2024 State of the State addresses.

States Are Taking Action To Address the Child Care Crisis

Federal COVID-19 relief funding for child care stabilization grants ended in September 2023, but a number of states have stepped up this year to address the child care needs of working families.

Building a Comprehensive State Child Care Agenda

Join CAP's Early Childhood Policy team to learn how the recently released data dashboard and state policymaker toolkit can be used to increase investments in child care and early learning programs.

Data Dashboard: An Overview of Child Care and Early Learning in the United States

The Center for American Progress has developed a data dashboard that allows users to explore national- and state-level data trends on a range of child care and early learning topics, including access to affordable care, the child care workforce, Head Start, and exclusionary discipline policies.

Related Resources on Child Care and Early Learning

This webpage offers a list of resources that can help make the case for investments in child care and early learning at the state level.

How To Expand Access to Affordable, High-Quality Child Care and Preschool

This webpage provides a menu of state policy recommendations and examples of state policies to expand access to affordable, high-quality child care and preschool opportunities.

Messaging and Communications To Promote Early Childhood Education

This webpage offers guidance on messaging and communications to promote child care and early childhood education in states.

Early Childhood Education in U.S. States

This toolkit provides information and resources to help state policymakers advocate for increased investments in their state child care and early learning systems.

The Child Care Sector Is Still Struggling To Hire Workers

Amid a tight labor market and lack of sustainable funding, the child care sector’s shortage of good jobs persists, exacerbating its challenge to attract and retain workers.

CAP Comments on the EPA’s Proposed Rule on Lead Dust Levels in Child-Occupied Facilities

The Center for American Progress submitted a comment letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in response to the agency’s proposed lower lead dust hazard standards and clearance levels for child-occupied homes and child care facilities.

Health Equity in Early Childhood Policy

Policymakers Must Understand How Education, Health Care, and Economic Security Shape Early Child Development

Policymaking that considers the unique developmental needs of young children, as well as their lived experiences and that of their families, can set the foundation for health and well-being throughout life.

Strengthening Early Childhood Health, Housing, Education, and Economic Well-Being Through Holistic Public Policy

The preschool years present a critical developmental period sensitive to changes in public health and social policy, for which robust investments in programs that support families can improve intergenerational outcomes.

Federal Child Care Legislation Over the Past Decade

The past decade of child care legislation illustrates an increase in bipartisan action on the child care crisis and highlights the need for Congress to enact legislation to support a federally funded comprehensive child care system.

5 Things To Know About the Child Care for Working Families Act

The Child Care for Working Families Act aims to expand access to and lower the cost of care for families, support child care workers, and address racial and gender disparities in the child care system.

Top 5 Actions Governors Can Take To Address the Child Care Shortage

Governors must take the lead in instituting policies that fairly compensate early childhood providers for the skilled work they perform, incentivize the creation of programs in child care deserts, and relieve families of the high cost of care.

Disparities in Housing, Health Care, Child Care, and Economic Security Affect Babies for Life

Social determinants of health, such as access to secure housing, family employment and economic stability, education, and child care, must be the focus of federal policies to support infant and toddler health.

Promoting Equitable Access to Quality Child Care

Increased federal investments offer an opportunity to expand equitable access to quality child care for all children and families.

The Build Back Better Act Substantially Expands Child Care Assistance

The Build Back Better Act ensures child care assistance for 16 times as many young children as under current law, and in some states, it would help state child care agencies reach more than 25 times as many children and their families.

The Build Back Better Act Will Allow Parents To Choose Faith-Based Child Care and Pre-K

Despite claims to the contrary, the Build Back Better Act envisions an important role for faith-based child care providers.

Investing in Home Care and Early Childhood Educators Has Outsize Impacts on Employment

Proposed investments in the Build Back Better agenda would benefit a significant number of workers, particularly women and women of color; transform the home care and early childhood sectors; and lift living standards and employment prospects for millions of Americans.

These Interconnected Policies Would Sustain Families, Support Women, and Grow the Economy

Together, the policies included in the Biden administration’s Build Back Better agenda would propel families’ and the country’s economic security by prioritizing child care, the child tax credit, paid family and medical leave, and good jobs that get Americans back to work.

The U.S. Child Care Crisis Explained

The lack of affordable and high-quality child care has disproportionately pushed women out of the workforce for decades. It is long past time for the United States to provide adequate, sustained funding and end the child care crisis.