Investment in Montana's Early Childhood Learning and Care System more vital than ever
By Kelly Milodragovich, The Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation
Prior to joining the Foundation team in 2007, I rarely considered the state of Montana’s Early Childhood Learning and Care system. However, over the course of the past three years, I came to realize that this issue, perhaps more than any other topic in which the Foundation invests, is vital to the future of our State.
Montana is home to more than 70,000 children under the age of six. While 12,000 children receive federal and state funded child-care scholarships in Montana (as of 2007), more than 36,800 children live within the financial demographic of low income or poverty. This means that the families of more than 2/3 of our low income and poverty level children do not receive any assistance in accessing quality childcare. For many of these families, the cost of licensed child-care can exceed 30% of their total income (see figure 3).
Often, these financial constraints result in child-care by friends or family members. Getting proper resources and early childhood development information to family, friend, and kinship caregivers is a challenge. While the majority of home care situations are wonderful for the growing child, some lack the necessary resources or skills to provide an optimal early childhood learning experience. A child’s social and emotional development is severely impacted by the lack of a nurturing and interactive environment.
The importance of such a nurturing environment is clear - scientific research shows that the vast majority of brain development occurs in the first five years of a child’s life. Yet, the average childcare worker in Montana earns $8.14, or 65% the hourly wage of the average animal control worker. For this reason, and many others, there are only roughly 20,000 registered or licensed care slots in the state of Montana for the nearly 70,000 children under age eight with both parents in the workforce.
Luckily, the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Resources launched an early childcare quality rating system in 2009, called Best Beginnings STARS to Quality Program. This program provides a voluntary rating system for care centers, in addition to financial incentives for participation and training of early child-care workers. DPHHS also has early learning guidelines and other early childhood development publications readily available to the general public. http://www.dphhs.mt.gov/hrd/childcare/bestbeginnings/bestbeginningsstarstoquality.shtml
Encouragement to fund such programs in Early Childhood Development comes not only from the governmental and philanthropic sectors, but also from the Business Sector. Art Rolnick, Senior Vice President and Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, published a paper in 2003. The piece focused on a comprehensive study (High/Scopes study in Michigan) and detailing the financial returns on investments in Early Childhood Development. His findings made clear that investments in this area yielded tremendous returns, not only for the individuals assisted, but also for society as a whole.
While program participants directly benefited from their increase in after-tax earnings and fringe benefits, these benefits were smaller than those gained by the general public. Based on present value estimates, about 80 percent of the benefits went to the general public (students were less disruptive in class and went on to commit fewer crimes), yielding over a 12 percent internal rate of return for society in general.
The Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation recognizes the importance of early childhood learning, from both a Philanthropic and a workforce development perspective. Success necessitates engagement by business owners, government agencies, non-profits, the education system, parents, and child- care workers. Through research partnerships with the Governor’s office, support for early learning programs that train in best practices, early child-care workshop/conference support, help with publication of early childhood development materials, and many additional avenues, the Foundation engages with Montana’s Early Child Care and Learning leaders to ensure that all children in Montana have access to the highest quality child care.
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Kelly Milodragovich is a Program Officer for the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation. Any questions, concerns, suggestions or comments can be directed to her at kmilodragovich@washcorp.com.
Figure 3: Annual Cost of Care for an Infant and Child in a Center as Percentage of 2005 County Median Family Income. Click image to enlarge.
