Kentucky ranks 48th in the nation in terms of resources and economic support for early childhood education, according to a recent study by the personal finance website WalletHub.
That’s bad news for kids in the Commonwealth, who see significant gains both in school and throughout life the earlier they begin schooling.
“Having access to quality early education gives students a jump start that can improve their future performance in school, as well as lead to better job opportunities and higher earnings in the long-term,” WalletHub Analyst Cassandra Happe said. “A better-educated, higher-earning population will in turn bring economic benefits back to the state.”
The study found the quality and accessibility of early education programs are slightly above the national average, but Kentucky lags in several education-related spending metrics.
Those metrics include:
- Total reported local, state, and federal spending per child enrolled in preschool.
- Change in state spending per child enrolled in preschool.
- Total state Head Start program spending per child enrolled in preschool.
- Monthly child care co-payment fees as share of family income.
WalletHub’s research team gathered data from the National Institute for Early Education Research, Education Commission of the States and The National Women’s Law Center before formulating weighted averages.
Kentucky ultimately ranked 18th in access and quality of educational programs, dropping to 25th overall when accounting for resources and support. The state is roughly on par with Wisconsin, Washington and Texas.
Researchers highlight one study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that estimates every dollar invested in early education programs for disadvantaged families returns $7.30 to the economy.
What’s being done in Kentucky?
Not enough, according to Dustin Pugel, policy director for the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. He said the conversation around how to aid early education has persisted for years, but ultimately comes down to a lack of funding for quality programs.
What’s not up for discussion are the benefits of early education. Pugel said there’s ample research showing the long-term benefits of beginning education before kindergarten.
“There is a really rich, long set of research around how high-quality early childhood settings make a significant difference in children’s lives, both immediately as they’re going through high-quality programs, but also much later in life,” Pugel said. “Things like lower divorce, lower risky behaviors when they’re teenagers, higher earnings, better educational attainment.”
Pugel emphasized “high-quality” settings, influenced by smaller class sizes, more planning time for educators, stronger curriculum and more parental involvement — all of which cost more per student.
“What we know is that quality is expensive, and that means it’s out of reach for a lot of families,” Pugel said. “What we’ve ended up with is a situation where a lot of our kids — about half in Kentucky — are not ready for Kindergarten when they go in.”
Yet Kentucky lost roughly 45% of its child care centers between 2012 and 2020, and preschool funding has fallen by $6 million since 2016, even without adjusting for inflation.
“In 2016, it was $90 million. Right now, it’s about $84 million,” Pugel said. “When you adjust for inflation, that fall is even larger, despite the fact that we have around the same number of three and four-year-olds in need of public preschool services.”
The trend was halted when the federal governmentinvested roughly $330 million into childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said these funds were very effective, calling them “the salvation of the childcare sector.”
In addition, he said most families likely have not been paying child care assistance copays — which are “pretty high” in Kentucky — since 2020, thanks to financial assistance.
However, Pugel said the state has so far failed to pick up much of those costs now that federal dollars are drying up. That $330 million federal investment is set to expire in September, though the state has pledged to only make up $40 million.
The issue is compounded by the nature of being a new parent when families are typically at the bottom of their financial earnings capacity and have had less time to save up.
“We’re encountering what’s essentially a classic market failure, where childcare centers can’t charge what it takes to provide high-quality settings because parents can’t afford it,” Pugel said. “And so we end up with childcare providers doing the best they can, but they can only do so much with the tuition dollars they bring in and our state investment in childcare is inadequate.”
What have lawmakers said?
Pugel said the last legislative session saw perennial augments between the executive and legislative branches between supporting universal pre-K or aiding child care centers.
Gov. Andy Beshear has long pushed for universal pre-K funding. Pugel said the state could move in that direction with careful planning, but he doesn’t believe it’s currently possible due to the childcare system already being “on the brink” statewide.
Legislators pushed for more aid to childcare centers, but ultimately “both lost out” — public preschools received no additional funding and childcare support saw a “very modest” increase that helps to address the federal funding that expires in September.
The state has been able to steadily maintain around 2,000 childcare centers since 2020 in large part due to increased federal and state assistance to the childcare sector.
Pugel said with the state taking up only a fraction of those expiring federal dollars, the future of childcare access is very much in doubt.
“I think what we’re going to see over the next couple years is a real crisis point in education,” he said. “I know a lot of legislators are looking carefully to see what the impact is going to be and what they might be able to do to prevent the worst of that, but unfortunately, what we’re left with is an inadequate set of financial tools to be able to mitigate that harm.”
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Written by Michael Collins. Cross-posted from the Hoptown Chronicle.
