Credit: Courtesy of Kidango
California is home to more than 1.7 million children under the age of 3 — our future doctors, teachers, engineers, and leaders. These youngest Californians represent about 4% of our state’s population and are from diverse backgrounds, with nearly 60% speaking a language other than English at home. Yet, for too long, they have been left behind in policy discussions and funding decisions.
The science is clear: 80% of brain growth happens by the age of 3, laying the foundation for a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. Every moment in which we do not invest in babies’ development is a critical missed opportunity to lay the foundation for our future.
That’s why babies urgently need high-quality, affordable early learning and care from birth. Unfortunately, for many families, this is either too expensive or unavailable, forcing parents into impossible choices between their careers and raising their children.
This dire shortage of care options affects more than just parents. When families can’t find high-quality, affordable care, the ripple effects are felt across workplaces, classrooms, and communities. Parents — and, in most cases, mothers — are often forced to leave the workforce, creating financial instability for their families, reducing career opportunities for women and decreasing the overall productivity in our economy.
To expand access and make early learning and care available to all of California’s children, our educators and caregivers need our support. These professionals, the majority of whom are women of color, are among the lowest-paid workers in the state. This chronic underinvestment has pushed many of them to leave the field, worsening an already extreme shortage of care.
We must expand the workforce because, while 36% of infants and toddlers qualify for subsidized care, only 14% have access to a space. But California — which has led the nation in taking bold action by creating access to universal preschool through the expansion of Transitional Kindergarten (TK) for all 4-year-old children and expanding access to state preschool to 3-year-olds — can close this gap.
It’s time to put solutions into action. Scaling successful models across early learning and care settings means expanding proven, high-quality programs to reach more children, especially those who live in communities that are under-resourced. By adapting these models to child care programs of all sizes — from home-based providers to large early learning centers — we can ensure more children have access to the education and support they need to thrive.
Here’s how we can act now:
- Continue to support reforms to child care reimbursement rates to reflect the true cost of care. The goal is to develop policies to give caregivers a just and livable wage.
- The Legislature and governor should move ahead with their plans to expand child care access to thousands more children of working-class families through the commitment to funding 200,000 new subsidized child care slots by the 2027-28 state budget, but they should target this access to infants and toddlers, because that is what families need the most.
- We must remove the roadblocks to opening new child care centers and home-based providers, such as: allowing new early learning and care teachers to obtain their required college courses while working, as well as speeding up the time it takes for state child care licensing to approve new facilities, as we are currently advocating for at the legislative level.
Let’s Do This, Together
By listening to families; supporting early learning educators and providers; and working collaboratively with our governor, the Legislature, state leaders, and our partners, we can build a system that works for everyone. The future of our state depends on the decisions we make today.
Our babies can’t wait. Let’s act now to ensure they get the support they need to thrive.
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Patricia Lozano is the executive director of Early Edge California, a nonprofit organization that advocates for accessible, high-quality early learning and care for communities that are under-resourced, with a primary focus on babies, toddlers, and preschoolers.
Scott Moore is the CEO of Kidango, a leading early childhood non-profit that serves thousands of low-income children and families.
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