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Imagining an equitable child care system

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Content Imagining An Equitable Child Care System
Nara Topp
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education
August 2024

© Copyright by Nara Laurel Topp 2024
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Nara Laurel Topp certifies the approval of this dissertation
Dr. Mark Robison, Committee Member
Dr. Lawrence Picus, Committee Member
Dr. Cathy Krop, Committee Chair
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2024

iv
Abstract
This study explores the principles and goals of an equitable child care system in the United
States. This is important because a significant gap exists between research findings
demonstrating the benefits of child care and child care policy. Despite research across the
disciplines of neuroscience, education and economics that highlights the importance of the child
care to young children, their families, and society, child care operates as a private education
system. Private education systems are inherently inequitable as family income is a barrier to
accessing child care. As such, the private child care system perpetuates significant disparities
rooted in race and income, with adverse effects and missed opportunities for children, families,
child care workers and society. Through in-depth qualitative interviews with eleven emerging
early childhood leaders, this study explores perceptions of equity, and ideas about child care
systems transformation. Findings underscore the significance of addressing historical inequities
and current power imbalances in developing a cohesive child care system designed for children
and families that provides just compensation for child care workers. Conceptualized with
Complex Adaptive System theory to guide the research and data analysis, another theoretical
framework, critical pedagogy was employed to describe the recommendations for practice. This
study contributes to the discourse on child care policy reform, offering insights valuable to
policymakers, advocacy organizations, foundations, and others committed to advancing an
equitable and sustainable child care system in the United States.
Keywords: child care, child care system, emerging early childhood leaders, child care
policy.

v
Dedication
With deep gratitude to a community of gracious and brilliant humans, including
Elders: Ida, Kathy, Jerry, and Connie
Sister: Macy
Children: Ingrid and Emilia
Mentors: Paul, Shelia, Harriet, Jeff, Carol, Deb, Natalie, and Jody
Colleagues: Jeanne, Ericca, Kinah, Renee, Marica, Rebecca and September
Many friends and supporters including Sarah, Steve, Barbara, Denise, Laura, Catherine,
Thierry, Steve, Judy, Mark, Barb, Liz & Matt
And the human closest to my heart: Trip
With deep appreciation for the trusted and compassionate guidance of Dr. Cathy Krop.
With tremendous thanks for the generosity and creativity of the eleven study participants.
What if we must learn to trust each other without guarantee?
Vanessa Machado de Oliveira

vi
Table of Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... v
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... viii
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ ix
Chapter One: Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1
Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................................ 3
Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................................... 5
Significance of the Study ............................................................................................................ 7
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 8
Chapter Two: Review of Literature ................................................................................................ 9
Who Benefits from Child Care? .................................................................................................. 9
Federal Child Care Policy and Funding .................................................................................... 20
Child Care System Inequities and Failures ............................................................................... 30
Theoretical Framework: Complex Adaptive Systems Theory .................................................. 36
Chapter Three: Methods ............................................................................................................... 40
Child Care System Overview .................................................................................................... 41
Population and Sample .............................................................................................................. 41
Data Collection and Instrumentation......................................................................................... 44
Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................ 48

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Credibility and Trustworthiness ................................................................................................ 49
Ethics ......................................................................................................................................... 50
Role of Researcher .................................................................................................................... 51
Chapter Four: Findings ................................................................................................................. 53
Overview of Participants ........................................................................................................... 53
Presentation of Findings ............................................................................................................ 57
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 88
Chapter Five: Discussion and Recommendations for Practice ..................................................... 91
Discussion of Findings .............................................................................................................. 91
Recommendations for Practice................................................................................................ 101
Limitations and Delimitations ................................................................................................. 110
Areas for Future Research ....................................................................................................... 111
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 112
References ................................................................................................................................... 115
Appendix A: Interview Protocol ................................................................................................. 131

viii
List of Tables
Table 1: Recruitment of Emerging Early Childhood Education Leaders 44
Table 2: Participants Professional Role and Region in which They Work 54
Table 3: Participant’s Described Three Principles of an Equitable Child Care System 59
Table 4: Principle 1: Apply Lessons From History and Sub Principles 70
Table 5: Principle 2: Rectify Power Imbalances and Sub Principles 77
Table 6: Principle Three and Four Supporting Goals 88
Table 7: Summary of Principles and Goals of an Equitable Child Care System 89
Table 8: Alignment Between HEAD UP Framework and Principles and Goals of an Imagined
Child Care System 96
Table 9: Recommendations from Imagining Child Care and Corresponding Study Principles 102

ix
List of Figures
Figure 1: Race of Participants 55
Figure 2: Complex Historical Analysis of Child Care in the United States 60

1
Chapter One: Introduction
Research across the disciplines of neuroscience, education and economics highlights the
importance of education in the early years of a child's life. Learning experiences of young
children are foundational to future learning as the brains of babies, toddler and preschoolers are
developing at a once-in-a-lifetime rate (National Research Council, 2000). Decades of
longitudinal research show that children who experience high quality child care have better
outcomes through their life span, including reduced interaction with the criminal justice system
(Campbell & Ramsey, 1994; Reynolds et al., 2002; Steinhart & Weikert, 1993). Looking beyond
the significant benefits to an individual child, economic analyses of child care show bolstered
individual level outcomes into adulthood associated with high quality child care, demonstrating a
financial return to society of eight dollars for each public dollar invested in high quality child
care (Heckman, 2010).
Parents also benefit from child care. Affordable, accessible child care increases
workforce participation of parents, particularly mothers (Casio, 2009; Fitzpatrick, 2012;
Morrisey, 2017). Without a public education system to rely on, parents of children under five
struggle to afford and find child care so that they can work to support their families (Center for
American Progress, 2020, Child Care Aware of America, 2020 Stanford, 2022). This dynamic
contributes to the labor shortage in the United States (Ferguson, 2024), where 22.8 percent of
women and 4.3 percent of men with children under six do not work full time (U. S. Department
of Labor, n.d). Today, child care in the United States largely operates as a private education
system where many children miss out on lifelong benefits of high-quality child care and society
misses out on the financial gains when children have improved outcomes (Heckman, 2010). Like
all private education systems, child care restricts access based on income and creates inequities

2
to access by income, race and ethnicity (McKay, 2022). The United States is continuing to
explore effective strategies used by many countries to increase labor supply through providing
low or no cost federally funded child care (Spring, 2014; Tankersley, 2023). For almost sixty
years, child care in the United States has been a federal responsibility, with the federal
government providing most of the public funding for child care for low-income families, through
the Head Start program established in 1965 and the Child Care and Development Block Grant
(CCDBG) initiated in 1990. This funding supports as many as 2.2 million children receiving
subsidized child care, which represents approximately 10% of the 22 million children under five
(Annie E. Casey, 2022).
The current system for child care in the United States is inequitable because 90% of
children do not receive public funding for their care and education, and the majority of working
families do not receive assistance in accessing child care. Of the 10% of children who receive
public support for child care, the two public programs available to low-income families do not
meet the comprehensive and complex needs of children and families. Head Start is designed as a
high quality child care intervention for low income children, not as a work support program for
parents (United Stated Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.). CCDBG is designed as
work support for low-income parents and does not require that the child care subsidy be applied
to high quality care (United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2021). The
narrow focus of the two programs precludes them from simultaneously meeting the needs of
children and families where children deserve access to high quality child care and parents need
access to child care to work (Annie E. Casey, 2023; Administration for Children & Families,
2023; Head Start, 2023; Lloyd, 2021). As we look to the future, an equitable federal system for

3
child care is necessary for children to thrive, communities to flourish, and a prosperous economy
(National Academies of Sciences, 2018).
Statement of the Problem
The United States is a global outlier in under-valuing child care for young children
(OECD, 2022), despite the numerous benefits of child care to children (Campbell & Ramsey,
1994; Reynolds et al., 2002; Reynolds et al., 2021; Steinhart & Weikert, 1993; Suilik et al.,
2023), families (Blau & Tenkin, 2007), employers (Lee & Hong, 2011), and society (Heckman,
2010; Rolnick & Gruenwald, 2003). The United States ranks 34th out of 38 peer nations in
spending on child care for children under five (OECD, 2022). Child care has a long history as a
federal responsibility (Llyod, 2022; Cohen,1996). The first peace-time investment in child care
began in 1965 with the inception of Head Start. The federal government expanded its role in
1990 by adding a second peace-time funding stream with the onset of the CCDBG. In the
intervening sixty years, Congress continued to expand their role in child care with steady funding
increases (Congressional Research Service, 2021). In 2022, Head Start and the CCDBG received
the highest funding to date, with 11 and 12.3 billion dollars, respectively (First Five Years Fund,
2024). In all states, federal funding through these two funding streams makes up the majority of
public support for child care. Even considering the steady increases at the federal level, child
care funding reaches only ten percent of children under five, falling short of the 59% of children
who receive care outside of their home (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019).
Furthermore, the highest-level to date of federal investments have not narrowed the gap between
United States and peer nations.
Two important points illuminate the significance of this federal under-investment. First,
child care is outside the definition of the common good even though it meets the definition by

4
serving “many people at the same time” (Stone, 2012, p. 75). Child care is experiencing a market
failure where the market will not bear what it costs to provide quality care (United States
Department of Treasury, 2021). While 59 percent of children under five attended child care in
2019 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2023), many parents struggle to pay for it (Center
for American Progress, 2020), many cannot find available spots for their children (Stanford,
2022), especially in rural areas, and many parents cannot afford child care at all (Child Care
Aware of America, 2020). Second, research finds a direct relationship between Children of Color
who participate in high quality child care and improved academic and social welfare outcomes.
Findings show that the implementation of quality practices in child care settings are the active
ingredient in these studies (Campbell & Ramsey, 1994; Reynolds et al., 2002; Reynolds et al.,
2021; Steinhart & Weikert, 1993). Six best practices are common across studies of high-quality
child care: low teacher, child ratios; developmentally appropriate whole child approach to
instruction with focus on language and literacy; family supports; teachers with qualifications and
compensation similar to K-12 teachers; culture of continuous quality improvement with
opportunities for feedback; and supportive leadership and context (Reynolds et al., 2021).
Quality conditions create the opportunity for children to receive individualized care and teaching
from child care teachers which promotes optimal learning (Puma, 2012). However, the daily act
of operationalizing quality in child care continues to be a challenge in the United States (Lipsey,
et al., 2015; Puma, 2012).
Despite a clear definition of what is needed to support child development along with what
parents need from child care to participate in the workforce, the current system lacks a cohesive
definition of quality child care practices and does not always support child care consistent with
parent work hours. Two federal funding streams provide families public assistance for child care:

5
Head Start and the CCDBG. Head Start originated in 1965 as part of President Johnson’s War on
Poverty (Cohen, 1996; Llyod et al., 2022) as a social justice strategy to support the whole child
development of low-income young children. Head Start is typically a part-day program that
mirrors the public-school calendar, and, as such, does not align to parental work hours. Child
care vouchers funded by the Child Care and Development Block Grant originated as part of
welfare reform to ensure that low-income parents could meet new work requirements and, as
such, are designed to offset the cost of child care during work hours. Unlike Head Start, the
CCDBG vouchers do not require child care programs to use quality practices (Llyod et al.,
2022). Thus, no current federal funding stream meets the full needs of children and parents or
creates a high-quality, equitable child care system.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to articulate a vision for an equitable federal child care system
in the United States. An equitable childcare system, as defined here, ensures a sense of belonging
for children of color, children from families with low-incomes, and all children, and promotes
their healthy growth, learning, and joy. It is stable and flexible, allowing parents to find and
access care that best suits their family's needs without facing financial barriers. Additionally, it
compensates workers with a living wage and benefits that reflect the vital role they play in
supporting children, families, employers, and society as a whole.
Data were collected through a set of one-on-one interviews with 11 emerging early
childhood education leaders focused on the following research question:
RQ: How do emerging early childhood leaders imagine the principles and goals of an
equitable child care system in the United States?

6
For the purposes of this study, child care is defined as a government regulated setting that
children experience prior to kindergarten entry. This definition is inclusive of Head Start
programs, school-based pre-kindergarten programs, regulated child care centers, and regulated
home based child care. Terminology in the early childhood field is complex as there are many
child care synonyms that imply false distinctions, such as, preschool, daycare, early learning and
development programs, nursery school, and pre-kindergarten. While the National Academies of
Sciences (2018) put forward the term early care and education that is the same as the definition
of child care in this study, there is not yet field-wide consensus on terminology. During the
pandemic, child care was commonly used instead of early care and education.
A qualitative approach was used to generate the rich descriptive data needed to develop
insights into a reimagined child care system in the United States (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). To guide the understanding of the data derived from interview responses,
Complex Adaptive System Theory (Duit & Galaz, 2008) was used. Complex Adaptive Systems
(CAS) theory is rooted in complexity theory (Duit & Galaz, 2008; Kiel & Elliott, 2021; Preiser et
al., 2018), which assumes that certain phenomena are non-linear, yet not random (Manson,
2001). CAS builds on complexity theory by exploring the phenomena associated with the
behavior of interconnected or networked systems (Duit & Galaz, 2008). CAS is an emerging
theory that is applied across multiple disciplines including man-made and naturally occurring
systems. For the purposes of this study, CAS is applied in the context of social science.Keil &
Elliot (2021) explain, “CAS are capable of exhibiting behavior that is “highly nonlinear and
unpredictable but clearly cannot be described as random” ( p. 12). Complex systems are
characterized as systems that are networked in ways that do not have clear cause and effect
relationships (Preiser et al., 2018).

7
Because child care operates in both the public and private sector, system changes are
non-linear, difficult to predict, yet not random, which is consistent with a Complex Adaptive
System. As a result of the lack of predictability, parents cannot count on being able to find or
afford child care, which makes workforce participation difficult, prevents economic stability for
families, and children miss the life-long benefits associated with high quality child care. Study
findings have the potential to begin to reimagine this complex system in ways that foster the
long-term benefits to children, families, child care workers, employers, and society.
Significance of the Study
Decades of research have found that high quality child care has short-, medium- and
long-term positive effects on the lives of children who participate in it (Campbell & Ramsey,
1994; Lipsey, et al., 2015; Puma, 2012; Reynolds et al., 2021; Reynolds et al., 2002; Steinhart &
Weikert, 1993; Suilik et al., 2023). Additionally, much has been studied and published about
how families (Blau & Tenkin, 2007), employers (Lee & Hong, 2011), and society (Heckman,
2010; Rolnick & Gruenwald, 2003) also benefit when children participate in high-quality childcare experiences. While the impact of high-quality child care is widely acknowledged, it has yet
to be fully realized in federal child care policy (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering,
and Medicine, 2018). The current bifurcated federal system consists of two funding streams with
discreet purposes that approximately ten percent of children under five access. This study is
significant because it sought to understand the perspectives of emerging child care system
leaders as they reimagined a system that can address historic racial, gender, regional, age-related,
and income inequities. Findings may be used by mission-driven stakeholders that include federal
child care policy in their scope of focus such as, think tanks, advocacy organizations, research

8
institutions, and foundations to chart a course forward for a future and more equitable federal
child care system.
Each stakeholder group plays a distinct role with the federal child care landscape and
may use the findings of this study in accordance with their role. Think tanks may use findings as
a focus area for comparative policy briefs. Frequently, think tank publications and leaders are
quoted in newspaper articles, such as the New York Times and Washington Post. Advocacy
organizations could use the principles and goals articulated in this study to inform priority setting
for federal advocacy agendas, whereby they educate the public and policymakers on key issues.
Finally, philanthropic leaders and program officers may use research findings in grantmaking to
think tanks, advocacy organizations, and research institutions with the aim of furthering a
common vision for equitable federal child care policy in the United States. As findings are
operationalized across sectors, stakeholder mind sets about what is possible for federal child care
policy may begin to shift, expand, and coalesce, which is critical for transformative policy to be
enacted.
Conclusion
This dissertation is organized into five chapters. Chapter One explained the background
of and current challenges related to federal child care policy in the United States as well as the
significance and purpose of the study. Chapter Two provides an overview of the literature on
child care, including the benefits, history, global context, current federal funding streams, and
systemic inequities. Chapter Three details the research design and methodology of the
dissertation study. Chapter Four describes the analysis and findings of the collected data. Chapter
Five lays out the discussion of finding, recommendations for practice, limitations of the study,
and suggestions for future research.

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Chapter Two: Review of Literature
This chapter provides research related to the topic of federal child care policy in two
sections. The first section provides an overview of who benefits from child care in the United
States, including children, parents, employers and society. The second section discusses federal
child care policy and funding streams. Topics covered include a brief history of child care,
current federal funding streams and child care system failures and inequities. The chapter
concludes with a discussion of Complex Adaptive Systems theory (CAS), the theoretical
framework guiding this study, through discussing its origins, key tenants and relationship to the
focus of this dissertation.
Who Benefits from Child Care?
Federal investment in child care for children under five in the United States supports less
than ten percent of children under five, despite ample evidence of the benefits to multiple levels
of the human ecosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1981): children, parents, employers, and society. Like
public education, child care helps children learn, parents work, businesses operate, and society
flourish. Unlike public education, child care in the United States is outside of a public good as a
service funded primarily by parents as a largely private education system in the free market. As a
result of the market-based approach, child care access is limited to parents who can afford it or
who receive a public subsidy through the federal Child Care Development Block Grant or Head
Start. Most families are left out from receiving the benefits (Region Track, 2022).
Benefits to Children from Child Care
The first five years of life are a period of rapid growth and development that happens
through relationships with adults like parents and child care workers. Learning during the early
years is critical to the long-term health and wellbeing of children because it

10
forms the basis of all future learning (National Research Council, 2000). The central
responsibility of child care, which occurs during this critical time in development, is to foster the
growth and development of young children (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, &
Medicine, 2018). A propensity of research shows that children receive life-long benefits from
child care, when the child care leaders create high quality settings with well-educated teachers,
developmentally appropriate curriculum, on-going child assessment, and low teacher-to-child
ratios (Campbell & Ramsey, 1994; Reynolds et al, 2021; Steinhart & Weikert, 1993). Six best
practices are common across studies that examine high quality care in child care, school based
setting, and the Head Start program: low teacher-child ratios; developmentally appropriate whole
child approach to instruction with focus on language and literacy; family supports; teachers with
qualifications and compensation similar to K-12 teachers; culture of continuous quality
improvement with opportunities for feedback; and supportive leadership and context (Reynolds
& Temple, 2008; Reynolds & Temple, 2007; Reynolds et al, 2021). Quality conditions create the
opportunity for children to receive individualized care and teaching from child care teachers
which promotes optimal learning (Puma, 2012).
Findings from two seminal experimental studies, the Carolina Abecedarian project and
High Scope/Perry Preschool program, show the life-long positive impact of high-quality child
care to children (Campbell & Ramsey, 1994, Heckman et al., 2010; Steinhart & Weikert, 1993).
These studies followed participants into adulthood and found a causal relationship between high
quality child care and increased school readiness, school performance, graduation rates, incomes,
and reduced teenage pregnancy, compared to their peers who did not receive high quality child
care. Significantly, the Perry Preschool study showed that children who experienced high quality
child care had reduced interactions with the criminal justice system into adulthood (Campbell et

11
al., 2012; Schweinhart, 2005). Conducted fifty years ago, Perry Preschool and Abecedarian
continue to provide the research basis that undergirds efforts to increase public investment in
child care in the United States (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine,
2018).
To date, the Abecedarian and High Scope/Perry Preschool studies have not been
replicated. Given the research showing the positive impact of high-quality child care on the lives
of children, funding another experimental design study would be unethical because researchers
could not knowingly offer some children no intervention and others a beneficial intervention.
Findings from subsequent studies of child care in community-based settings, Head Start
programs and K-12 schools validate some findings. For example, quasi-experimental studies
have found an association between children that participate in high quality child care and
increased language and literacy skills and graduation rates (Reynolds et al., 2002, Reynolds et
al., 2021, Suilik et al., 2023). While these studies use a less rigorous approach than the
experimental design of Abecedarian and Perry Preschool, many of these studies’ findings align
with the main findings of the seminal studies: high quality child care is associated with improved
child outcomes (Puma, 2012; Reynolds et al., 2002, Reynolds et al., 2021, Suilik et al., 2023).
Studies of child care provided in schools and in Head Start programs find a relationship
between children that experience high-quality child-care settings and short-term academic gains,
although these often fade quickly as students enter the public education system. Research
findings suggest that academic gains from Head Start diminish as children enter public schools.
Public school kindergarten classrooms are designed for children who did not experience the
benefits of Head Start. As a result, children who attended Head Start repeat content while their
peers catch up, which contributes to the fade out of the gains as their learning is slowed as their

12
peers catch up (Clements et al., 2013). In another example where initial gains fade, Vanderbilt
University conducted a study with over 3000 four-year-old children that were randomly assigned
either to attend school-based pre-kindergarten or not. Findings related to child outcomes were
mixed. Children who participated in pre-kindergarten initially experienced greater academic
outcomes in kindergarten than their peers who did not. However, they fell below their peers in
first grade, and then showed no positive effect by second grade. Lipsey et al. (2015) recommend
further investigation on how school-based settings implement high quality practices as a
mechanism to replicate the positive effects on children from earlier studies like the High
Scope/Perry Preschool project and the Carolina Abecedarian program. In a randomized control
study of Head Start, Puma et al. (2012) found gains for children that participated but only while
they were actively participating in it. Findings showed that academic gains faded by early
elementary school (Puma, et al., 2012). While both studies found positive outcomes for children
associated with high quality experience (Reynold et al. 2021), they explain the uneven impact on
children through the inconsistent implementation of quality practices within Head Start and
school-based child care settings alongside the role of the K-12 system in supporting early gains
into the elementary school years (Lipsey, 2015, Puma, 2012). The uneven impacts on children
demonstrate the complex challenge of implementing quality practices with fidelity in public
programs (Reynolds et al., 2021).
Further, findings from a quasi- experimental study conducted called the Chicago
Longitudinal Study with 1,539 Black (93%) and Hispanic (7%) preschool-aged children from
low-income families born in 1980 aligned with the Perry and Abecedarian findings. Using a
matching technique, the researchers matched identifying characteristics of children who received
high quality preschool to children who did not. Children experienced high quality preschool in

13
both school-based and community-based settings. Findings compared the quality preschool
group to the non- preschool group and demonstrated an association between participation in high
quality preschool and improved language and literacy skills, and long-term benefits of increased
high school graduation (Reynolds et al., 2002). Two more recent studies examined the
association between participation in a high-quality preschool experience and school readiness
skills, like language and literacy proficiencies (Reynolds et al., 2021; Suilik et al., 2023). These
quasi-experimental studies used a matching technique to compare four-year-olds that received
high quality school-based preschool to students who did not in St. Paul, Minnesota (Reynolds et
al., 2021) and San Francisco, California (Suilik et al., 2023). Findings replicated earlier findings
of the Chicago Longitudinal Study. Children who participated in high quality preschool
improved school readiness skills at kindergarten entry (Reynolds et al., 2002; Reynolds et al.,
2021; Suilik et al., 2023).
While the seminal randomized-control studies are the best evidence that high quality
child care affects children in positive ways over their lifetime, they are fraught with limitations.
First, the studies were conducted in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s before neuroscience
revealed the importance of brain development in young children (National Research Council,
2000). Therefore, the design of the high-quality interventions was unable to consider what we
know about how children learn. Second, given the small sample of Black children from lowincome families that were the participants of both studies, findings are not generalizable to all
children. Total sample sizes were 123 Black preschool children for High Scope/Perry Preschool
and 111 Black babies for the Abecedarian project. As designed, the number of children in the
intervention group who received high quality child care and experienced the benefits through
their life were even smaller, with 58 and 59 for High Scope Perry Preschool and Carolina

14
Abecedarian Project, respectively. Third, the implicit bias of the white researchers regarding
Black families is evident as they explain the rationale for their study. Ramsey and Campbell
(1994) explain their understanding of the connection between poverty and low school
performance for low-income children, “because no known genetic of physiological cause has yet
been identified to explain most cases of mild retardation, the psychosocial environment has been
implicated in the etiology” (pg. 684). In both studies, white researchers were testing the theory
that Black children from low-income families were better off in child care than in the care of
their mothers. This narrow view places the full responsibility of the high stress lives associated
with surviving through generations of systemic oppression rooted in the United States’ history of
slavery on the home environment. While high quality child care was found to have a positive
impact on children, much remains unexamined about the impact of systematic oppression on the
economic and emotional health of the child’s family and how that impacts child outcomes.
Finally, the longitudinal studies examine only individual academic, job and crime related
outcomes, not measures of social and emotional development or mental health. This narrow view
of child development misses key aspects like social and emotional well-being.
Taken together, experimental and quasi experimental studies highlight the importance of
defining quality, implementing it as part of everyday practice as well as creating the conditions
where children receive support to maintain the academic gains into the K-12 system (Lipsey,
2015; Puma, 2012). Additionally, given the limitations of seminal studies, more research is
needed to understand the impact of child care on children across all developmental domains,
including social and emotional. While the benefits to children are paramount when considering
the role of child care in the United States, parents also benefit. Child care can play a dual role for

15
families. Low-income children who participate in high quality child care can experience benefits
into adulthood, and it helps parents, especially mothers, participate in the labor market.
Benefits to Parents from Child Care
Whether or not child care has lasting benefits to children, we know that most American
families need child care. The majority of parents of young children work. According to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics (2022), in looking at parents of children under six, 63 percent of
mothers and 94 percent of father’s work. Consistent with global gender roles, U.S. mothers
spend more time caring for children than fathers (Schoonbrot, 2018). As a result, child care
access tends to allow mothers to participate in the labor force, whereas fathers participate with or
without child care.
Research suggests that formal nonparental care and access to child care centers is
associated with mothers maintaining employment (Hofferth, & Collins, 2000). Further, research
that examined availability of school-based prekindergarten and kindergarten and mothers’
workforce participation suggests that low-income mothers increase workforce participation when
their youngest child enrolls (Casio, 2009; Fitzpatrick, 2012; and Morrisey, 2017). Further, Blau
and Tenkin (2007) find large positive effects in workforce participation of mothers who receive
child care subsidies from the federal Child Development Block Grant. Researchers explain that
“child care subsidies may be an important determinant of employment among single mothers”
(Blau & Tenkin, 2007, p. 733). Other studies examine the relationship between the cost of care
and parental labor force participation and find that affordable child care has a positive
association with working, while higher cost child care has a negative effect on workforce
participation (Morrisey, 2017). A propensity of research supports a positive relationship between
access to affordable child care and workforce participation, especially for mothers.

16
As the United States looks for strategies to increase workforce participation considering
current worker shortages (Tankersley, 2023), the U.S. is beginning to explore a strategy used by
some developed countries to ensure an adequate labor supply through providing low or no cost,
high quality child care (Spring, 2014). An example from Quebec of universal child care
highlights the benefits and challenges of implementing an effective two generation policy, like
universal child care, and the large positive impact on mother’s workforce participation (Baker et
al., 2019). Quebec launched a universal child care program in 1997, starting with five dollars per
day full day care for four-year-olds and then transitioning to seven dollars a day care for children
from birth to four years old by 2000. As a result, regulated child care grew quickly, expanding
capacity at the rate of up to 16,000 spaces for children per year. As government spending
increased on child care, mothers’ workforce participation also increased, from 63% in 1996 to
75% in 2012. More mothers working had a positive financial impact on the overall regional
economy, estimated at 5.1 billion dollars (Fortune et al., 2012). While the increased income
generated by mothers improved the economic circumstances of participating families, research
suggests the rapid expansion of child care spaces led to low quality environments that had a
lasting negative impact on the non-cognitive behaviors of children (Baker, 2019). Thus, this
demonstrated the complexity of implementing new policies to advance positive gains for both
mothers and children.
When looking at gender differences in the care of children, mothers provide more care
than fathers (Craig, 2006; Pozzan & Cattaneo, 2020). As a result, mothers disproportionately
benefit from child care because it allows them the time needed to earn income from work to
contribute to the economic security of their families. In turn, employers benefit because parentworkers are needed to keep businesses operating.

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Benefits to Employers from Child Care
Employers of parents with young children rely on stable child care so that employees
have the time to work and keep their businesses running. For example, a study of parents who
used employer-sponsored on-site child care to care for their children were less likely to leave
their position and had more positive attitudes regarding their employment. Notably no effects
were found on absenteeism, which are attributed to the policy that children cannot attend child
care when sick (Kossek & Nichol, 1992) and the lack of stability in home-based child care can
contribute to mothers exiting the workforce (Gordon et al., 2008)
In another study, similar associations in increased employment retention were found
when employers subsidized child care for their employees (Lee & Hong, 2011). This study
examined four family friendly policies implemented in federal agencies: child care subsidies,
paid family leave, flexible working schedules, and telework. Researchers studied the impact of
these policies on employee turnover and agency performance. The strongest results were found
in the positive relationship between child care subsidy, employee retention and agency
performance. Lee and Hong (2011) explain that child care subsidies give federal agencies a
“competitive advantage” over other employers in the marketplace (p. 877). As the United States’
population declines and employers compete for a shrinking workforce, the role of employer
supported child care is resurfacing as a potential workplace benefit to increase the likelihood of
retaining workers (Tankersley, 2023).
The United States military child care system is a publicly funded system to support the
recruitment, retention, and quality of life of servicemembers. To stay competitive with civilian
employers and ensure that their workforce is ready, the Department of Defense has implemented
the largest publicly funded child care system in the United States. Until 1973, when the last

18
military draft ended, most military personnel were single men. Over the intervening fifty years,
more women have joined the military. In 2019, women comprised 16 percent of total armed
forces. As part of a package of benefits related to quality of life, the Department of Defense
offers child care benefits to over 200,000 children at the cost of one billion dollars per year. This
system employs over 23,000 child care workers who work in child care centers, home based
child care, provide home visiting and services as in-home nannies. While child care is not an
entitlement to service members, there is widespread use of the program. Families pay based on
their income through a fee set by a sliding scale. The military monitors the safety and quality of
all programs and has the authority to adjust services when issues arise. For instance, in 2016,
hours of operation for child care were extended to 14 hours a day instead of 12 to better align
with the parent work day. In another example, when waiting lists emerged and not all families
that wanted care could access it, measures were taken to increase compensation of child care
workers as an incentive to increase the supply of programs. Given the high priority of the
military in the context United States public spending, it is notable that child care has been
identified as a priority for over 30 years as a critical benefit to their employees (Congressional
Research Service, 2020)
Employers need parent workers to operate their businesses (Heckman, 2017; Spring,
2016). Due to gender roles, a lack of child care tends to constrain mothers’ participation in the
labor market. As evidenced by the investment and continued implementation of the Department
of Defense child care program for over four decades alongside the positive associations between
child care subsidy and employee retention for federal government workers, child care is
important to employee effectiveness and retention. While child care is not an entitlement of
military service, it is a subsidized benefit to support the core function of the military—readiness.

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Civilian and non-governmental employers also benefit from the readiness of workers to operate
their business when parents have accessible, affordable child care and given the analysis of
economists, society writ large also benefits.
Benefits to Society from Child Care
High quality child care can benefit society by creating a more inclusive society with more
productive working adults. The longitudinal findings from seminal studies show that high-quality
child-care experiences give low-income children the opportunity to start strong in their academic
performance, and over time, they pay more taxes and use costly public services less.
Longitudinal studies of Perry Preschool and the Carolina Abecedarian project show lasting
effects on the adult lives of the control group (Campbell & Ramsey, 1994; Steinhart & Weikert,
1993). A follow up study at age 30 for children who participated in the treatment and control for
the Carolina Abecedarian Project found a mix of strong effects and no effects for the intervention
group compared to the control group (Belfield et al. 2006; Campbell et al., 2012). The treatment
group was 4.6 times more likely to graduate high school, attend college, and more likely to delay
parenthood. At the same time, other key indicators showed no significant difference between
control and treatment groups like involvement with the criminal justice system and family
income. In contrast, an economic analysis of Perry Preschool participants at age forty found the
treatment group compared to the control group had more income, had paid more taxes, and had
less involvement with the criminal justice and welfare system. Both longitudinal studies state the
limitations of generalizability to only low-income Black children and cite validity concerns due
to a small sample size (Lindseth & Hanushek, 2009).
The findings from Perry Preschool have also been used to conduct an economic analysis
on the financial benefits to society. Multiple economists have undertaken the return-on-

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investment calculation using the Perry Preschool Study. Nobel Laureate James Heckman
improved on earlier work from Rolnick and Grunewald (2003) who reported a rate of return to
society of 16 percent to the Perry Preschool program and Belfield et al. (2006) who reported a 17
percent rate of return. Heckman addressed four weaknesses in the previous calculations to reach
a lower, but still positive, return on investment calculation. This lower bound estimate of a 7 to
10% yearly return for each tax dollar invested in child care shows that society benefits
financially when children from low-income families have access to high quality child care; an
investment which outperforms a typical year on the stock market (Heckman et al., 2009). The
credibility of James Heckman’s analysis contributes to the arguments for child care as a public
good because it makes an economic case, rather than the more common moral case about the
benefits to children and families (Rolnick & Grunewald, 2003). High quality child care provides
multifaceted benefits to children, parents, employers and society, but the impact is mitigated by
the acute inequities within the child care system and the policies that undergird it.
Federal Child Care Policy and Funding
Federal child care policy and funding in the United States has evolved over several
decades, reflecting changing societal needs and priorities. For example, during the recent global
health pandemic, the Great Depression, and World War II, the importance of child care has been
elevated resulting in a pattern of increased crisis-driven investment followed by a return to
previous levels of investments that are low compared to our global peers. Today, two primary
federal funding streams, Head Start and the Child Care Development Block Grant, serve about
ten percent of the twenty-two million children under five in the United States. As a result, the
child care system is structured as primarily a private education system which has inherent
inequities parents, children and workers by race, income, gender, community, and age.

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Brief History of Federal Child Care Policy
For the first century of the United States, families did not purchase child care services.
Traditional gender roles defined that mothers or other female family members cared for children.
During slavery, enslaved Black women were forced to care for the children of white slave
owners (Jones-Rogers, 2019; West et al., 2017). Gender and race have been central to child care
since the beginning of our country (Llyod, 2022). As such, dominant cultural values related to
gender and race provide the foundation to how child care is valued in the United States. From
approximately 1860, the very beginning of child care in the United States (Michel, 1999), the
forces of racism and sexism have been at play in who cares for children leading to unpaid and
undervalued labor. With these cultural norms at play from the beginning, child care finance
policy and child care system structures were development with assumptions that the labor of
women, and women of Color, specifically, were less valued than White men, resulting in an
expectation that child care should be provided for no or low pay (Turner & Turner, 2023). As
such, the current child care system in the United States is a fragmented, unstable, and
underfunded system that continues to pay workers, who are majority women and women of
Color, poverty-level wages (Lloyd, 2022). Any analysis of child care policy can be best
understood through the layered marginalization of racism, sexism, and the exclusion of young
children from public education (Crenshaw, 1989).
In the mid-19th century, individual communities and states began to intervene in the care
of children of low income families through the day nursery movement (Lloyd, 2022).
Philanthropic organizations, churches and some states provided subsidized or charitable child
care to families with low incomes to keep children safe as mothers worked. Another purpose of
day nurseries was to help immigrant children assimilate to the United States’ customs and norms.

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These programs were the origins of what we know today as child care centers. Closely following
the charity driven day nursery movement was the similarly named nursery school movement in
the early 1900’s (Cohen, 1996). The nursery school movement was also largely privately funded
by middle- and upper-class parents. In contrast to the day nurseries, nursery schools had an
explicit dual purpose to prepare children for the future and keep them safe. Audiences for the
nursery schools were children from families that could afford to pay for the service. The nursery
schools represented the first child care programs that focused on quality practices designed to
benefit children in the long run. Without government financing, only the families that could
afford this experience for their children could access it (Cohen, 1996; Michel, 1999).
Since the 1930s, the federal government has put in place temporary child care policies to
respond to three nation-wide crises: the Great Depression, World War II, and the COVID-19
global health pandemic. More lasting policies were enacted in 1964 and 1990 because of two
opposing social movements: the Civil Rights and the Welfare Reform movements, respectively.
Through child care policy, two distinct and mutually exclusive purposes have emerged: to
support parents while they work or to help children grow and develop (Cohen, 1996). (Neither
program pays workers a living wage.)
The federal government started financing child care for the first time during the Great
Depression through the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.). From 1933-1943, child care
facilities were built and staffed through federal financing. The purpose of the program was to
provide relief to stressed and unemployed parents and provide educational opportunities for
children. Because unemployment was widespread due to the poor economic conditions, many
families were eligible. About 72,000 children aged two to five participated in the emergency
nursery schools at the program’s height. Just as the W.P.A. emergency nursery school programs

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were sunsetting, World War II began leading to another emergency-funded child care policy.
The funds for the emergency child care fund were subsumed by the Lanham Act of 1940. The
purpose of the child care funding provisions of the Lanham Act was to create the conditions for
mothers to work to fill the workforce shortages due to men participating in the war effort. This
wartime only policy allowed for women of any income level who worked in the defense industry
to receive child care. Child care was provided as part of employment for a flat, daily fee. In
addition to subsidizing the care of children, the federal government covered the costs of the
construction and operation of child care facilities. The Lanham Act funding ended in 1946 and
the next national emergency that resulted in child care policy did not occur for seventy-three
years, during COVID-19 pandemic (Lloyd et al., 2022).
The years 1946 to 2020 were an emergency-free period for federal child care policy.
During this time, two social movements spurred lasting policy change. In 1964, as part of
President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, Head Start was funded (Lloyd et al., 2022). The
program was designed to promote the growth and development of children from very lowincome families. In the beginning of Head Start implementation, the program design assumed
that the mother did not work and was available to participate in parent engagement activities. In
other words, unlike the day nursery of the late 1800s, Head Start child care was not provided to
support mothers while they were at work. Like the purpose of the nursery school movement,
Head Start was designed to help children get ready for their future. Additionally, Head Start and
the nursery schools were designed to be exclusive and result in income segregation, with Head
Start available only to children from very low-income families and nursery schools only for
families that could afford to pay full cost. Research-based practices were used to ensure that
children received the highest quality service to prepare them for school and life. Head Start,

24
which is not an entitlement program, meaning that funding is capped and not all eligible families
can attend, has been reauthorized by the federal government continuously for almost sixty years
(Lloyd et al., 2022).
In 1990, the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) was authorized by
Congress as part of Welfare Reform, which sought to require low- or no-income women to work
to receive support. Under welfare reform, financial support for child care was contingent upon
women (majority) participating in eligible work, training or education activities. Funding for
child care subsidies flowed from the federal government to states with basic health and safety
requirements. Similar to the day nurseries, and unlike Head Start, the purpose of the child care
provisions of CCDBG was to keep children safe while their parents were at work. Under the
original CCDBG, five percent was set aside to improve child care program quality, which was
implemented at the discretion of state administrators (Cohen, 1996).
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic elevated the importance of child care overnight
(Goodhart, 2020). The federal government responded with unprecedented investments designed
to stabilize child care programs, increase the compensation of workers, and increase funding
available to low incomes parents (Llyod et al., 2022). The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and
Economic Security Act of 2020 and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 provided 3.5B and
39B to states to protect and expand child care, respectively. The impact of the recent federal
investment is still unfolding. Head Start received 750M under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and
Economic Security Act and 1B under The American Rescue Plan Act (Administration for
Children and Families, 2022).
Notably, two significant policy failures occurred in the last century, in 1971 and 2021. In
the late 1960s, advocates galvanized to pass the Comprehensive Child Care Development Act,

25
passed with support from both parties. This Act created a universal, sliding scale child care
program for the United States that was federally funded and locally administered. President
Nixon vetoed it citing the erosion of the family as the primary reason (The President of the
United States, 1971). In 2021, under a democratic majority in the House and Senate, President
Biden was unable to pass the Build Back Better Act which contained transformational policy and
financing reform for child care, which among its provisions would have capped parent child care
payments at seven percent of family income. This failure creates an opportunity to reimagine an
equitable federal child care system that works for children, families, and child care workers.
Build Back Better was designed to transform and stabilize child care as a follow up to
two consecutive federal COVID relief packages that included increased funding for Head Start
and the Child Care Development Block grant. First, in 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and
Economic Security (CARES) Act included $3.5 billion for CCDBG and $750 million for Head
Start to pay staff, adjust programming to meet the conditions of the global health pandemic and
purchase supplies related to the spread of COVID-19 (Llyod et al., 2022). Following in 2021, the
American Rescue Plan included $39 billion directed at child care provider relief and stabilization
as well as $1 billion for Head Start to reach more families and support staff (United States
Department of Human Services, May 4, 2021). For CCDBG, states have until 2025 to fully
expend the child care funding under the American Rescue Plan (Llyod, 2022). According to the
federal Administration of Children and Families, each state and territory has developed a plan to
expend child care stabilization funding based on the American Rescue Plan Act (2023). States
are required to return any unspent funds to the federal government. After federal relief funds are
spent, the financing for Head Start programs and federally funded child care development block

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remains uncertain and has potential negative impacts for children, families, child care workers,
and employers.
Federal Child Care Funding Streams
Most children in the United States participate in child care. From 2012 to 2022, 14.4
million children experienced care from an adult other than their parents each year. In the United
States, child care is outside of the definition of a public good, which means child care is not
perceived as benefiting the collective good and as such is not funded by federal tax dollars. Stone
(2012) explains that “it is hard if not impossible to charge people individually…” (pg. 75) for
public goods, like education. Even though child care benefits children, families, employers and
society, it is a service in the free market funded by parent pay instead of funded by tax dollars
like public school (Shafik, 2021). For families with low incomes, purchasing child care is often
cost prohibitive. Four million children under five in 2021 lived in poverty: 67,000 Native
American children, 993,000 Black children, 1.4 million Hispanic or Latino, 123,000 Asian or
Pacific Islander, and 1.1 million White and 873,00 who identify as multiple races. This
comprises 18 percent of all children under five (American Community Survey, 2022). To date,
federal policy targets low-income children through the funding streams of the CCDBG and Head
Start (Llyod, 2022).
Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG)
The Child Care and Development Block Grant is the primary funding mechanism to
subsidize child care for low-income families that support workforce participation. Resources
flow from the federal government to states to counties or social service organizations and finally
to the child care programs that parents choose in the form of a voucher. Ensuring that parents
have a choice in the child care setting for their child has been a central element of CCDBG

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policy since inception (Cohen, 1996; Herbst, 2023). To receive a child care voucher, parents
must meet income thresholds and participate in an eligible activity like work, school or training.
After a year of eligibility, parents must seek a redetermination of eligibility. Therefore, the
child’s participation in care is contingent upon the parents’ activities, including the interactions
with the administration of the programs; in contrast, to participation in public education where
children qualify on their own accord.
Federal funding for CCDBG started in 1990 as part of the welfare reform efforts under
President George H. W. Bush. In ten years, federal funding for states and territories has more
than doubled from 5.1 B in 2013 to nearly 11.5 billion in 2023 (Administration for Children and
Families, 2023). In 2013, 1.4M children 0-13 were served by CCDBG. Twenty-two percent
identified ethnicity as Latino, 76% not Latino, and 3% did not answer. In terms of racial identity,
43% of children were Black and 42% White. In drilling down to the children five and under,
920,000 children (66% of 1.4M) received a child care subsidy with the majority enrolled in
licensed child care centers, and with babies less likely to be enrolled in a child care center than
preschoolers (Administration for Children and Families, 2023). The Office of Government
Accountability compared the number of children eligible for federal child care subsidy in 2017 to
the number of children who received subsidy. Data show that only 14% percent of eligible
children receive child care subsidies (United States Department of Health and Human Services,
2020). With 86% of eligible children not using child care subsidies, the program is highly
underutilized as a support for working parents.
In 2020, there was a slight increase in participation in the CCDBG with 1.49M children
ages six weeks to 13 years old served with federal child care subsidies. According to the federal
office of child care, this increase is attributed to one-time policies that increased flexibility in the

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program due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, child care programs were temporarily
allowed to charge based on child enrollment rather than child attendance with the goal of
stabilizing revenue during the global health emergency. This temporary policy shift was to
support child care business stability. Of the children receiving subsidies, 38 percent were Black,
13 percent were Hispanic, and 26 percent were White. Most children using subsidies were under
five and, of children under five, the majority (at least 72%) enrolled in a child care center
(Administration for Children and Families, 2023) At the same time, from 2013-2020, the number
of children receiving child care subsidies remained stable. Additionally, child care centers
continued to be the setting of choice for most families. While the CCDBG is the only federal
funding stream that offsets the cost of child care for low income working families, it has a longstanding pattern of underuse by eligible families.
Head Start
Head Start is the primary program focused on the learning, growth and development of
low-income children under five. Resources flow from the federal government to local
community-based organizations. This resource flow is different from CCDBG funding that flows
from the federal government to state government. Typically, one position is funded within a state
to work in a state agency and facilitate service coordination with other similar and related
programs, although this position lacks authority to make decisions for the local programs. As a
result, coordination between child care funded by the Child Care Development Block Grant and
Head Start is challenging because the funding authority is distinct levels of government, state
and local, respectively. Since the inception of the program in 1965, yearly funding has steadily
increased to over ten billion dollars in 2020 (Head Start, 2023).

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For fiscal year 2021, Head Start was funded to serve 839,000 children five and under as
well as pregnant women and served 800,000. Of those enrolled, 37% were Hispanic, 27% Black,
24% White, 5% Multi racial, 3% Native American or Native Alaskan, 2% Asian, and .5% Pacific
islander (Head Start, 2023). More information is needed to understand what steps are necessary
to ensure that the gap between enrollment and funded slots does not continue. Some potential
explanations of the gap pertain to the workforce shortage in the United States, which is
constraining the Head Start program from finding enough staff to operate and serve children.
Other potential causes include changes in parent choice for child care settings during the global
health pandemic.
Even though the targeted population of low-income families with children for Head Start
and CCDBG are similar, the purposes are different. Head Start is designed to support the growth
and development of children by implementing quality practices similar to those used in the two
seminal studies of Perry Preschool and Abecedarian, as discussed above. In contrast, CCDBG
has no requirement related to the use of quality practices to foster child growth and development,
rather keeping children safe while parents work is the purpose of CCDBG. The two purposes are
similar to the original child care movements in the United States, the day nursery and nursery
school movements. With a laser focus on children, Head Start does not aim to also be a work
support for parents, with only 15 percent of Head Start programs operating during the calendar
year for the full workday (Head Start, 2023). Most states do not require programs receiving
CCDBG to use research-based quality practices that are associated with improving school and
life outcomes for children; however, they do require that basic health and safety practices be
implemented to receive child care vouchers (Administration for Children and Families, 2023).

30
In contrast to CCDBG, where the government does not collect information about the
educational level of the child care providers, Head Start collects information about the number of
workers as well as their education backgrounds. For example, 70% of child development
teachers working in Head Start have a bachelor’s degree and 22 percent are parents of enrolled
children (Head Start, 2023)
Neither Head Start nor child care subsidies through CCDBG meet the full needs of
families and children. Head Start is designed for children and CCDBG is designed for parents to
work. Therefore, no funding stream exists that is designed to subsidize high quality child care
while parents’ work. Given the propensity of research that shows that high quality child care is
associated with increased child outcomes, alongside the reality that two-thirds of children receive
care outside of their family, there is a gap between research and practice, laying the groundwork
for negative consequences for children, child care workers, families, and employers.
Child Care System Inequities and Failures
Child care system failures and inequities have far-reaching consequences for children,
families, and workers. Inequities by race, income, gender, and age prevent access to high quality
care for children and families and living jobs for child care workers. The level of federal
investment in child care supports a free market, consumer-based approach to private education
with barriers to access for children and families, as well as poverty level wages for child care
workers. The global health pandemic amplified the failure of the child care system even with the
unprecedented temporary federal investment of 50 million dollars. Without a vision for child
care policy for the future, the United States will continue to operate and fund child care as a
Complex Adaptive System which ensures that the system will be unstable and fragile.

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Current Inequities in the Child Care System
In the United States, children under five do not have the right to education. As a result,
twenty-two million children from birth to kindergarten entry receive child care largely as a
market-based service (Kids Count, 2023). This reality sits in contrast to the guarantee to public
education that states provide to children beginning between age four and seven (National Center
for Educational Statistics, n.d.). Because young children’s care and education is outside the
definitions of the public good, there is no system to support their participation in high quality
childcare. Federal funding supports quality child care for approximately 800,000 children under
five through the Head Start program and child care with no quality requirements for 1.4 million
children through the Child Care Development Block Grant. The public funding is fragmented
and inadequate as evidenced by the twenty million children whose child care is not covered. The
majority of families must cover the full cost of child care as part of their household expenses. For
child care businesses, the cost of operating is driven by the staff costs associated with the low
teacher: child ratios, typically 1:4 for babies, 1:8 for toddlers, and 1:10 for preschoolers, required
to deliver safe care. Since child care is a service in the free market, any costs of operating a child
care business are passed on to parents. As a result, child care businesses charge higher rates than
most parents can afford, especially low-income parents who are predominantly parents of Color
and have faced years of systemic oppression resulting racial disparities in family income.
Therefore, for most children, access to high quality child care is contingent upon parent income,
which leads to disparities in access by income and race (Heckman, 2017).
From a global perspective, the United States deviates from peer nations in the value
placed on child care. For instance, the United States is the only country not to ratify the U.N
Convention on the Rights of the Child. Created in 1989, this treaty articulates human rights for

32
children across multiple domains. Article 28 to 31 address the rights of children to have access to
education, play, speak their native language, and engage in artistic expression (Assembly, U. G.,
1989). Children in the United States are not guaranteed these rights as evidenced by absence
ratification, as well as the lack of public funding for child care. In another global example, the
United States is an outlier in the low investment in child care. Ranking 34th of 38 peer nations,
the U.S. spends about .5% of gross domestic product (G.D.P.) on child care with other countries
spending nearly 2% of G.D.P. The United States is an outlier globally in the gap between
research and policy when it comes to child care.
Further, child care workers are from historically oppressed groups in an undervalued
service industry. Women comprise ninety-two percent of the child care workforce, with half of
workers identifying as women of Color (Data USA, n.d.) Wage data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics from April 2022 shows gender disparities in wages with women making $.83 for every
dollar that a man earns. Within women, there are increased wage disparities for women of Color,
with Black and Hispanic women making 85% and 76% of the weekly earnings of White women
(Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 2022, p. 1). Child care workers earn on average $25,790 per
year compared to $61,350 for their public primary school counterparts (U. S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 2021). According to the Federal Register (2023), the poverty level for a family of four
in 2023 is $30,000 per year, placing the average wage for a child care worker within a family
under the poverty level. Many child care workers make less than the average wage. For example,
workers that care for babies and toddlers make less than their counterparts that care for
preschoolers (Gould et al., 2022). This wage penalty is disproportionately experienced by Black
child care workers (Austin et al, 2019). Low wages and large wage disparities are evidence of

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how systemic racism and sexism create the conditions that lead to high rates of worker turnover
that contributes to low-quality child-care experiences for children.
At the same time, parents in the United States struggle to find and afford child care.
According to a 2022 survey by Stanford University, 75% of parents with children under five
struggled to find child care of any type (Stanford, 2022). Child care is too expensive for families.
Child care is a major household expense, on par with housing (Child Care Aware, 2020).
Furthermore, child care is hard to find. Over half of Americans live in a child care desert or a
region where there are no or few child care slots available. Rural, Latino and low-income
families are more likely to live in areas with low or no child care supply (Center for American
Progress, 2020). As a predominantly privately funded service, child care access is inequitable as
there is no guarantee that it will be available for purchase or that the price will be affordable for
families. This reality impacts parents’ ability to find care for their children so that they can work
and provide the benefits to their children of economic security (Duncan & Magnuson, 2013).
Lessons From the Global Health Pandemic
Federal child care policy and funding has a historical pattern of crisis-based, unsustained, investments. During the Great Depression, World War II and the Covid-19 global
health pandemic, the United States has had short periods of recognizing the benefit of child care
to the public, parents, and children, which is followed by a return to previous levels of
insufficient funding, fragmented programs, and disjointed policy (Cohen, 1996; Lloyd et al,
2021). The current federal system, which is comprised of two separate funding streams with
different purposes, one for children and one for parents, does not serve 90 % of families with
young children (Administration for Children & Families, 2023; Annie E. Casey, 2023; Head
Start, 2023). For 10 % of families served, the programs do not meet the comprehensive and

34
complex needs of children or families, especially for children and families from historically
oppressed groups. Furthermore, the persistent market failure for child care creates the conditions
where child care prices require workers exploitation through poverty wages and poor working
conditions (United States Department of Treasury, 2021). These conditions add up to a child care
system where the quality of care for children is compromised and the availability of child care
for parents is unreliable. Overall, the federal child care system is not available to most families in
the United States, failing those that it is available to, and lacking a path to an equitable system.
In contrast, child care is vital to the recovery of the United States from the COVID-19
global pandemic (Bauer et al., 2021). An equitable child care system is needed so children
experience benefits that prepare them for school and life, parents can work, and employers can
profit. With the lack of stability in child care during the Covid-19 pandemic, children, families,
employers, and society experienced detrimental consequences. Because Head Start’s purpose is
to promote child development, not to provide child care for working parents, at the onset of the
pandemic, unlike child care programs, Head Start programs were free from the pressure to
provide child care for emergency workers. As a result, Head Start programs ceased serving
children during the pandemic to protect children and staff from the spread of the COVID-19. In
contrast, child care funded by CCDBG, which aims to support parents while they work,
struggled to remain open to care for the children of emergency workers like doctors, nurses, and
fire fighters. Child care was not dependable because it was forced to close, shorten hours or
reduce the number of children they cared for due to staff or child illness or staff shortages.
McLean et al. report that 166,000 child care jobs were lost in the first six months of the
pandemic, which is a 17% reduction in an already under-supplied market (McLean et al., 2021).
As a result, children missed the life-long benefits of high-quality child care (Campbell et al.,

35
2012; Schweinhart, 2005). Parents who cannot find child care struggle to participate in the
workforce, especially mothers. In a survey conducted by Stanford University of parents with
young children during the global health pandemic, thirty-nine percent of women reported that
they had changed work schedules and status by either reducing hours or exiting the workplace,
with lack of access to stable and reliable child care identified as a contributing factor (Fischer,
2022). Employers across the nation continue to struggle to find enough workers to keep their
businesses operational (Guilford, 2022). Given the negative consequences of child care
instability, the federal government made an unprecedented 48.7-billion-dollar investment in
strategies to shore up the CCDBG and Head Start through three federal relief packages
(Administration for Children & Families, 2023).
Using a historical lens, the increased federal investments in child care during the global
health pandemic are similar to the investments after the Great Depression and World War II.
After these two nation-wide crises, the United States made temporary investments in child care
to ensure that mothers could work to support the war effort in World War II or parents could
work or look for a job during the Great Depression (Cohen, 1996; Michel, 1999; Lloyd et al.,
2022).
The historically significant child care provisions of the failed Build Back Better Act were
transformative and acknowledged the importance of a federal child care system and the
inadequacy of the current funding stream of the Child Care Development Block Grant and Head
Start programs. Policy was designed to follow the temporary COVID investments in child care
with significant increases in funding and shifts in policy to create a more stable and widely
available child care system in the United States (Lloyd et al., 2022). The recent failure to
advance comprehensive federal child care policy alongside the historic racial reckoning that

36
followed the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the context for this
study that seeks to understand how a federal child care system could be reimagined to advance
racial, economic, age, regional, and gender equity.
Theoretical Framework: Complex Adaptive Systems Theory
Theory Overview
Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory is rooted in complexity theory (Duit & Galaz,
2008; Kiel & Elliott, 2021; Preiser et al., 2018), which assumes that certain phenomena are nonlinear, yet not random (Manson, 2001). CAS builds on complexity theory by exploring the
phenomena associated with the behavior of interconnected or networked systems (Duit & Galaz,
2008). Systems of interest to CAS are those that have:
many interacting parts where changes in one element of the system affect other elements
– and the behavior of the system as a whole cannot be inferred from any of the individual
components. CAS are capable of exhibiting behavior that is highly nonlinear and
unpredictable but clearly cannot be described as random (Kiel & Elliott, 2021, p. 12).
Complex systems are characterized as systems that are networked in ways that do not
have clear cause and effect relationships (Preiser et al., 2018).
A post-positivist approach, CAS theory makes the ontological assumption that reality
exists and is highly complex (Preiser et al., 2018). Because of this complexity, the
epistemological assumption is that reality can only be approximated by identifying broad
patterns of system behavior (Lochmiller & Lester, 2015). CAS is an emerging theory that is
applied across multiple disciplines including human-made and naturally occurring systems. For
the purposes of this study, CAS is applied in the context of social science. Common definitions
of system components have yet to be developed (Duit & Galaz, 2008; Kiel & Elliott, 2021;

37
Preiser et al., 2018). Complex Adaptive System theory consists of components, principles, and
effects.
There are three essential components of Complex Adaptive Systems theory: systems,
agents within systems, and the environment in which systems exist (Duit & Galaz, 2008; Preiser
et al., 2018). As a theory designed to describe behavior and dynamics, CAS entails multiple
networked systems with multiple connection points. Each system includes people or actors that
are referred to as agents. Agents work within the system (Duit & Galaz, 2008) and may have
overlapping or redundant roles (Preiser et al., 2018). The systems and the agents within them
interact with the environment in which they exist (Preiser et al., 2018).
Six principles describe the CAS components (Preiser et al., 2018). First, agents adhere to
behavioral norms (Duit & Galaz, 2008). Second, agents have the capacity to self-organize within
and across systems. The extent to which self-organization or collective action occurs is
influenced by the transaction costs related to any interaction (Duit & Galaz, 2008). Third,
information is available about systems, including data on inputs and outputs. In other words, the
systems are not closed (Preiser et al., 2018). Fourth, all CAS components—the systems, agents,
and environments—are capable of change. Changes cannot be explained through linear causality
(Preiser et al., 2018). Fifth, systems operate at multiple levels with different governance
structures (Duit & Galaz, 2008). Sixth, CAS are context- or environment-dependent (Preiser et
al., 2018).
System effects are the patterns of behavior that CAS exhibits. While effects are nonlinear and non-predictable, they can be described and categorized because they are not random.
Threshold, surprise, and cascade effects are the three categories of CAS behavior. Threshold
effects are similar to the concept of a tipping point popularized by Malcom Gladwell (2006),

38
where small changes can produce disproportionately large system effects. In other words, system
inputs do not match system outputs. Surprise effects result because the systems are networked,
and, as a result, changes in one system can create unexpected changes in the others. With
multiple points of connection between systems, it is challenging to predict how systems will
behave because interactions between agents are non-linear or difficult to forecast. Cascade
effects describe the longer-term consequences of surprise and threshold effects across time and
level on interrelated systems (Duit & Galaz, 2008; Preiser et al., 2018).
Application to U.S. Child Care System
CAS operates in unpredictable and non-linear ways which presents problems for humans
that depend on system outputs to meet their basic needs. People with the least resources are
harmed the most by surprise, cascade, and threshold effects because they have fewer resources
employed to respond to unexpected system behavior. Because of centuries of historic codified
oppression, Black, Brown and Indigenous people experience lower levels of generational wealth
and higher rates of poverty (McKay, 2022). Therefore, historically marginalized populations are
more at risk of acute and negative interactions with CAS that are tied to meeting basic human
needs, like food, housing, and education. For this reason, it is critical to apply CAS in the context
of public policy (Levin et al., 2013).
The early childhood system is a Complex Adaptive System (Gomez, 2008). Parents
depend on three interdependent, yet independently governed systems that operate at multiple
levels so that they can work to support the economic well-being of their families: federally
subsidized child care, Head Start, and child care services purchased in the free market.
Understanding access to child care finance through the schema of Complex Adaptive Systems
theory provides a framework to explain the behavior of system agents and their interest in

39
collective action to improve system dynamics to benefit children and families. My study
examines how system agents conceptualized equitable principles and goals for an equitable child
care system. Interviewees shared their perceptions of dynamics between agents and system
dynamics, as well as described transaction costs between agents in the system. The study
analyzed the commonalities and differences in agents understanding of the child care system
dynamics and context to identify study findings. Once study findings were identified, they were
interpreted with the theoretical framework of Complex Adaptive Systems theory as part of the
discussion of findings.
In conclusion, Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory offers a valuable framework for
understanding of the current U.S. child care system. By recognizing the non-linear and
unpredictable interactions between agents, systems, and their environments, CAS helps shed
light on the challenges and barriers experienced by families, especially those from historically
marginalized communities, in navigating the complex and confusing child care ecosystem.
Through exploring the perspectives of emerging early childhood leaders of the current and future
imagined child care system, the research contributes to a nuanced understanding of how
collective action and policy can be designed to improve the day to day experiences and lives of
children, families, and child care workers.

40
Chapter Three: Methods
This study was designed to help define the goals and principles of an equitable federal
child care system in the United States. Study findings have implications for federal level policy
priorities for child care. The goal was to help clarify criteria for child care system transformation
critical to advance racial, gender and age equity from the perspective of emerging leaders in
early childhood education. Emerging leaders are important because they will be leading the
sector to the next policy window. Potential long-term beneficiaries include children, families,
workers, employers, and society. Short-term beneficiaries may include mission-driven
organizations like philanthropy, advocacy organizations, research institutions, think tanks, and
government agencies that include federal child care in their purview.
Qualitative methods were used to generate the rich descriptive data needed to develop
insights into a reimagined child care system in the United States (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). Through a set of one-on-one interviews with emerging leaders in early childhood
education, the study captured their perspectives on the principles and goals for future, equitable
federal child care policy. The guiding research question for this study is:
RQ: How do emerging early childhood education leaders imagine the principles and
goals of an equitable child care system in the United States?
This chapter outlines the research design, including the system for data collection and
analysis. As such, this Chapter provides an overview of the federal child care system, describes
the sampling and recruitment procedures, delineates the methodological approach for data
collection and analysis, and discusses the ethics and positionality of the researcher related to the
study.

41
Child Care System Overview
The area of focus for this study is the federal child care system. The federal child care
system is comprised of two primary funding streams: Head Start and the Child Care
Development Block Grant (CCDBG) with distinct and separate purposes (National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018). The purpose of Head Start is to support child
development for low-income children through the implementation of quality standards designed
to bolster learning and development. Head Start is not designed to care for children when their
parents work as 85% of Head Start programs do not align with typical work schedules and are
offered part day, part year. In contrast, the purpose of the Child Care Development Block Grant
is to help working low-income parents pay for child care through a child care voucher. Unlike
Head Start, child care funded by CCDBG is not required to meet research-based quality
standards, only basic health and safety standards. The federal government provides most funding
to states for both Head Start and the Child Care Development Block Grant. For Head Start,
federal funding is not allowed to exceed 80%, with states and local communities contributing at
least twenty percent of the cost (United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2023).
For the Child Care Development Block Grant, the federal government does not require a state
match (Administration for Children and Families, 2021).
Population and Sample
The purpose of this study was to understand how emerging leaders in early childhood
education imagine the principles and goals of an equitable child care system in the United States.
In-depth, descriptive information was needed to understand the knowledge, thoughts, feelings
and ideas of emerging leaders in early childhood education. Qualitative research methods are
designed to yield data consistent with the purpose (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Semi-structured

42
interviews were conducted with 11 emerging leaders in early childhood education, as this
method provided a balance of structure and flexibility to ensure that participants conveyed the
best available data (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Data saturation was reached after the eighth
interview, as no new themes were identified in interviews eight to 11 (Creswell & Creswell,
2018). Despite reaching saturation, interviews nine, 10 and 11 were completed as scheduled
with data from the three interviews after saturation reinforcing and deepening the description of
study themes.
Emerging leaders in early childhood education were the populations of focus. The
characteristics of an emerging leader in early childhood education were defined as follows: an
early or mid-career early childhood education professional, over 18 years old, working in a nonprofit organization, higher education institution, government entity, or in a consulting role, with
current job responsibilities including child care policy inclusive of Head Start and the Child Care
and Development Block Grant.
Recruitment of Emerging Early Childhood Education Leaders
To select potential participants, I used multi-tiered purposeful sampling through a
qualitative approach (Johnson & Christensen, 2015). After University of Southern California
Institutional Research Board (IRB) approval, I began the first tier of purposeful sampling for
recruitment. As a first step, I beta tested an introductory email with a study information sheet
with my chair for clarity, and we discussed strategies to increase the likelihood of participation.
Then, I used convenience sampling to identify three national leaders in my network. In an effort
to ensure that a cross section of political beliefs was included in the study, one of the three
national leaders identified herself as politically conservative. The political affiliation of the other
two was unknown. I sent the tested email and information sheet email to three national leaders in

43
early childhood education policy. I requested their assistance in identifying emerging leaders for
my study. All three responded. However, only two of the national leaders provided contact
information for emerging leaders that they determined aligned to the study definition of
emerging leaders. In some cases, the national leaders sent an advance email to the emerging
leader to alert them of the upcoming correspondence from me. One national leader, the
conservative leaning leader, did not send contact information or clear recommendations on
potential recruits. When asked if they would consider being interviewed, they did not respond.
The second tier of purposeful sampling began after I received the names of eight
emerging leaders as identified by the other two national leaders. Given my positionality, as a
program officer at a national foundation who provides funding for early childhood education
focused organizations, I eliminated any potential recruits that worked for organizations in the
grant portfolio that I manage. This elimination was employed to address the power dynamic
between grant maker and grantee as a factor in the data collection process. As a result, two
recruits were eliminated (See Table 1) because they worked for organizations that were
represented in the grant portfolio that I managed for a large national foundation. I sent
recruitment emails to the six remaining emerging leaders where I mentioned that they had been
recommended for my study by the national expert. Five responded and were interviewed.
To begin the third tier of purposeful sampling, I employed chain sampling (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016) where interviewees identified other potential recruits for the study based on
sample criteria. I shared with each of the five round one participants during the interview that I
would be following up with an email to request additional recommended emerging leaders as
participants. The original five participants collectively recommended nine emerging leaders. I
employed the elimination criteria based on my positionality and found no overlap with the grant

44
portfolio that I managed; as result, none of the nine recruits were eliminated. I contacted each by
email using the tested email and study information sheet. Of the nine, two did not respond, one
responded outside the time parameters of data collection, and six were interviewed.
Table 1
Recruitment of Emerging Early Childhood Education Leaders
Tier Recommended Eliminated No response Interviewed
One: Requested 3 national leaders recommend emerging leaders for recruitment
Two 8 2 1 5
Three 9 0 3 6
Total 17 2 4 11
Data Collection and Instrumentation
Interviews
The goal of the research study was to understand how emerging leaders in early
childhood education imagined the principles and goals of an equitable child care system in the
United States. Research is a systemic approach to understanding a phenomenon (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). Qualitative research systematically examines how people make meaning of their
experiences. The most common method in qualitative study is interviewing. Interviewing is used
as a mechanism to gather data through the words of people, describing their thoughts, feelings
and beliefs. (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This study aimed to understand the perspectives of
emerging leaders in early childhood education on the goals and the principles of an equitable
child care system. According to Seidman (2013), “…individuals’ consciousness gives access to

45
the most complicated social and educational issues, because social and educational issues are
abstractions based on the concrete experiences of people” (pg. 7). As such, the qualitative
method of interviewing is best designed to gather the rich descriptive data from participants
needed to develop an understanding of the topic of focus.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eleven emerging leaders in early
childhood education. This sample size proved to be efficacious as saturation of the data occurred
after the eighth interview (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). As mentioned previously, the final three
interviews were already scheduled and were completed as planned. The semi structured method
provided a balance of structure and flexibility to ensure that participants conveyed the best
available data (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). A 18-prompt interview protocol (Appendix A) with
three distinct sections guided the conversation and ensured that all the pertinent lines of inquiry
were included in each interview (Patton, 2002). The flexible nature of the semi-structured
interview approach allowed the researcher freedom to explore lines of inquiry with interviewees
based on their unique responses to prompts. The semi-structured interview protocol struck a
balance between gathering key information to answer the research question and the flexibility to
respond to the unique circumstances of each interview (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Interview questions were constructed to elicit detailed responses from participants
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). All questions were designed to be open-ended, meaning that they
could only be answered with multiple words of the participant (Patton, 2002). To formulate the
questions of the interview protocol, the research question was deconstructed into equity, child
care and system. Further, using Complex Adaptive System Theory, key system agents were
identified (Duitz & Galaz), namely children, families and child care workers, the system was
identified (child care) and the context was identified, the present in the United States. Questions

46
were designed to tap into the reflections of participants by using verbs like define, understand,
paint, describe, imagine, and think. These verbs were used with the intention of activating the
long-term memory of participants related to the topic of an equitable federal child care system.
To keep the participants engaged, question structure was varied and addressed three categories of
questions: hypothetical, ideal, and interpretive (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). While questions were
asked iteratively within each section, the sections were in a prescribed order: 1) the professional
journey of interviewee, 2) reimagining a new future for child care, and 3) path to ideal (Patton,
2002). A question that linked to the personal experience of the participant with child care was
asked early in the interview to activate more nuanced and emotion-based responses. Interview
questions were reviewed with the dissertation committee and before administering the semistructured protocol.
Careful attention was given to interview logistics with the goal of establishing a positive
rapport with each participant. The sense of care and safety undergirded the relationship between
the researcher and the participant (Rubin & Rubin, 2012). I shared with the participants the
conditions that I had created so that they could be confident that their perspectives were handled
to protect confidentiality. At the onset of the interview, I shared the purpose of the study and my
commitment to share findings with the hope of advancing the field of child care. The next
commitment shared was my commitment to them to honor the confidentiality of their
information. Confidentiality was protected in three ways. I de-identified any notes that I took,
they consented to having the interview recorded by clicking a box in Zoom, and I stored the
interviews and resulting transcripts on a password protected personal computer and cloud server.
I did not communicate in writing or verbally anything that linked the participant to their
perspectives. I explained that the information that they shared with me would be combined with

47
the words of all the other participants to create themes, and de-identified quotes were used to
support themes. I directly asked for the participant’s consent to record the interview. Given the
design of Zoom recordings, each participant had to act by clicking a button on their screen that
indicated that they agreed to the recording before the recording would begin.
Each participant participated in a forty-five minute to one-hour long interview. The
semi-structured interview instrument allowed for a conversational approach that covered all
necessary topics. All interviews were conducted in English using the virtual meeting platform
Zoom. For Zoom to work effectively, I conducted the interviews exclusively from my home
office. The interview was hosted from my personal computer using Zoom access through the
subscription held by the University of Southern California. My home office proved to be an
environment where disruptions were controlled and minimized. In one instance, I got a bloody
nose during an interview and had to leave the room briefly. To keep my appearance consistent
and reduce variables between interviews, I wore the same outfit in all the interviews.
At the agreed upon time for the interview, I logged on to Zoom five minutes prior to the
interview to ensure that my device was working properly, and the lighting was sufficient to
capture facial expressions. Contingent on the consent of the participant, I used Zoom to record
and transcribe the interview. Numerous tests were conducted with Zoom to ensure efficient use
of it with the aim of smooth operation during the interviews. In addition to verbatim transcription
of the interviews, I took handwritten notes in one hardcover notebook. Even though the notes did
not identify participants by name, the notebook was kept in a secure location. For each interview,
I set a timer for ten minutes prior to the one-hour mark as a signal to me to re-evaluate the
conversation, if needed, and to ensure that all key questions had been covered. Five minutes
before the interview concluded, I asked the participant if they had any further reflections or

48
questions. The concluding question focused on their recommendation of other participants that
would be a good match.
Data Analysis
Transcripts for all interviews were analyzed and coded for common themes. A priori
coding was developed based on the research question: How do emerging early childhood
education leaders imagine the principles and goals of an equitable child care system in the
United States? and the Complex Adaptive System Theory framework (Duit & Galaz, 2008;
Harding, 2013; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). For example, children, parents, child care workers, as
the system agents, were a priori codes alongside codes generated from the research question like
equity, principles, and goals. Empirical codes were developed throughout the course of data
analysis (Harding, 2013). Empirical and a priori codes were analyzed and sorted for
commonality and difference through all four phases of data analysis.
The first phase of data analysis started with my first review of all the transcripts by
applying the a priori codes using comments in google documents. Empirical codes were
gradually developed while I read through each transcript, also using the comment feature in
google documents (Harding, 2013). The second phase of data analysis occurred in a second
review of all the transcripts where I charted the frequency of similarities and differences by
interviewee in a spreadsheet. Each interviewee was assigned a number. Through this analysis, I
identified patterns in the coded data and consolidated data with like codes into themes. Analytic
techniques, such as attending to word choice, expression of emotion, and time in the data were
employed to develop a nuanced understanding. Additionally, to develop a deeper understanding
of key concepts from the data, I revisited the transcripts frequently and relistened to interviews
when I identified a need for further clarification.

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Credibility and Trustworthiness
Because researchers are the primary instrument in qualitative studies, multiple strategies
to ensure credibility and trustworthiness were enacted throughout the study. Three strategies
were enacted during the design phase. First, the maximum variation sampling procedure was
selected to ensure that diverse perspectives were included in the data (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Emerging leaders in early childhood education were identified by national leaders to reduce my
bias and resulted in the sample of participants with diverse experiences and perspectives.
Secondly, the variety in organization types represented in the sample contributed to the
credibility of the data because by using multiple data sources, data were derived from the
multiple professional lenses of participants and resulted in a more complete picture of a
phenomena. The use of multiple data sources in qualitative research design offsets the risk that
one source would dominate the data because each data source offsets the other which is referred
to as triangulation (Maxwell, 2013). Third, in qualitative research, one of the most significant
challenges is to manage the biases of the researcher. Prior to engaging in the study design, I
documented my assumptions and beliefs about the context for the study and the research
question. Given my decades of work in the field of early childhood education policy, I hold a
complex set of beliefs about it. Articulating my positionality is the first step to documenting the
bias that I would have had as the primary instrument of the study in its design as well as the
collection and interpretation of the data (Maxwell, 2013).
During the data collection and analysis process, I continuously reflected on my
positionality and potential biases, which was augmented using four strategies to foster the
credibility and trustworthiness of study findings. First, I was deeply engaged in data collection
by delineating steps to implement processes consistently before, during and after the study to

50
ensure a systematic approach was used to collecting and interpreting the data (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). Secondly, through the systematic documentation of multi-tiered recruitment and
coding processes, an audit trail was created to ensure that best practices in qualitative research
were employed. Third, I conducted regular collaboration calls with my dissertation chair to
conduct a peer review of my data analysis (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). By tapping the expertise
and the fresh perspective of a peer, I offset the risk of blind spots in my data analysis given my
two-decade tenure in early childhood policy. Peer review combined with attention to the
saturation of the data, the phenomena where themes consistently emerged and were repeated,
assisted in addressing the role of researcher bias in data analysis.
Ethics
The primary responsibility as a researcher is to do no harm to participants (Rubin &
Rubin, 2012), and even better, to improve their conditions through the impact of the study
(Lochmiller & Lester, 2017; American Educational Research Association Council, 2011).
Because participants are the fulcrum of research yet lack positional power, I designed all aspects
of my study to offset the power dynamic. Through a one-page document describing the study
that I distributed to the participations, I was transparent about the purpose of the research, my
openness to have a conversation about any questions, emphasized their agency to enter and exit
at any time, and described how their data was stored in a password protected computer (Glense,
2011). Key points were reiterated in email correspondence and incorporated into the interview
script. Furthermore, to understand and address the power dynamics related to identity markers
like race, class, gender, age and professional rank, I engaged in intentional self-reflection
(Rodgers, 2002) and consultation with others to understand myself as a fluid, cultural being with
blind spots (Crenshaw, 1989). While the core commitments to confidentiality and transparency

51
remained constant, insights gathered through self-reflection and trusted conversations were used
to adjust and correct practices throughout the study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
My dual role as researcher and foundation professional required special attention to
ensure that deception was avoided in favor of role clarity (Glense, 2011). Given the power
dynamic between foundations and organizations who receive grants from them, selection criteria
for recruiting participants from the identified pool of emerging leaders in early childhood
education entailed careful consideration of the relationships between the leaders’ employer and
mine. For example, leaders from organizations within the portfolio of grants that I managed were
excluded from recruitment. For the emerging leaders in early childhood education that were
identified for recruitment, I shared a statement about my dual roles (Rubin & Rubin, 2012) and
clearly stated that the study was conducted only in my role as a doctoral student. Even so, being
transparent about my profession allowed each leader to assess risk (Glense, 2011) that they may
have associated with being interviewed by a foundation program officer.
Role of Researcher
In qualitative research, the researcher is the primary instrument of the study. As such, I
examined myself systematically to reflect on my relationship to the subject of study, participants
of the study, and the overall context of the research question (Holmes, 2020).
I became interested in early childhood education as an undergraduate studying the
liberatory education pedagogy of Paulo Freire. Based on my lived experience, I hypothesized
that students would stand a better chance of reaching their full power and potential if they started
finding their voice and talents as young children. Young children learn best through relationships
with caring teachers that believe in the deservedness and agency of all young humans. As one of

52
the participants put it, children do best when they are cared for by adults who "delight in their
care."
Over my career in early childhood education policy, I have endeavored to describe the
child care system conditions that I perceived. This study included. My latest hypothesis is one
way to transform child care policy is through a pivot to solution orientation. To date, the field
has done well in describing and defining the problem. My purpose was to interview emerging
leaders in early childhood education to understand what they imagine as the vision for a child
care system of the future. I chose emerging leaders because five decades separated the two major
yet failed attempts at passing federal child care policy at scale; at this pace, today's early and
mid-career professionals are likely to lead the country through the next attempt at child care
system transformation. Part of their leadership will be constructing alternative child care
systems. The interviews revealed rich descriptions of what is possible and gave me hope for the
future.

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Chapter Four: Findings
The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate, from the perspective of emerging
leaders in early childhood education, the research question: What are the goals and principles of
an equitable child care system in the United States? Data were gathered through eleven 45
minutes to one hour-long semi-structured interviews that took place between December 2023 and
February 2024. This chapter begins with an overview of the participants. Next, the three
principles for designing an equitable child care system that emerged as a result of qualitative data
analysis are discussed and include: 1) apply lessons of history in design of child care system; 2)
rectify power dynamics in the process of building a new system; and 3) design a system that
works for child care workers, parents, and children.
Overview of Participants
All recommenders of participants and participant recruits received an information sheet
that included four criteria which sought to define the characteristics of an emerging leader. Even
with written criteria delineated, determining an early or mid-career early childhood education
professional, an “emerging leader,” proved to be ambiguous with a variety of ideas related to
how much time in the field qualifies a leader as early or mid-career. All participants worked in a
non-profit organization (eight participants), higher education institution (none), government
entity (one) or consulting organization (two). While the semi-structured interview protocol did
not include direct questions on Head Start or the CCDBG, the complexity of participants’
responses demonstrated a deep understanding of the funding streams within the child care field.
Table 2 summarizes the professional role and region of focus of each of the participants. Four of
the participants worked in the South, three in the Mid-Atlantic, three with nation-wide focus, and
one in the Midwest.

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Table 2
Participants Professional Role and Region in which They Work
Pseudonym Professional Role Region
Interviewee #1 Director, child care center Mid-Atlantic
Interviewee # 2 Consultant National
Interviewee #3 Advocacy South
Interviewee #4 Non-profit South
Interviewee #5 Government Midwest
Interviewee #6 Advocacy Mid-Atlantic
Interviewee #7 Owner, child care business South
Interviewee #8 Consultant National
Interviewee #9 Owner, child care business South
Interviewee #10 Think Tank National
Interviewee #11 Advocacy Mid-Atlantic
Demographics in Their Own Words
Of the eleven participants, ten identified as being a woman or female, and one identified
as being male. Related to gender, participants shared their preferred pronouns, and one
participant shared her identity marker of cisgender. When asked about their race and ethnicity,
five participants identified as White, three identified as African American, two identified as
Black, and one identified as first generation African. Related to race and ethnicity, one
participant included that her family descended from enslaved Black Americans. Another
participant expounded with identity markers of able bodied and English speaking that were
outside of the demographic question and are included here to honor her identity as she reported.
As shown in Figure 1, participants used four different descriptors when asked to describe their
race in their own words: first generation African, Black, African American and white. One
participant identified as first generation African, two identified as Black, three identified as
African American, and five as white. Because demographic questions were posed as open-ended

55
questions, it invited participants to share in their own words how they described themselves. The
purpose of using open ended demographic questions was to show respect to each participant and
to capture how they internalized their unique intersectional identity. The open-ended format is
more flexible and accommodating of individual differences than is a typical demographic
questionnaire with race categories defined by the United States Census Bureau (Jensen et al.,
2021).
Figure 1
Race of Participants
Commonalities in Past Professional and Family Roles
Three notable commonalities among participants emerged from interviews. Participants
shared similar roles that influenced their work in early childhood policy. These included: former
roles as a teacher, parenting their child, and being the daughter of a mother who owned a child

56
care program. Ten of the eleven participants shared the influence that their past role as a teacher
had on their work in the child care policy field. Interviewee #7 shared,
I worked in the infant room. And going there and seeing those little people. I felt it was
the first time I felt accountable to someone. For the first time I felt like somebody needed
me. I felt like I needed to be there.
Three of the participants described how their role as a parent changed their approach to
their work in child care. Interviewee #5 said,
I don't think it was until I was a parent that I started to really understand how to provide
grace and how to provide patience and understanding and all the things that parents need
and then to really be able to sit with them.
Three of the participants also shared a unique commonality in that their mothers were
child care center owners and had “grown up” in the business. Interviewee #8 reflected on her
feelings toward her mother, a child care business owner. In reflecting on her mother who owned
a child care business and how it contributed to her work in child care, she said:
She’s just my hero, and I've always looked up to her, and I think it has just kind of been
in my blood and my environment. And so I grew up just always wanting to know more
about and be around little kids and they're just, they're magical people.”
In summary, the participants in the study represented a range of backgrounds within the
field of early childhood policy. Their willingness to participate in the study and contribute to this
area of study was instrumental in shaping the findings and recommendations. Their varied
experiences and perspectives enriched the understanding of the complexities of the principles
and goals of an equitable child care system in the United States and steps forward to achieve a
more just future system for children, families and child care workers. Additionally, this study

57
added a fresh perspective to what is possible for child care policy in the United States, as
participants were asked to imagine what is possible with freedom from the constraints of the
current conditions in child care and described a system different from what exists today.
Presentation of Findings
The research question that guided the study was: How do emerging early childhood
education leaders imagine the principles and goals of an equitable child care system in the
United States? This is an important and timely question because the United States lacks a
solution to the market failure of child care (Tenkin, 2021; United States Department of Treasury,
2021), whereby parents struggle to find and afford child care so that they can work (Center for
American Progress, 2020; Child Care Aware of America, 2020; Swenson & Simms, 2021), and
child care workers make poverty wages with Women of Color making lower wages than White
women (Austin et al., 2019; McLean et al. 2021). This persistent child care problem is derivative
of the low value placed on child care work in society and historical injustices to women,
children and families of Color (Lloyd et al., 2022). With the killing of Geoge Floyd in 2020,
public discourse shifted to systemic injustices in the United States through the lens of our history
of slavery and genocide. One powerful strength of the child care sector is that the workforce
reflects the racial diversity of the children in care. At the same time, the workforce, which is 50
percent Women of Color, make in the bottom five percent of professional wages in the country
(McClean et al., 2021). Further, recent activity at the federal level, most notable the recent
failure, but near passage of Build Back Better in 2021, a bill designed to establish a child care
system that would ensure access to child care for most American families, demonstrated that
child care has been newly elevated as an issue at the federal level (Browsky et al., 2022, The
White House, Office of the Vice President, 2023).

58
To better understand the perspectives of emerging leaders in early childhood education,
semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 professionals. To address the research
question, the interview protocol contained three distinct segments of prompts. The first segment
was designed to elicit information about how the participants perceived the current state of child
care, including their opinions on how parents and child care providers are experiencing it.
Additionally, participants were asked how they consider and define equity within the context of
the field. The second segment of the protocol was crafted to evoke the imagination of
professionals in ways that surfaced their creative ideas about what is possible for an equitable
child care system in the United States. The third and final segment of the interview protocol was
created to surface reflections on the differences between the current system and ideal system and
what barriers and opportunities exist to achieving a more equitable child care system. The
participants shared their understanding, perspectives, feelings, and ideas in individual interviews
that lasted from forty-five minutes to an hour in duration. All interviews were transcribed and
coded for overarching principles.
As a result of data analysis, three central principles emerged around how they perceived
the goals and principles of an equitable child care system in the United States: 1) apply lessons
of history, 2) recognize and rectify power imbalances, and 3) design a system for workers,
parents, and children. In the first principle, participants describe how they viewed the current
state of child care in the United States through a complex historical analysis with lessons from
the past to apply to future system design. The second principle consisted of participants’
experiences and understanding of existing power dynamics in the field that must be addressed to
create a future equitable child care system. In the third principle, participants asserted that a

59
system must be designed to meet the needs of multiple parties–child care workers, parents, and
children.
Table 3
Participant’s Described Three Principles of an Equitable Child Care System
Principle Description
One Apply lessons from history
Two Rectify power imbalances
Three Design system for child care workers, parents, and children
Principle 1: Apply Lessons from History
Eight of the eleven participants described their experiences with the child care sector in
the context of United States’ history. Historical references ranged from recent events, like the
COVID-19 global health pandemic and the failure of the Build Back Better Act (BBB), to
Slavery and the ongoing structural inequities that Black and Brown Americans face. Participants
applied a complex historical analysis to help them understand both the conditions that they
experienced firsthand in their daily work, as well as to help them imagine a better, more
equitable future child care system. Participants discussed how it was essential to understand how
events in the past brought us to the current child care system today to guide principles and goals
of a more equitable system and create better paths in the future. Findings for Principle One are
grouped into three sub principles: COVID-19, Slavery and its aftermath, and historical child care
policies.
Figure 2 shows the numerous historical periods and events that informed participants’
analyses of how history has shaped the current conditions in child care in the United States. The

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collective historical analysis of study interviewees started in 1619 with the beginning of slavery
in the United States. Crises like World War II and the COVID-19 global pandemic were raised
as examples of instances where the U. S. federal government responded with temporary
investments in child care. Also raised were the two times transformative child care policy failed
by one vote at the federal level–Nixon’s 1971 veto and the failure of Build Back Better.
Participants also included historical events that impacted their personal career trajectories within
child care, like the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City
on September 11, 2000 and natural disasters. The size of the circle indicates the frequency of
references within the group of eleven interviewees with 9/11 and natural disasters just being
mentioned by one participant and COVID and Slavery being referenced by the majority.
Figure 2
Complex Historical Analysis of Child Care in the United States

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Figure 2: shows the numerous historical periods and events that informed participants’ analyses
of how history has shaped the current conditions in child care in the United States.
COVID-19 Pandemic: Build a Sustainable and Stable Child Care System
While the aftermath of the pandemic continues to pose numerous injustices and hardships
on child care workers and families, participants noted that some bright spots also emerged. Eight
of eleven participants emphasized the devastation of the pandemic on children and families and
the resulting changes in children and families that they perceived. Interviewee #9 described how
children have needed more attention from child care teachers since the pandemic, including how
to express emotions and how to be in a group with other children. She shared her belief that more
children are being suspended and expelled from child care programs as a result. Interviewee #6
similarly shared a nuanced description of differences that she perceived in parents, children and
child care providers before and after COVID, stating that “Pre-COVID and post-COVID are two
totally different eras…what parents need now looks totally different…” She described parents
that she works with struggling to care for their children and knowing how to manage the
emotional losses experienced during COVID with their children. Related to children, she shared
her experience as a child care leader, “.you see kids that are not that don't have vocabulary, you
see a lot of times where kids are really addicted to their tablets and phones.” Plus, she witnessed
a notable change in the child care provider community with the loss of seasoned Black and
Brown women child care providers that previously served as mentors to younger child care
providers. She reflected on the collective emotional experience, “.no wonder we are seeing
people with shorter fuses…”
At the same time, participants described two positive changes connected to the pandemic
that included an increased understanding of the importance of child care work and greater

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activism on the part of child care providers. Interviewee #7 reflected on the impact of the
pandemic and the failed legislation to transform the child care sector in the 2021 Build Back
Better Act on increasing the status of child care workers,
People don't respect what we do…Build Back Better and COVID really shines a light on
how important early care and education is, and so as hard as COVID was, I am grateful to
the light that it shone on the hard work that our teachers do.
Interviewee #10 built on this idea by adding more details about how child care workers were
made visible by the pandemic as essential front-line workers. During the early days of the
pandemic, child care workers were asked by state governments to keep operating to care for the
children of doctors, nurses, and firefighters. At that point, child care remained open without
adequate protections or understanding of how the virus was transmitted. For the first time, childcare workers were held alongside esteemed and essential professions of public safety and
medicine. Child care was labeled as essential work needed to keep society safe and healthy.
Interviewee #10 continued by also emphasizing the distinction in the nature of the work of child
care versus public schools, which also functions as child care for parents. She asserted that child
care providers were afforded new acknowledgment of their vital role and the status associated
with it. Embracing complexity, she was careful to point out that child care is different from K-12
teachers stating,
It isn't a situation where we are like K- 12 teachers. We can't do our jobs remotely. We're
not doing zoom school and we are in the classroom with people's children…like that
doctor and that nurse they have to go to work. Who's watching their children? It's us.
Interviewee #3 quietly expounded on the momentum for child care in the pandemic, as well as
how it gives her hope for the future, stating,

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I do think we will see universal child care in this lifetime. I'm hopeful. And I think this is
becoming a movement that is growing. I know we had a lot of learnings out of the past
couple of years with the pandemic…Child care was kind of one of those things that
people didn't realize they needed until they needed it. Pandemic, truly, truly illustrated
that.
Interviewees #10, #7 and #3 described the paradox of child care being recognized and respected
because of a world-wide, prolonged tragedy.
Three participants further detailed a rise in political activism on the part of child care
providers as a result of the pandemic. Interviewee #1 shared her personal story of how the
pandemic launched her into political action and started her on a path to a child care advocacy
leadership role:
But it started during Covid. I got very involved with advocacy. My supervisor was
always an advocate. She was always, you know, going down to the State House to testify
when child care bills and budgets were being passed, and I learned a lot from her, and she
always encouraged me. And then, during COVID all the attention on child care. I
connected with some big advocates in the state…And it just grew from there…
In a similar vein, Interviewee #11 reflected on experiences within a community of child care
providers and that she had witnessed a mindset change tied to COVID. Before the pandemic,
child care leaders would get together and talk about the day-to-day business struggles with child
care. After the pandemic, the conversation shifted to a narrow focus on how they were going to
keep operating given staffing shortages. In another example, another participant, Interviewee
#10, who was working in a child care advocacy organization during the onset of COVID and

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helping child care workers step into activism, many for the first time, highlighted how the
pandemic made policy makers more accessible over Zoom:
One of the good things about the pandemic is that all members of Congress, even though
they're usually in DC., suddenly became accessible via Zoom. So, there are all these
providers who might be in Oklahoma and could never get to DC. who can now have a
meeting with their member of Congress or their staff. So, I did a lot of advocacy training,
and being on the Zoom call while they were talking to their member, which is really great
to hear.
Interviewee #10 explained how access to elected officials increased during the global health
pandemic where Zoom meetings became standard and accelerated the newfound activism of
child care providers as the increased access coincided with rising motivation of child care
workers to engage in the political process. This synergy led to shifts in mindsets and new
possibilities for roles for child care workers, like Interviewee #10 who stepped into a leadership
role in advocacy that she would not have previously sought.
While the pandemic posed numerous injustices and hardships on child care workers and
families, some bright spots emerged. The increased status and recognition of child care work as
essential combined with the exceptional risks and pressures of in-person work with small
children launched more child care providers into the political sphere. Many hoped, like
Interviewee #3, that the “essential worker” narrative during COVID will have lasting effects on
how child care is perceived. Interviewee #1 summarized her optimistic view, stating,
I mean, it's starting. The ball is starting to roll, but it's so slow and it's slow to build up
momentum. I think we just have to keep advocating and keep telling her stories, and
eventually it'll get to the right people.

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Legacy of Slavery: Address Child Care Disparities Which Originated With Slavery
Participants raised how the echoes of slavery reverberate within the child care field, as
racial inequities persist in access to quality child care, workforce compensation, and policy
priorities. Two participants demanded that the sector recognize and reckon with this history as a
necessary step toward addressing the systemic barriers that continue to hinder progress toward
the development of a more equitable and inclusive child care system. They argued that only by
confronting the enduring impacts of slavery on child care can we build a better future for child
care workers, families and children.
Rooted in her lived experience as a descendant of an enslaved person, Interviewee #2
shared the powerful impact that the United States history of slavery has on the gross inequities in
current wages and access to higher paid jobs within the child care field. She stated,
My great-grandfather was born a slave …and so we have a lot of understanding of our
history, because my grandfather. You know, shared a lot of that with us…I say this
because when you look at the women in my family, and many of them were either, you
know, taking care of other people's children for very small amounts of money, or you had
them taking care of household, you know, like housework and things like that, and very
wealthy White families when they migrated up to the north, so, there was still a lack of
access, you know, to truly sustainable positions. And so now, when you look at the
disparities of who's paid? What? Where in the system even, who gets the opportunities to
be in philanthropy, and who gets the opportunity to be in these policy positions? It is still
so separate, you know, and so so inequitable.
Interviewee #6 built on these points by adding her understanding of the legacy of slavery on the
current conditions of the child care industry. She shared her analysis on the root cause of the

66
child care problem in the United States as the racism that stems from the legacy of slavery. She
strongly stated her perspective that racial reckoning is required before the child care field can
move forward with equitable transformation:
There has to be a reckoning of America's original sin of slavery. There is absolutely no
way that we can move forward until we recognize the harm we've done historically and
continue to do. And there needs to be a repair in that. To me, that's the only reason why
child care hasn't seen the same professional gains that you've seen in other female
dominated industries.
While three participants did not include slavery in their perspectives on the current state of child
care policy, the majority acknowledged how the system exploits the labor of Black and Brown
women, whereby child care workers are in the bottom 2% of wages for professional positions in
the United States. Importantly, the majority of participants expressed deeply held beliefs that
naming and repairing the persistent, historically rooted racial disparities that play out in the child
care sector was necessary before a more equitable system could be created.
History of Child Care Policy—Be Ready for the Next Policy Window to Transform Child Care
in the U. S.
Data analysis revealed that the majority participants grappled with the history of child
care policy that led to the current day conditions where two fundings streams, Head Start and
federal child care subsidy through the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG),
comprise the funding landscape of child care in most states. When asked how they imagined a
more equitable child care system, no participant described expanding either of these programs as
an ideal approach. One participant did point to the wrap-around comprehensive services of Head
Start and a model to consider scaling so that families that felt they needed a full set of supports

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could opt for it. In contrast, the other participants offered critiques of the current policies and
offered passionate reflections about the failures of both Build Back Better and the 1971 veto by
President Nixon of universal child care.
Speaking with a powerful voice, Interviewee #2 articulated her view on the perils to
children, families, child care workers and society of the framing of federal child care subsidies
under the CCDBG as a public welfare benefit only for low-income families. She shared her
belief that only offering child care as a welfare benefit harms all families as it masks the supports
that all parents need as they parent young children and try to work. Importantly, she named that
the stipulations of the law have created a mindset problem within the United States where child
care assistance is a support that only low-income families can receive, even when the child care
market failure demonstrates that many higher income families also struggle to afford child care.
She was empathic that limiting child care to low-income families within the welfare system, “has
damaged the way in which I think we even think about what should happen for families in terms
of supports.” She suggested that a reimagined system would remove child care as a welfare
benefit and be part of the common good where all families and children have access.
Four participants included their analysis of the 2021 Build Back Better Act in their
responses to a variety of interview questions. One participant, Interviewee #10, had unique
insights into the trajectory and eventual failure of the Bill as a result of the scope of her
professional role. When reflecting on the failure of Build Back Better, Interviewee #10 shared
insights from a recent conversation with Capitol Hill staffers, stating, “the early childhood
community did a really really good job of explaining the problems, but no one really understood
the solutions.”

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The failed 2021 Build Back Better Act contained provisions for scaling a national, though
not universal, child care system. Interviewees #2, #5, #7, and #10 cited this Act as evidence that
the status of child care workers had shifted positively during the global health pandemic.
Interviewee #10 pointed to areas of improvement for the child care sector in defining and
imaging potential solutions. Reflecting on fifty years prior to the failure of Build Back Better,
animated in her body language and voice, Interviewee #6 spoke passionately about the missed
opportunity to pass universal child care during the Nixon administration. She delineated the
refusal to acknowledge the reality that women work as a root cause of the President’s veto,
alongside the recognition that women work regardless of the existence of a good place for their
children to be while they are at work. She exclaimed, “We now need to get over the gender thing
like just get over it. Women are going to work. So now how do we make it better for our babies
and the people who care for them.”
One important aspect of this quote is the connection between women working in the
absence of good child care and the negative impact this has on children. While this quote is
reflecting on women who have the choice to work, other participants acknowledged that many
mothers need to work to provide economic benefits to their families. Through her words,
Interviewee #6 was articulating a child care system principle where there is good child care for
all children so that women can work and not have to make hard choices regarding the care of
their children.
Interviewee #10 also reflected on her years teaching kindergarten and the stories that
mothers told her about the impact that the consistency of public school brought to their lives:
Kindergarten is the first time that they had their child in a full day program consistently.
And so a lot of my parents, particularly the mothers, were like, this is the first time that I

69
can have a steady job where I can figure out my work hours or take on more work hours,
or it's the first time that I've been able to go back and get my associate’s when I initially
dropped out when I got pregnant or had my baby
In this quote, she illustrates the power of reliable child care in transforming the economic
realities of mothers.
Multiple perspectives made the point that a reimagined system must be accessible,
reliable, and good for children. Taken together, the responses demonstrated leaders who have a
nuanced understanding of the trade-offs of current policy and the lesson learned from the only
two opportunities to pass federal child care in the last 50 years. The lessons from a policy
perspective pointed to principles for a reimagined child care system that is reliable, accessible,
good for children, and reduces stress on parents because it is universal and available to every
parent that wants it.
In summary, Table 4 offers three sub-principles under Principle One: Apply Lessons of
History. First, regarding COVID, interviewees emphasized the importance of building a stable
and sustainable child care system for the benefit of families and child care workers. Second,
participants raised the importance of addressing child care disparities that trace back to the
legacy of slavery in the United States Third, the collective voices of the participants shared their
perspectives on the need to be ready for the next policy window in order to advance an equitable
child care system in the United States.

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Table 4
Principle 1: Apply Lessons From History and Sub Principles
Historical
Theme
Sub principle
COVID Build a Sustainable and Stable Child Care System
Slavery Address Child Care Disparities Which Originated With Slavery
Child Care
Policy
Be Ready for the Next Policy Window to Transform Child Care in the U. S.
Principle 2: Rectify Power Imbalances
Nine participants raised power imbalances and the importance of rectifying them as a
new more equitable system is constructed. When asked what principles would underline a
reimagined system, Interviewee #8 simply stated, “rethinking the distribution of power.” Nine
interviewees pointed to racism, sexism and classism as a root cause preventing progress toward a
more equitable child care system in the United States. In looking across the data, there were
numerous examples of how these power dynamics played out in the child care field in complex
ways. This presentation of findings considers three of the most discussed types of dynamics: 1)
attitudes of decision makers toward family’s needs for child care, 2) perceptions of gatekeeping
within the early childhood field, and 3) tensions within the relationships between child care
workers and families. These perspectives shed light on ideas on how to change the conditions
within child care so that those closest to the experience of child care, parents and child care
workers, have more power.

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Attitudes of Decision Makers: Child Care System Designers Must Have Deep Understanding
of Sector and Family Needs for Child Care
Five participants asserted that decision makers simply did not understand the nature of
the work of child care. Interviewee #5 offered a one-word answer to a question about her
perceptions of the root causes holding the current system in place: “patriarchy.” Collectively,
interviewees raised their beliefs that to address the devaluing of child care, decision makers need
to develop an understanding of and appreciation for the work.
Interviewee #7 put forward that a first step to address the inequities would be to invite
decision makers into child care settings so that they could witness the education and care of
young children first hand. She shared how she conceptualized this step and the tensions
anticipated,
Getting people inside of early learning centers. You have to get them into the space, and
they have to see…the people. Even though I might not look like you, the work that I do is
super important. I'm serving children that goes beyond what I look like. And the children
that I serve benefit.
Expounding on these ideas, Interviewee #5 shared her belief that a new child care system
must reflect a mindset shift from today where the prevailing sentiment is, “Women, you're just
supposed to do this out of love and not out of money.” She echoed the ideas of Interviewee
#7and #8 that it was important to increase the understanding of decision makers in order for
change to happen. Building on this idea, Interviewee #1 expanded on the concept of lack of
understanding related to child care work expressed by Interviewee #5 in a story about a
lawmaker and added classism to her root cause analysis when they said,

72
When people think about child care and child care programs, I think equity is often
missed because not everybody has the same resources. They grew up in a male
dominated society. Their wife stayed home, and you know they had resources…
In recounting a conversation between a male lawmaker and a female child care advocate,
Interviewee #1 continued by explaining what she heard from them:
(lawmaker) Why can't the women do it right? My wife did it. We managed. My kids are
just fine, you know. Why do they need to be out of the home right?
So, she's (advocate) like, well, you know. Now we know better. We do better. A lot of
mother’s work.
He (lawmaker) was like. Well, when my wife went to work she went to work part time.
(advocate) So, where did your children go?
He's (lawmaker) like, well, when she went to work she would drop them off at a
neighbor's house and my wife would come, pick them up when she got home at
lunchtime and stay home with them for the rest of the day.
(advocate) Right? But not everybody has those resources. Not everybody has a car or
neighbor, or flexible work schedule right?
Some people. So, I just feel like a lot of the things that could help to make things
equitable are just overlooked.
It is not surprising that some decision makers lack an understanding of child care given
that even some education leaders do not understand early childhood education as part of the
overall education system in the United States. Interviewee #8 described a dynamic in higher
education of a lack of understanding about child care by the graduate school Dean and program

73
coordinator. She described her experience as a graduate student of education as she tried to
incorporate her passion for early childhood education into her studies,
I had so many conversations with the Dean and with our program coordinator really
trying to convince them that early childhood is in fact part of our educational system and
like a pretty darn important one. And you know, I would ask to do my practicums in early
childhood programs, and they were just like, so what do you call them? Are they
classrooms? And it was this complete disconnect…
This story taken alongside the quotes from other participants exemplified how the participants
perceived the value of their work, where the basic premise of their profession, the need for the
education and care that they provide, was negated, devalued and simply not understood. These
stories taken together pointed to a principle for a new system whereby system designers and
decision makers must have a deeper understanding of the child care sector in which they are
working to enact change.
Perceptions of Gatekeeping: Center Voices of Women of Color in Child Care System Design
Two participants described the gatekeeping activities that they perceived in the early
childhood field. Specifically, they pointed to philanthropy, consulting, advocacy, and think tanks
where White women have disproportionate access to higher paying leadership positions than
Women of Color. The wages of these workers sit in stark contrast to child care providers.
Another two participants shared their belief that 98% of all professions make more than child
care workers. In other words, child care is one of the lowest paid professions in the United
States.

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Interviewee #8 described the need to change conditions within the child care field where
White women hold most leadership positions and gatekeep to maintain the status quo. She
articulated her perspective stating,
interlocking systems of misogyny and racism and ableism and all of the other isms……
the role of White women play in this system of decrying that, but also this kind of savior
mentality and this paternalism. And under that also kind of maintaining the status quo
there. We say we White women are the ones in these leadership positions that have, you
know, the power.
Building on this perception, Interviewee #2 added her perspective on the importance of
having women close to the work, like former child care providers, in leadership positions,
explaining, “We deem certain positions, mostly driven by White middle-aged women, as the
authority versus respecting and honoring and valuing the people who are in direct practice.
Which may or may not look like you and I.” Later, in the semi-structured interview, Interviewee
#8 expounded on the idea of paternalistic and materialistic tendencies within the system and the
need to address power imbalances to achieve an equitable reimagined system. She shared a
principle for system design that she practices by listening closely to the women doing the work
directly with children. She reflected on myriad power abuses within the system and raised the
importance in her practice of “trying to be quiet and listen and do much more. Yeah, just
listening to those who are doing the work and actually trying to honor their perspectives and
voices.”
Another participant, Interviewee #1, expanded the conceptualization of power dynamics
within the child care field to how various positions are valued within the field. She contrasted her
perceptions of the low value placed on the child care work and the high value placed on the

75
policy related positions. She illustrated the need to elevate the status of the child care profession
in a redesigned system. In this quote, she asserted that child care workers must be on par with
fiscal analysts, “We need the person who can do the fiscal modeling, and we need somebody that
cares for children. But we can't hold one in higher regard than the other.”
Participants pointed to examples of power dynamics both outside and inside the child
care field. Their words conveyed overall perceptions of marginalization of women who provide
child care from outsiders who do not see the value for the work and from insiders who operate
from a hierarchy that favors White women, resulting in a gatekeeping mentality in the higher
paid positions. These imbalances, according to participants, pointed to system redesign being led
by Women of Color who care for children.
Tensions Within Relationships Between Parents and Providers: Resolve Conflicting Financial
Interests Between Parents and Child Care Programs
Two participants reflected on the tensions between child care workers and parents in their
comments. Interviewee #6 touched on her perception of a shift in power dynamics during
COVID, where child care businesses were in shorter supply and thus became more powerful in
negotiating hours of operation with parents. She shared an example of how businesses began
shortening hours of operation and having staff work shorter shifts. She explained,
Child care leaders set out to change parents’ expectations because I think that there truly
is kind of this, well, black and brown women are superhuman. They can do it and they
can continue to sacrifice their family time, their family work life and balance…for the
benefit of America's children. Right. And that's not really what can continue to happen.
There has to be some level of professional and personal.

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This quote suggests that a redesigned system needs to address the natural tensions and
conflicting interests of parents and child care workers operating in a private education system.
Specifically, these words raise the importance of more balance for child care workers.
Adding to the complexity of relationships between parent and child care workers,
Interviewee #11 shared how she witnessed child care workers rooting for parents’ interests even
though it was against their best interest. Interviewee #2 shared a specific example of this from
her work, illustrating a commonplace tension between child care programs and parents.
The provider would also really benefit from having stable income and knowing that, you
know, because there's so many times at least when I was in direct practice work where
providers that I worked with would say they were giving parents a tuition break when it's
already not the true cost of care that they're charging. But then, parents were struggling,
and they didn't want to kick the kid out so they would cut them a break for a bit, while
also not being able to make ends meet.
Interviewee #2 raised an important and commonplace story where parents cannot afford child
care and providers sacrifice financial well-being to subsidize low-income families. Thus,
illustrating the need for a stable funding mechanism so that child care providers and workers are
paid fairly, and parents have access to child care so that they can work. The participants’ stories
illustrated how both parents and providers would benefit from stable public funding for child
care.
Study participants raised numerous examples of power dynamics in the child care field
that they noted must be addressed in the creation of an equitable system. Naming and rectifying
power dynamics was lifted as a central principle to achieve an improved child care system in the

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United States. Another important principle, discussed next, focused on system design that
benefits multiple parties.
In summary, the second principle that data analysis of participant interviews yielded was
to rectify power imbalances within the child care sector. Participants raised three sub principles
summarized in Table 5. First, in looking at decision makers, interviewees lifted the importance
of system designers having a deep understanding of child care from both a provider and parent
perspective. Secondly, they shared instances of perceptions of gatekeeping; to address this they
shared their belief that Women of Color be centered in system design. Third, participants shared
examples of common tensions between parents and child care workers as they imagined a
redesigned system which would mitigate this dynamic.
Table 5
Principle 2: Rectify Power Imbalances and Sub Principles
Sub Principles
Attitudes of Decision Makers: Child Care System Designers Must Have
Deep Understanding of Sector and Family Needs for Child Care
Perceptions of Gatekeeping: Center Voices of Women of Color in Child
Care System Design
Tensions Within Relationships Between Parents and Providers: Resolve
Conflicting Financial Interests Between Parents and Child Care Programs
.
Principle 3: Design a Child Care System for Child Care Workers, Parents and Children
The majority, eight of the eleven participants, shared their view that another principle
underlying an equitable child care system in the United States is that it needs to benefit all
parties– child care workers, parents, and children. Through their stories, ideas and reflections,

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participants shared examples of how the current conditions in child care do not work for parents,
children or child care workers. They pointed to the inextricable connection between the wellbeing of adults to the well-being of the children for which they care. To operationalize a policy
that bolsters interconnection of children, parents, and child care providers, participants described
four goals that would underlie Principle 3: 1) create a universal child care system, funded as a
public good; 2) pay child care workers a living wage; 3) foster parents’ choice and simplify
accessing child care; and 4) stabilize children in the care of adults who delight in their
development. For each goal for an equitable child care system in the United States, the
intersectional benefits are illustrated in the words of the study interviewees.
Goal 1: Universal System Funded as a Public Good
Participants articulated how in thinking about child care as a system, the goals intended
to benefit one party would benefit another in a universal publicly funded system. The thought
processes revealed during the semi-structured interviews typically started with the priority of
adequate funding for better wages for all child care providers and then the benefits to parents and
children cascaded from there.
Interviewee #2 extolled the benefits to children, parents and child care providers of a
universally funded system,
If I had a magic wand, we could wave it and change that policy today to where everybody
has access to universal care. But then, at the same time, I need another wish, because
good quality slots, and we don't have enough…But that's what I would love for us to start
to see changed. Yeah, I think families for sure would definitely benefit from having
access to affordable care. But then, I think there's an element of providers. The provider
would also really benefit from having a stable income.

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This quote illustrates how universal stable public funding would alleviate the need to choose
between child care workers and families when creating policy. She went on to describe how
stable funding within the public good would address the common tension between providers and
parents that happens when parents are struggling financially, share that with providers, and
providers are paid less or not at all for the care they are providing.
Interviewee #10 also discussed a universal publicly funded program as the financial
structure for a reimagined child care system. She added the benefits to parents such as reduced
stress and improved relationships with children. Importantly, she was emphatic that a universal
system is a more accountable system than the targeted welfare system that child care operates as
today. Her logic followed that a universal system includes people with more power to press on
government and schools to meet the needs of children. She described her deep thinking on the
positive cascading impacts that universal child care would have for families within a publicly
funded universal system,
Parents would benefit the most, and some of those benefits would trickle down like I
think there's a lot of parental stress around paying for child care. And you know, when
parents are stressed, it has trickle down effects on the child from a psychological
level…So I think, taking the cost off and having parents know that it's always an option
that doesn't cost any money would take a lot of pressure off. A lot of people wanted Build
Back Better to be universal, and I think part of the reasoning which I think carries a lot of
weight is that quality goes up. If it's like a service that wealthier people are going to be
bought into. I'm pretty sure our public schools would be way way worse if it was only for
low-income children. And so, there's something about being held accountable to more

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powerful people with more resources than quality. So, I think quality would or could
potentially go up in the early childhood system, if it was also universal.
Like Interviewee #2, Interviewee #10 correlated a universal system with child care programs
operationalizing quality practices in their everyday operations to benefit children, while at the
same time reducing the stress that their parents currently feel in finding child care, paying for
child care, and knowing that it is not always reliable.
Offering a wider aperture, Interviewee #7 talked about the wide-ranging benefits of a
child care system that is a “public good…there is no economy without early care and education.
And no one could go to work.” She continued this line of thinking by delineating numerous
benefits to society from a universal child care system, such as crime prevention, health benefits
to children from the meals served at child care, and the social and emotional growth that children
experience when attending child care. When asked what she thought the barrier to funding the
system as a public good was, she quickly stated, “It's Black and Brown women that are at the
center of this workforce. And we're invisible.”
While Interviewee #11’s priority was to increase funding to the child care system solely
to provide pay parity for child care providers with elementary school teachers, she reflected on
the harms to children caused by current conditions of multiple funding streams,
A 3-year old's never just a 3-year-old in our system. A 3 year old is a Head Start child, or
is low income, child with special needs, child that’s affluent, and maybe the only way to
ever clean it up is to lead with the child just a child, and maybe we have to stop putting
them in so many different buckets, because the more buckets we put them in, that's how
we're creating these inequities.

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Her reflections suggested that universal funding attached to a child would improve the equity
within the child care system. While Interviewees #11 and #10 both saw universal funding as
achieving a more equitable system, the logic that led to that conclusion was different.
Seven of the eleven participants articulated their view that moving child care into the
public good by creating a publicly funded universal system was the goal for a reimagined child
care system in the United States. Stable public funding was perceived as a mechanism to ensure
a living wage for child care providers, ensure access to child care for all families and children,
and increase the quality of child care. Importantly, interviewees articulated that universal funding
has the potential to improve the racial disparities within the current child care system in the
United States.
Goal 2: Pay Child Care Workers a Living Wage
All interviewees asserted that the goals of an equitable system would include increased
wages for child care workers. Two participants, Interviewees #11 and # 2, articulated their
perspectives on the current conditions in child care with wages being exceptionally low relative
to all other professions. Interviewee #2 shared and emphasized,
It's terrible. So, you're always up against this thing of like your passion versus your pay.
And that is so challenging. And I think that just illustrates the inequitable approach that
we've taken for so many decades around this work.
Interviewee #11 also included that it is critical to increase child care workers’ pay throughout the
study interview. She was clear that she was a committed advocate for improving working
conditions for child care workers. She shared her feeling of sadness when facing the reality of
the extreme importance of child care work to children, families and society alongside the poor
pay and working conditions. She asserted, “I think it's probably one of the most important jobs

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that there are. It's necessary.” When asked to expand on how she understands what providers
want, she did not hesitate in stating pay that coincides with the skill and demands of the job.
Interviewees also described the need to elevate the importance of child care work within society.
Many connected increased pay as evidence that the workforce was respected and valued to
protect against the historically “invisible work of care” that Interviewee #5 described as
commonplace.
Sentiments encompassed the pressing need for increased pay alongside other
improvements to the daily experiences of child care providers in their workplace. While
Interviewee #11 identified mental wellness supports as one way to improve working conditions,
six of the participants shared additional ideas on how to make the working conditions better for
child care providers through medical and retirement benefits, paid time off, and paid professional
development time. Showing the system connections between child care workers, parents, and
children, interviewees expounded on the benefits to both parents and children that would result if
a universal public funding stream ensured living wages for child care workers, leading to
simplified and affordable access for families and stable care for children.
Goal 3: Support Parent Choice and Simplify Access to Child Care
Over eighty percent of participants shared detailed descriptions of the conditions that
they would like to see improved for parents. Similar to the vision for child care workers, parents’
experiences were seen as improving dramatically where finances were no longer a barrier to
accessing child care. Some participants shared preferences for a completely free system, while
others touted a sliding fee, as Interviewee #11 noted was being used by the U.S. military child
care system. Overall, the sentiment was that parents were struggling to both pay for and find
child care. And, moreover, they deserved to choose the type of care their child experienced.

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When asked how she would imagine an equitable child care system, Interviewee #10
surmised, “I think it really is about every single child who has a parent that wants them in an
early childhood environment to have access to that. I think of it as it should be just as easy as
signing up your child for kindergarten.” In this reflection, Interviewee #10 made two points.
First, an equitable child care system means that parents can choose the arrangement for their
child, and, secondly, that it would be easy for them to find one in their community, just like
kindergarten.
Four of the eleven study participants spoke about how the complexity of the current
system leads to stress for parents and their difficulty in finding child care. One participant shared
a story from early in her parenthood when a mentor filled out the application for child care
assistance with her to help her manage the complexity and administrative burden in finding child
care as a new parent. Another participant, Interviewee #10, described her experiences as a
public-school teacher earlier in her career and how she witnessed parents benefiting from
increased economic security when they had reliable child care. Interviewee #5 succinctly
summarized her perspectives on what parents wanted and needed alongside the conditions where
they are not currently able to get it, “All parents want their children to be happy, healthy and
learning.” She went on to describe how, within the current system, parents are forced to make
difficult trade-offs when they cannot find or afford care that matches their desires for their
children.
When asked about what equity means within the child care sector for parents, Interviewee
#3 responded, “Equity from the standpoint of parent access is making sure that everyone has the
required resources and support so that they can access child care.”

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Later in the interview, Interviewee #3 gave a specific example of navigating the child care
system from the perspective of a parent and an administrator in the system,
It's very confusing to families. Oh, like am I eligible for Head Start or not? …So, we've
tried to do kind of a blind application, like, submit these documents and on the back end
we’ll figure out what you're eligible for. So that's in theory really good. But in reality it’s
complicated.
Participants, similar to Interviewee #3, suggested that the current conditions within the child care
sector included many barriers for parents to overcome to access care for their children.
Interviewee # 5 compared access to child care to an essential tool that parents need to work. She
added her experience that “. We see every day all day how hard it is to get the care that you need,
even if you can buy your way into the system.”
Importantly, no participant reimagined a child care system where parents would be
required to use child care or choose a specific program. The centrality of parent choice in any
child care system was common across interviewees as was the need to create a system that
addressed the economic barriers to accessing child care for all families that choose it.
Participants pointed to the uniqueness and critical stage of child development for children under
five in their reasoning that parents’ choice is paramount.
Goal 4: Stabilize Children in Care of Adults That Delight in their Development
All eleven participants described the importance of the early years in the life of a child.
Three interviewees, #6, #7, and #8, shared their understanding that the developmental stage is
unique, and one interviewee described it as “magical.” Participants also described the critical
role that the primary adults play, like parents and child care providers, in supporting and
nurturing a child during this special developmental stage. They shared stories, feelings and

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experiences that revealed the impact that the relationships between a child care provider and a
child had on child development and well-being.
Interviewee #5 shared a personal story of how at the onset of the pandemic the child care
teacher who was caring for their children came to live with them to continue caring for them so
that both parents could continue working. She described with deep feeling how she appreciated
that the provider loved, cared for and taught her children. She highlighted with gratitude how the
provider would describe in detail what happened to the child during the day when the child was
too young to explain it themselves. Thus, a strong connection between the well-being of the child
and the adults in their lives was discussed as paramount to an equitable child care system in the
United States.
The large scope of responsibility of a child care provider in teaching a young child was
articulated by Interviewee #6, and they described the most important purpose of child care in the
United States as,
To prepare children. For life. To teach them how to be good citizens. To teach them how
to share, operate, how to problem solve, how to think critically. I think it's also about
making sure that they're self-sufficient…. But I think the most important, probably, is to
be a critical thinker and to learn how to problem solve, because at this point little ones
will have every answer they want at the tip of their fingers. They have to know how to
ask the question, and they have to know how to go out and find the answer. I think that's
what's going to matter most and they and they have to be able to work in a group, right?
This quote illustrates the large scope of responsibility for a child care provider, as well as
the changing ideas about what is important for children to learn in the 21st Century. Expounding
on the importance of the early years in a child’s life, Interviewee #7 referenced brain science in

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her understanding of why early childhood experience is so critical for children. She shared that
90% of brain development happens before the age of four. In keeping with the central function of
child care supporting the brain development of children, Interviewees #6 and #11 referred to
child care providers as “architects of the brain.”
Getting to how this works in everyday practice within a child care setting, Interviewee
#4, who was a new parent, weighed in with his desires for all children to be in the “presence of
an adult that delighted in their care.” During the interview, he added more detail to this belief,
“We can teach people how to be good teachers, but we can't teach people how to just truly enjoy
being in the presence of a child. So, my hope for kids is that they can spend their days in an early
learning setting with people who truly enjoy that work.” These words raised the idea that child
care work is special work, and it is best for children when their caregivers and teachers enjoy it.
Here, too, participants made a strong connection between raising child care worker compensation
and the benefits to children. An important connection was also asserted that better pay would
reduce the high rates for child care worker turnover that disrupt the relationships with children
and the effectiveness of care. Two participants used the word “wildly” to describe the inequitable
variation in quality of care that low income and high-income children experience.
In making this point, Interviewee #11 expounded on the inequities of the current
conditions in child care through giving a specific example of the stigmatization that children and
families experience when using a child care subsidy in her state,
They use a swipe system which to me emulates back in the day of food stamps and
separate lines that publicly identified low-income families. In 2024, to create a system for
families to have to publicly identify themselves in their early care and education
community as low income and poverty level is mind boggling to me. How are we still

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there? How are our systems still thinking and operating the way they did 20 or 30 years
ago? How are we not evolved into recognizing that it adds tremendous stress, and it's
wildly inequitable. And nobody's talking about it. Nobody is talking about it at all. Which
also really is crazy to me.
Interviewees #11 and #4 further pointed out inequitable harms to children and families that they
see as a result of current funding streams that target only some families and result in
stigmatization and segregation. Despite the benefits to current families, their reflections
illustrated the importance of designing a universal system where all families would have access
and there would be no systemized stigmatization.
Overall, interviewees imagined a path forward where an equitable child care system
worked as a system, benefiting child care workers, parents, and children. This included being
funded in a way that supports living wages for child care workers. From there, parents and
children would benefit from increased and easy access to environments where less stressed
providers could delight the special time of development for babies, toddlers and preschoolers.
In summary, Principle 3: Design a system for child care workers, parents and children
included four goals to guide system design. Table 6 summarizes the goals. The first goal
addresses the importance of converting the private education system to one funded as a public
good for all children and families. The second goal raises the significance of paying child care
workers a living wage as part of an effort to improve working conditions. Goal 3 addresses the
need to improve parent experience in navigating the child care system alongside the importance
of parent choice in deciding the child care experience for their children. The fourth goal
illustrates a reimagined system where children are in stable relationships with child care workers
that understand and enjoy early childhood development.

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Table 6
Principle Three and Four Supporting Goals
Principle Three Design a Child Care System for Child Care Workers, Parents and Children
Goal 1 Universal System Funded as a Public Good
Goal 2 Pay Child Care Workers a Living Wage
Goal 3 Support Parent Choice and Simplify Access to Child Care
Goal 4 Stabilize Children in Care of Adults That Delight in their Development
Conclusion
Emerging child care leaders generously shared their perspectives, understandings,
emotions, and creative ideas about both the current child care conditions and a reimagined
equitable future system. Responses of the eleven participants were candid and shared a deep and
complex analysis of historical lessons, power dynamics that require rectifying, and ideas for
system design that integrated the needs of child care workers, parents of young children, as well
as babies, toddlers and preschoolers.
In summary, Figure 3 summarizes the principles and goals of an equitable child care
system, which addressed the research question for this study. Principle One stresses the critical
significance of the historical context of child care. Interviewees emphasized that understanding
the conditions of child care through the lessons of COVID, slavery, and post policy shortcomings
is required to reimagine a more equitable system. Principle Two focuses on rectifying power
imbalances among decision makers, child care leaders, parents and child care providers.
Participants emphasized that a reimagined system is best created by those closest to the
problem—child care providers and families. Currently, child care providers and families hold the
least power in the rooms where system redesign is considered. Principle Three underscores a

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shift in thinking in system design. Children’s well-being and learning were discussed as
inextricably linked with their parents and child care providers. Only by creating a system for all
parties—children, families, and child care providers—can an equitable, human centered system
benefiting everyone be designed. Interviewees articulated four goals under Principle 3 to guide
system design: funding the system as a public good for all children, ensuring that providers
received a living wage with improved working conditions, fostering parental choice, and
prioritizing stable and developmentally appropriate, joyful environments for children.
Collectively, according to study participants, the three principles and four goals lay the
foundation for a more equitable child care system in the United States.
Table 7
Summary of Principles and Goals of an Equitable Child Care System
Principle
One Apply lessons of history from COVID, Slavey, and Child Care Policy
Rectify power dynamics with decision makers, child care field leadership, and
between parents and child care workers.
Design a system for multiple parties- child care workers, parents and children.
Two
Three
Goals
One Create a universal system funded as
part of the public good

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Two Pay providers a living wage and
improve working conditions.
Three Create a system designed to
support parent choice.
Four Stabilize children with child care
providers who delight in their care

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Chapter Five: Discussion and Recommendations for Practice
The purpose of this study was to articulate a vision for an equitable federal child care
system in the United States. Qualitative data were collected through a set of one-on-one
interviews with eleven emerging child care leaders focused on the following research question:
RQ: How do emerging early childhood leaders imagine the principles and goals of an
equitable child care system in the United States?
This chapter includes a discussion of findings within relevant literature and the conceptual
framework, recommendations for practice, the limitations of the study, and areas for future
research.
Discussion of Findings
This study provided insights into the perspectives of emerging leaders in the child care
field on the future of an equitable child care system in the United States. Emerging leaders are
critical voices for future child care system transformation. Fifty years separated attempts at
federal legislation designed to create a universal child care system. Both attempts failed by one
vote. Emerging leaders are significant because in the near and midterm, they are best positioned
to lead the field forward and influence a reimagined federal child care policy.
The voices in this study produced several hundred pages of rich data that described the
goals and principles of a re-imagined child care system, which illustrates a vision for the future
of child care in the United States. Participants reflected on the child care research base, showing
the importance of child care for children, families, and society. As they described principles and
goals for a future system, they offered an analysis of power dynamics on the current conditions
of child care in the United States consistent with critical pedagogy (Andreotti, 2012; Kincheloe,

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2008), and they described the problems related to child care that are typical of a Complex
Adaptive System (CAS).
Findings in Context of Child Care Research
In reflecting on the goals and principles of a child care system, interviewees grounded
their discussions in research which supports that child care benefits multiple parties, including
children, families, and society. They pointed to the longitudinal, experimental design research
that has found that high quality child care has short-, medium- and long-term positive effects on
the lives of children who participate in it (Campbell & Ramsey, 1994; Lipsey, et al., 2015; Puma,
2012; Reynolds et al., 2002; Reynolds et al., 2021; Steinhart & Weikert, 1993; Suilik et al.,
2023). While this research was cited by participants, interestingly, participants did not focus on
the impact of quality of care in attaining these benefits. For example, seminal research from the
implementation of universal child care in Quebec that suggests the rapid expansion of child care
spaces (Fortune et al., 2012) led to low quality environments that had a lasting negative impact
on the non-cognitive behaviors of children (Baker, 2019) was not referenced by interviewees.
This is notable because interviewees reimagined a universal child care system (Principle 3, Goal
1), but did not cite research on a potential pitfall to attend to in design. Only one-third of
participants referred to the importance of quality, while the quality practices in child care were
the key variable or active ingredient in the longitudinal studies demonstrating improved child
outcomes (Campbell & Ramsey, 1994; Steinhart & Weikert, 1993) as well as the economic
return on investment (Heckman, 2010). The study participants did not reference the challenges of
establishing quality at scale. Two participants cited studies that found an 8:1 return to the public
of every dollar invested in child care (Heckman, 2010; Rolnick & Gruenwald, 2003). Others
pointed to the role of child care providers as architects of the brain, consistent with neuroscience

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research that shows the rapid brain development through neural connections in young children
(National Research Council, 2000). All eleven participants shared their perspective that the
compensation for child care workers must increase, with two sharing the statistic that child care
workers are paid in the bottom two percent of all professions, which may have been derived from
a speech by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. She stated on child care, child care workers “make,
on average, $27,000 a year, which puts child care workers’ in the bottom two percent of
occupations. Many rely on social services to make ends meet” (United States Treasury, 2021).
Thus, participant perceptions reflected many decades of research in the field related to children,
society, and child care wage disparities.
Interviewees’ familiarity with the body of research on the impact of child care on
children and society was evident through the data analysis of all transcripts; however, this was
not the case for research related to parents. When reflecting on parents, participants relayed
stories and patterns from their own experiences to describe the benefits of child care for parents,
particularly mothers. Interviewees shared stories of parents whose lives shifted when they could
rely on the child care provided by the public education system and suggested that reliable child
care also helps parents, mostly mothers, work, go to school, and provide for their family. These
personal insights harmonized with global research which shows that mothers are able to work
more to support their families when child care is available, reliable, and affordable (Devercelli &
Beaton-Day, 2020; Gitlin et al., 2022; Kottelenberg & Lehrer, 2013, Spring, 2014,). It is also
notable that participants did not discuss the benefits to employers of child care, although these
are well documented in literature (Lee and Hong, 2011, Congressional Research Service, 2023).
In summary, interviewees were well versed in research that supports the many benefits of
child care to children, parents, and society and reflected that research in their discussions of the

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current system of child care in the United States, including its history and power dynamics, and
as they envisioned the principles and goals of an equitable child care system for the future. They
repeatedly pointed to the low levels of compensation to child care (U. S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 2021) as evidence of systemic inequities rooted in the intersectionality of gender and
race (Crenshaw, 1989). Participants employed history, research, and statistics as they reimagined
a system that was more equitable for children, families and child care workers.
Findings Suggest Shifting Conceptual Framework From Complex Adaptive System Theory
to Critical Pedagogy
The study was conceptualized with Complex Adaptive System theory to guide the
research (Duit & Galaz, 2008). Interestingly, through the course of the study and data analysis,
another theoretical framework, critical pedagogy (Andreotti, 2012), emerged as closely aligned
to the perspectives and understandings of participants, and even more so than the tenets of
Complex Adaptive System Theory. Creswell and Creswell (2018) assert that emergent design is
one of the key aspects of qualitative research. As such, qualitative research allows exploration
that leads to an evolution and deeper understanding of aspects of the study design, such as the
theoretical lens.
In the initial design of the study, CAS was useful to guide the literature review and
interview protocol. CAS includes three components: agents, systems, and context (Duit & Galaz,
2008; Preiser et al., 2018). Chapter Two was organized by the research related to four agents
within the child care system: children, parents, child care workers, and employers. Head Start
and the Child Care and Development Block grant were described as integral to the child care
system that is governed at multiple levels consistent with a CAS framework. The semi structured
interview protocol (Appendix A) was designed to elicit interviewees’ perceptions of system

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agents and system dynamics to reimagine a future child care system. As interviewees shared
their ideas on the principles and goals of a reimagined child care system in the United States,
their thoughts, perceptions, ideas and feelings pointed to a critical power analysis (Andreotti,
2012).
Findings in Context of Critical Pedagogy
Critical pedagogy is a theory originating in the work of Paulo Freire (1968). It is an
educational approach that perceives education as an inherently political system that is designed
to advance the dominant culture while undermining marginalized cultures (Kincheloe, 2008). As
such, critical pedagogy asserts practices that help students find their power to challenge
dominant ways of thinking and operating to advance social justice. Teaching practices rooted in
critical pedagogy are participatory, where teachers and students actively and collaboratively
engage in learning and meaning making of their collective experiences. This employs critical
pedagogy to look at a different set of educational practices, specifically, policy making practices.
A scholar of critical pedagogy, Vanessa Andreotti (2012), asserts that policy makers, like
emerging leaders in this study, are responsible for critical awareness as they seek to solve
complex problems. Andreotti views education policy problems through the power dynamics
related to colonialism and globalism (Andreotti, 2012; Machado de Oliveira, 2021). To
operationalize the historical and power awareness needed to create equitable policies that do not
repeat typical pitfalls that have led to the outdated and inequitable systems like child care in the
United States, Andreotti created the HEADS-UP framework (Table 8). This framework describes
seven patterns of thinking to avoid during the education policy making process. Andreotti
(2012), like the study participants, asserts that policy problems are complex, and effective
solutions must consider power. All eleven interviewees included an analysis of the power

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dynamics within the current child care system, as well as historical analysis of how the current
conditions originated. Through their detailed descriptions of a future ideal system, alongside
examples of failures of the current system, participants explained the complexity of navigating
child care for families and child care businesses. The interviewees’ analysis was consistent with
the HEADS-UP framework as illustrated in Table 8.
Specifically, Table 8 describes the seven “problematic historical patterns of thinking and
relationships” (Andreotti, 2012, p. 2) that comprise the HEAD UP framework. HEAD UP is an
acronym created by the first letter of each of the historical patterns to shift away from. Taken
together, the seven components offer a framework for policy analysis and evaluation that takes
into account the conditions needed to shift power in ways that advance equity in complex
ecosystems, like child care in the United States. The HEADS-UP framework can be applied to
study findings to assess alignment of findings to a power analysis lens informed by critical
pedagogy (Kincheloe, 2008; Andreotti, 2012).
Table 8
Alignment Between HEAD UP Framework and Principles and Goals of an Imagined Child Care
System
Pattern The Need to Shift
Away From
Principles and Goals of Reimagined Child Care System
Hegemony The idea that one
dominant group
possesses the
knowledge to
design a solution
on behalf of
others.
Principle Two: Rectify power dynamics.
● Perceptions of Gatekeeping: Center Voices of
Women of Color in Child Care System Design

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Ethnocentrism Individuals
believe their
experience is
universally shared
Principle Three: Design a system for multiple partieschild care workers, parents and children.
● Goal Three: Create a system designed to
support parent choice.
Ahistoricism Providing policy
analysis and
solutions in the
absence of history
Principle One: Apply Lessons of History
● Legacy of Slavery Address Child Care
Disparities Which Originated With Slavery
● Perceptions of Gatekeeping: Center Voices of
Women of Color in Child Care System Design
● Tensions Within Relationships Between Parents
and Providers: Resolve Conflicting Financial
Interests Between Parents and Child Care
Programs
Depoliticization Thinking and
discourse that
excludes
inequities in
power and is
divorced from
ideological
underpinnings
Principle Two: Rectify power dynamics.
● Attitudes of Decision Makers: Child Care
System Designers Must Have Deep
Understanding of Sector and Family Needs for
Child Care
● Perceptions of Gatekeeping: Center Voices of
Women of Color in Child Care System Design
● Tensions Within Relationships Between Parents
and Providers: Resolve Conflicting Financial
Interests Between Parents and Child Care
Programs
Salvationism “Helping” policy
that is the burden
to superior policy
maker
Principle Two: Rectify power dynamics.
● Perceptions of Gatekeeping: Center Voices of
Women of Color in Child Care System Design
Un-complicated
solutions
The tendency to
identify simple
solutions that do
not address
system
transformation
Principle Three: Design a system for multiple partieschild care workers, parents and children.
● Goal One: Create a universal system as part of
the public good.
● Goal Two: Pay providers a living wage and
improve working conditions.
● Goal Three: Create a system designed to
support parent choice.

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● Goal Four: Stabilize children with child care
providers who delight in their care.
Paternalism The idea that
beneficiaries
should be
grateful to those
who have created
a policy to help
them.
Principle Two: Rectify power dynamics.
● Attitudes of Decision Makers: Child Care
System Designers Must Have Deep
Understanding of Sector and Family Needs for
Child Care
● Perceptions of Gatekeeping: Center Voices of
Women of Color in Child Care System Design
Note: Table 8 illustrates a side-by-side representation of the HEAD-UP power analysis of policy
solutions and study findings, there is alignment with all seven elements and the principles and
goals of an equitable child care system as described by study participants.
Principle One calls on system designers to apply the lessons of history to a reimagined
child care system. As a result, the interviewees in a reimagined system did not repeat a common
pattern to ignore history in the conceptualization of policy, which Andreotti calls ahistoricism. In
contrast, interviewees shared numerous historical references (Figure 2) as they excavated their
thinking on what was possible in a new child care system in the United States. While many
aspects of history were raised in the data, study findings highlighted three patterns that emerged
in data analysis. Interviewees shared their conviction that the legacy of slavery was the basis for
the low wages of child care workers today (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). Looking at another
aspect of history, interviewees cited examples from their experiences of how COVID
temporarily elevated the status of child care work (Goodhart, 2021), generated new activism
amongst some providers, and contributed to the retirement of others. Related to child care policy,
participants urged the field to be ready for the next policy window. They referenced the failed

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attempt at universal child care under the Administration of President Nixon (The President of the
United States, 1971) alongside the more recent failure of Build Back Better (Lloyd, 2021). All
eleven participants expressed a priority for fixing the conditions that contribute to low wages for
workers through policy that considers past losses.
Similarly, Principle Two, rectifying power dynamics, moves past the historical pitfalls by
addressing Andreotti’s concepts of hegemony, depoliticization, salvationism, and paternalism
(Andreotti, 2012). To address hegemony, interviewees described their experiences where they
witnessed intentional barriers for Black women to positions of power within the early childhood
sector put in place by White women with more positional authority. As such, a sub-theme
emerged asserting that Black women voices must be central to the policies of a reimagined child
care system. Related, interviewees shared additional stories of ways in which power is used in
the child care sector to maintain the status quo by decision makers, parents and child care
workers. Thus, interviewees highlighted the importance of addressing power imbalances within
the sector in system redesign and did not fall into the depoliticization trap. It is not surprising that
participants also did not repeat the common patterns of salvationism and paternalism whereby
helping education policies are framed as either the burden or responsibility of the superior policy
maker. In contrast, study findings illuminated a reimagined system based on overarching
principles of rectifying current power imbalances, which shift power from today’s decision
makers who have little understanding of child care, to those whose lives are most impacted by
child care on a day-to-day basis, children, families, and child care workers.
Related to Principle Three, interviewees embraced complexity and did not fall into the
pattern of uncomplicated solutions as they conceptualized a new child care system that works for
children, parents, and child care workers. Participants shared their views of what was possible

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beyond the constraints of the current system comprised of Head Start, the Child Care and
Development Block, as well as parent pay. It is notable that none of the participants put forward
the idea of more funding for the current structures of the system as an ideal model for child care.
Additionally, participants raised the importance of designing a system that supported parent
choice as an acknowledgement that family values and culture should be allowed to be driving
forces for decision making related to child care. The interviewees’ collective vision for the child
care system did not prescribe a specific program type, setting or quality practices; in contrast,
participants honored the role of the parent in decision making and acknowledged the diversity of
choices that would result. Thus, the system they reimagined did not repeat the historical pattern
of ethnocentrism typically driving education policy solutions.
In summary, the rich descriptions that interviewees offered as the principles and goals of
an equitable child care system moved beyond the historical pitfalls in policy design of
hegemony, ethnocentrism, ahistoricism, depoliticization, salvationism, uncomplicated solutions
and paternalism. Thus, interviewees provided a view of a child care system that would be
transformed in meaningful ways for those closest to it. Young children would be in the care of
providers who enjoyed the unique and powerful period of child development. Parents would be
able to afford, find and choose care that matched their families’ circumstances, and child care
workers would no longer have to choose their passion over their pay as they would be
compensated in accordance with the research-based importance of their work to children,
families and society. The following recommendations for practice are designed to operationalize
participants’ vision for an equitable, future child care system.

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Recommendations for Practice
The research findings presented in this study, combined with the research basis presented
on the benefits to children, families, employers, and society when children attend high quality
child care, indicate a policy gap between what we know and what we do in the United States. In
a recent analysis, Davis and Sojourner (2021) found that the U.S. spends approximately $1500
per child under five compared to an average of $12,800 per child for children over five (Davis &
Sojourner, 2021). This public investment disparity does not align with the science of brain
development that many of the interviewees cited in their perspectives on a reimagined child care
system (National Research Council, 2000). The relatively low public investment also does not
align to known benefits to society of high quality child care of an 8:1 return for every public
dollar invested (Heckman, 2010). In addition to a financial return, the lack of public investment
in child care does not ensure an adequate labor supply by decreasing participation in the
workforce by mothers of young children (Spring, 2014).
This study was designed to reimagine the goals and principles of an equitable child care
system in the United States to lay the groundwork for closing this gap. Table 9 shows three
recommendations for practice, each aligned with the three principles and four goals identified by
participants as a road map to system development. The following three recommendations are
specific actions that child care sector leaders should take to create the conditions for
transformative child care system change. The recommendations of the study are directed to
leaders across the child care sector inclusive of those in my field, philanthropy. Foundations have
a track record of contributing to education systems transformation through capitalizing on their
roles as convenors (Marsh & Dembo, 2006). In the context of this study, the possibility that
foundations can help advance change in the child care system is held in careful balance with the

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historic power imbalance between foundations and the organizations that receive their funding
(Villanueva, 2018).
Table 9
Recommendations from Imagining Child Care and Corresponding Study Principles

Recommendation
One Elevate value of child care to society through narrative
change
Two Invest in parent and child care workers’ leadership, power
building, and organizing.
Three Incentivize the development of child care policy solutions
The three recommendations were developed in the spirit of Decolonizing Wealth by
Edgar Villanueva. Villanueva (2018) outlines the road map for philanthropy to use money in
ways that help the United States decolonize. He delineated seven steps for philanthropy to take to
“heal from the trauma of colonization” ( pg. 9), such as create spaces to listen to those who have
experienced systemic inequities as leaders in solving problems and simultaneously create spaces
where humans feel safe to share the complexity of their experiences. Philanthropic resources can
be used to create carefully designed psychologically safe spaces to foster thinking outside current

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realities. Villanueva’s framework focuses on the prevailing influence of colonialism, similar to
Andreotti’s HEADS UP framework (2012). As such, it is applicable to organizations and leaders
across the child care sector. Across the child care sector, leaders should deploy human and
financial resources to create safe spaces where the work of understanding child care history and
power dynamics can be examined as the foundation for child care system reimagining. As the
organizations become grounded for the first time or continue to develop in the historical
underpinnings and corresponding power imbalance of the current system, they can create fertile
ground to create policy options for a more equitable child care system. Specifically, the emerging
leaders in this study call on the field to use to grow their capacity to: 1) apply lessons of history,
2) rectify power imbalance, and 3) design a system that works for children, parents, and child
care workers.
Recommendation One: Increase Perceived Value of Child Care by Changing Narrative and
Mindsets
Recommendation One is designed as an action step to address the barriers to accessing
child care for families (Stanford, 2022; Center for American Progress, 2020) and the persistent
wage disparities for child care workers through altering the public perception of the value of
child care (Austin et al, 2019; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). Specifically, Recommendation
One suggests prioritizing communications strategies to improve narratives related to child care
and, ultimately, direct attention to and change minds about its value in society. Narrative change
is a tool of social movements (Davis, 2012). Specifically, narratives “… shape how we think
about our social world because they cut across and pervade our discourse; they provide common
ways of organizing and making meaning across the different contexts in which we communicate
with one another through words and images” (Frameworks, 2021). Narrative change on the value

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of child care involves altering the dominant stories and perspectives that shape societal
understanding of the importance of child care to children, parents, and society. Storytelling is a
central aspect of narrative change, as it is essential to human existence. The relationship between
narrative and stories is bi-directional. Stories contribute to and are influenced by narratives.
Together stories and narrative patterns can begin to spark alternative ways of thinking about
social issues, like child care (Frameworks, 2021).
During the global health pandemic, narratives around the value of child care temporarily
shifted whereby child care providers were heralded as essential workers. Goodhart (2020)
described the phenomenon: “
Many aspects of caring (Heart) work, traditionally done by women in the gift economy of
the family, continues to be undervalued, even as care work becomes an increasingly
critical part of the public economy, and was so widely applauded (literally) at the height
of the crisis” (pp. 4-5).
At the same time child care became increasingly esteemed work, the federal government
passed legislation to support unprecedented investment of nearly 50 billion dollars (Lloyd,
2022). Narrative change strategies should continue to build on the success of recent changes
where child care workers were designated as essential workers (Goodhart, 2012) and child care
was viewed as part of the fabric of the public good that benefits society. This temporary mindset
is in keeping with the economic analysis on child care where society benefits at a high rate for
every dollar invested in quality experiences for children (Heckman, 2010).
Recommendation One is designed to harmonize with study findings. Specifically,
narrative change work designed to elevate the status of child care in society can lay the
groundwork for increased public investments. Principle 3 called on the child care sector to

105
design a system for multiple parties-children, parents, and child care workers. Goal One, build a
universal system funded as a public good, requires increased public investment. To increase
public investment in child care, the political will must be cultivated to advance new policies. As
exemplified by relatively recent success of the marriage equality movement, positive messaging
patterns or narratives about a social issue can lead to changing the hearts and minds of decision
makers. Leaders across the child care sector can work to promote positive, carefully crafted
narratives about the positive impact of child care through storytelling and amplification of
positive messages rooted in real-life impacts of child care. Thus, creating the conditions needed
for the equitable system transformation that interviewees described.
Recommendation Two: Invest in Leadership, Power Building, and Organizing of Parents
and the Child Care Workforce
Research supports that parents, particularly mothers, increase workforce participation
when affordable accessible child care is available (Casio, 2009; Fitzpatrick, 2012; Morrisey,
2017). Given the current market failure of child care (United States Department of Treasury,
2021), many parents, even those that can afford it, struggle to access child care for their children
given low levels of child care supply (Stanford, 2022). The experiences and perceptions of
interviewees were consistent with these research findings. Data analysis of interviewee
transcripts yielded principles of an equitable child care system aimed at improving conditions for
parents and child care workers. Specifically, Principle 3 calls on leaders across the child care
sector to design a system that works for multiple parties– children, parents, and child care
workers. Under Principle 3, Goal 3 asserts that the system must support parent choice.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2021), child care workers earn on
average $25,790 per year compared to $61,350 for their public primary school counterparts. The

106
reality of child care worker wages was highlighted by all eleven study participants. Through the
analysis of interview transcripts, paying child care workers living wages emerged as a key goal
of an equitable child care system (Principle Three, Goal 2). Thus, study findings suggest that
leaders across the child care sector address the low wages of child care workers through
intentional system redesign that moves away from the outdated and inequitable public funding
streams, where Head Start and CCDBG requirements do not match the realities of families.
Recommendation Two operationalizes study findings in putting forward the action step
for foundations of organizing the power of parents and providers. As evidenced in “Rules for
Radicals," by Saul Alinsky, organizing people closest to a social problem is a strategy to drive
social change (1971). The aim of this recommendation is to rectify common power imbalances
(Principle 2) between decision makers, parents, and child care workers. The goal of organizing is
to build power and increase parent and child care worker influence in transforming the child care
system. By fostering parent and child care workers’ leadership, energized, inspired and
supported parents and child care workers can join forces and equip themselves to navigate
complex political environments that include their voice in policy and civil discourse. Increased
activism by parents and child care workers could help drive the political and public will to make
the policy changes necessary to advance Principle 3—designing a system for children, parents,
and providers. Furthermore, as parents and child care workers drive change as build influence,
they begin to rectify the power imbalances within the system as described in Principle Two.
Recommendation Two suggests that foundations should initiate grants to parent and
child care worker-lead organizations that are seeking to improve the child care system. As this
study found, the privatized child care sector creates the conditions for inevitable tensions
between parents and child care providers. In the reimagined system that was conceptualized by

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study participants, tensions are mitigated through system design being informed by both parents
and child care workers. Additionally, study findings raised the power imbalances with current
decision makers, who participants perceived as lacking an understanding of the child care sector.
As a new system is developed, it is critical that parents’ and child care workers’ voices influence
policy makers and policy decisions; thus, making a step toward addressing the second principle
of an equitable child care system-rectifying power imbalances. Thus, through building
leadership, organizing, and influence of parents and child care workers, it is possible that the
power of those closest to the day-to-day inequities of child care grows in balance to decision
makers who have an indirect, at best, connection to the problem. Foundations investing in
organizing are aimed at changing the current power imbalances and building an equitable child
care system that includes designers that understand the complexity and inequities of current
conditions of child care.
Recommendation Three: Incentivize the Development of Child Care Policy Solutions
Collectively interviewees called on the child care sector to be ready for the next policy
window (Principle One). As mentioned throughout the study, fifty years separated two attempts
at transforming child care policy in the United States (1971 and 2021). As the field waits for the
next policy window, participants expressed the imperative of exploring child care policy
solutions that apply lessons of history (Principle 1), rectify power imbalances (Principle 2), and
are designed for multiple parties (Principle 3). Simply advancing more funding for the two
existing policies, Head Start and the CCDBG, as suggested by the emerging child care policy
leaders, will not advance a child care system. Both policies are founded in outdated ideas of
gender roles and child care use. Additionally, the two public funding streams have narrow
eligibility criteria targeted exclusively at low-income families. As a result, public support for

108
child care is available to a subset of families in the United States and, by design, cannot help all
the families experiencing challenges in access. Therefore, a new policy mechanism must be
established to benefit all children, families, and child care workers.
Incentives are common in policy making (Stone, 2012). Incentives are rewards or
motivators designed to encourage specific behaviors or actions, like child care leaders designing
policy solutions that match study findings. Stone (2012) describes the theory behind incentives,
“it is useful to think of incentives as a system with three parts: the incentive giver, the incentive
receiver or target, and the incentive itself” (pg. 272). The dynamics of philanthropic grantmaking
allow for a straightforward application of Stone’s (2012) three-part definition of incentives to the
relationships between grant makers and grant seeker. The wheelhouse of foundations is financial
incentives through grantmaking. Therefore, foundations should employ their influence as grant
makers to offer incentives in the form of grants to leaders who are interested in employing the
HEADS UP framework alongside the findings of this study to create child care policy options.
To mitigate the inherent power imbalances that favor grant makers over grant seekers, as well as
to exercise the unique flexibility of the philanthropic sector, this type of grantmaking should be
framed as a no stakes foray into innovation and experimentation for nonprofits interested in
exploring potential future child care systems.
Child care sector leaders have purview over a different, and equally powerful, set of
incentives. Motivated leaders who find intrinsic value, meaning the act of engaging in an activity
itself has positive value, even in the absence of outcome (Ambrose et al, 2010), in advancing
equity through child care system transformation can steward other types of incentives by creating
options for staff to engage in learning, relationship building, and collective action. Positional
leaders in child care-focused nonprofit organizations can organize and incentive participation in

109
professional development opportunities for interested staff to learn the history of the child care
sector, which directly aligns with Principle One. Other topics for professional development that
support the findings of this study could include systems thinking and training in cultural
competence. Additionally, child care leaders can create communities of practice across child care
focused organizations. In communities of practice, staff could learn and explore how the history
of child care in the United States influences current conditions, including power imbalances
(Principle Two). Communities of practice could give staff the opportunity to build connections
across the sector to share their questions, learn from one another, and advance a collective
understanding of system conditions. Thus, giving the sector a stronger foundation from which to
move forward toward the next policy window (Principle One). Finally, values-aligned
organizations can join forces through coalitions to do the challenging work of articulating a
vision for child care policy that is designed for children, families and child care workers
(Principle Three). Within the coalition, leaders can make strategic choices related to narrative
change (Recommendation One), incremental progress, how to message problem definition in
actionable ways, and how to grow a groundswell of support for the next policy window
(Principle One) .
Ultimately, incentives delivered across the child care sector by leaders, including those in
philanthropy, can help fund the time, space, learning and relationships needed for child care
system leaders, staff, parents, and child care workers. With the intention of building power
through a movement, they can learn together, reflect, build relationships, and grapple with the
complexity of moving from the current state of child care as a private education system with
minimal publicly funded subsidies to a universal system funded as a public good (Principle
Three, Goal 1.

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Limitations and Delimitations
This study is conducted in the research-based practice of qualitative research. In the field
of qualitative research, limitations are forces outside of the control of the researcher and
delimitations are outside of the defined boundaries of the study (Creswell, 2014). Limitations of
this study are consistent with the limitations of qualitative research. The study relies on truthful,
candid responses of participants. Multiple steps were taken to create an interview environment
for the participants that contained controls to help ensure truthful and candid responses. These
included providing an understanding of the goals of the research, allowing time for participants
to ask questions, highlighting the voluntary nature of the study, and documenting the steps that
would be taken to ensure their confidentiality, such as the researcher being in a private room
during the interview and how the data would be handled. While I engaged in multiple measures
to create the conditions for psychological safety that promote truthful and candid responses, there
are many variables in the professional and personal lives of study participants that influence the
responses of participants. These influences are outside of the control of the researcher.
Another limitation was the professional role of the researcher as grant maker focused on
early childhood education. To mitigate the potential limiting influence of the professional role of
the researcher as a foundation professional and the influence that philanthropy has on the
finances of non-profits, all correspondence occurred from a personal computer, using the
University of Southern California email address. Correspondence to all recruits stated that
research was conducted in my role as a doctoral student.
Another limitation of the study consistent with qualitative research and dissertation
research, specifically, is the time bound nature of the research. The interviews in which the data
were collected occurred over the course of three months. During these three months, the United

111
States was continuing to emerge from the global health pandemic where one-time investments in
child care were made and expiring. This was a unique moment in the child care policy ecosystem
that could have influenced the perceptions that informed system reimagination for study
participants.
A delimitation for this study was that I used my network to identify national leaders to
recommend individuals as recruits for the study. My relationships with and knowledge of the
careers of these national leaders helped me have confidence in their selection of emerging child
care leaders. As I recruited emerging leaders, I shared with them who recommended them for the
study. The relationships between the national leaders and the participants may have influenced
their responses to the interview questions. Another delimitation was the sample size of eleven
that limited the ability to determine congruence across emerging leaders in the child care sector.
The narrow focus on emerging child care leaders left the voices and wisdom of seasoned leaders
in the sector out of scope. These leaders may have different perspectives on a reimagined system.
Areas for Future Research
Interviewees raised their perceptions of troubling patterns for children and families
related to the restrictions of COVID-19, such as an increase in young children being suspended
and expelled from child care. More research is needed to understand if this is a widespread
pattern within child care. Another direction for future research is related to the well-being of
child care providers as we move out of the pandemic. As the child care system changes over
time, it is critical to develop mechanisms to understand the impact on children, families, and
child care providers, including measures of well-being.
Additionally, future research is needed on the perspectives on government administrators
related to a reimagined system for child care in the United States. As proposals for a more

112
equitable system are created and negotiated by parents and child care providers, it is imperative
that implementers in states, like child care administrators, are included to understand their
perspectives and understanding. An important aspect of implementation of any policy is the
governance structure that holds the authority, responsibility, and accountability for
operationalizing it. The child care field needs a deeper understanding of the forms and functions
of governance models and how they create the conditions for equitable implementation (Gomez,
2014).
Finally, the field needs to examine and define the characteristics of effective child care
programs. More clarity is needed on how to operationalize quality practices in the day-to-day
operations of child care programs. For children, it is imperative that the field look at the research
and create a discrete set of practices that would benefit all children and are flexible enough to
accommodate the diverse delivery system of child care.
Conclusion
The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate, from the perspective of emerging
leaders in early child care education policy, the research question, How do emerging early
childhood education leaders imagine the principles and goals of an equitable child care system
in the United States? Three principles for designing an equitable child care system emerged as a
result of qualitative data analysis and include: 1) apply lessons of history in design of child care
system; 2) rectify power dynamics in the process of building a new system; and 3) design a
system that works for child care workers, parents, and children. Four goals for system design
were also articulated: 1) universal system, funded as a public good; 2) living wages and
improved working conditions for child care providers; 3) supporting parent choice and system
simplification for parents; and 4) stabilizing children in relationships with providers that

113
understand child develop and delight in the care of children. The principles and goals that
emerged from this study harmonized with the research basis on the positive impact that child
care has on the lives of parents, children, employers, and society.
Recommendations suggest that child care leaders, including those working in
foundations, should act by investing in narrative change strategies to elevate the importance of
child care, organizing and power building for parents and child care workers, and incentivizing
the generation of child care policy solutions that work for children, parents, and providers. These
recommendations aim to shift the historical patterns that have led to the child care system today,
redress existing power dynamics in the field, and increase the status of the work of providing
child care to match its importance in keeping our economy moving forward.
Given that neuroscience supports that early childhood is a unique and powerful phase in
human brain development, it is striking that public education excludes children under five years
of age. Brain science points to the singular opportunity to influence future learning during the
rapid brain development of young children. What children learn when they are under five is the
foundation for the rest of their lives. Further, regardless of neuroscience and economic return on
investment for every dollar invested in child care, the simple fact is that most young children in
the United States attend child care. As a country, we do very little to ensure that these are early
childhood settings that use research-based best practices from Perry Preschool, Abecedarian and
Head Start (Campbell & Ramsey, 1994; Puma, 2012; Steinhart & Weikert, 1993) that are known
to foster child development and learning—very few states include any practices that support
child development in their regulatory standards for child care. As noted earlier, the CCDBG
child care subsidies do not require use in programs that demonstrate quality practices. Children
are important to our future, but our policies to ensure that they are in good places while their

114
parents are at work do not reflect this common-sense reality. The leaders in this study put
forward a new vision for a more equitable, simple, and research-based child care system.
During the short window in time that this study occurred, artificial intelligence became
ubiquitous. With AI becoming more mainstream each day, we can pause and consider what is
uniquely human, like caring for each other, working through problems, feeling our emotions, and
the random generation of ideas. In that pause, I am hopeful that leaders, like those included in
this study, will insist that it is time to do something better for young humans, like what is
described here. Hopefully, we will not have to wait another 50 years for an opportunity for
transformative change in child care.

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Appendix A
Interview Protocol
Research question: What are the goals and principles of an equitable federal child care system
in the United States?
Thank you for generously sharing your time with me for the purposes of my doctoral research
that seeks to understand the goals and principles of an equitable child care system in the United
States.
Given the recent failure, but near miss of the Build Back Better Act, this is the time to rethink the
child care system. To make progress, it is important to understand the vision. The purpose of
this study is to help illustrate a vision for an equitable child care system.
Before we begin the interview I want to share a few things.
1) You can end this interview at any time. I appreciate your participation.
2) You can ask me questions at any time–today and into the future.
3) I will keep your information confidential. Your words will be combined with words of the
other participants. No words will be attributed to you, nor will you be listed.
4) I would like to record this interview to help me remember what you shared. Do you
consent to being recorded? I will keep the recording on a PW protected computer and
delete it.
5) Also, I would like to record the gender and the race and ethnicity of participants in the
study. It is important when thinking about equity to know whose perspectives were
represented. To honor each person’s identity, I am asking each interviewee to describe
in their own words their gender, race and ethnicity. Would you be willing to share how
you describe your gender? How do you describe in your own words your race and
ethnicity?
Thank you.
Now let’s start the interview part of our time together.
I’d love to learn more about you and your journey to working in child care. Can you tell
me a little bit about your role?
● From your perspective, how would you define equity in the context of the child
care system?
● Curious to know, how do you understand what parents want and need from a
child care system?
● In thinking about another group, what about what child care educators want and
need from a child care system?

132
● Where do you get this information? Where did you gain this understanding? How did
you gain this understanding? Why do you understand it this way?
● What is your picture of parents? Providers?
● If you had a magic wand and could change one thing about the current system
what would it be? Who would benefit most from this change?
Now let’s talk in terms of an ideal world where there are no constraints or barriers exist
to creating a child care system,
● In your imagination, what would this ideal system look like?
● Who is it designed for? (do you have a picture or story in your mind?)
● In this ideal world, what would the goals of the system be?
● In your mind eye, how would equity be made real?
● As you imagine it, what would be the principles underlying the system? What
about values?
It is fun for me to take a mental trip to this alternative place and hear your ideas about
how things could look really different for children and families. Now switching back to
reality,
● From your perspective, what is the biggest barrier in creating an equitable child
care system? In your experience, what do you think is the root cause of this
barrier?
● Given this barrier that you have identified what is the first step to addressing it?
● Is there anything else you would like to tell me?
To wrap up, I have one last question for you.
● Now that you have participated in the study, is there anyone that you think that I
should talk to and include their voice in this study?
Thank you again for your good thinking here today and sharing your time with me.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This study explores the principles and goals of an equitable child care system in the United States. This is important because a significant gap exists between research findings demonstrating the benefits of child care and child care policy. Despite research across the disciplines of neuroscience, education and economics that highlights the importance of the child care to young children, their families, and society, child care operates as a private education system. Private education systems are inherently inequitable as family income is a barrier to accessing child care. As such, the private child care system perpetuates significant disparities rooted in race and income, with adverse effects and missed opportunities for children, families, child care workers and society. Through in-depth qualitative interviews with eleven emerging early childhood leaders, this study explores perceptions of equity, and ideas about child care systems transformation. Findings underscore the significance of addressing historical inequities and current power imbalances in developing a cohesive child care system designed for children and families that provides just compensation for child care workers. Conceptualized with Complex Adaptive System theory to guide the research and data analysis, another theoretical framework, critical pedagogy was employed to describe the recommendations for practice. This study contributes to the discourse on child care policy reform, offering insights valuable to policymakers, advocacy organizations, foundations, and others committed to advancing an equitable and sustainable child care system in the United States.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Topp, Nara Laurel (author)

Core Title Imagining an equitable child care system

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Global Executive

Degree Conferral Date 2024-08

Publication Date 08/28/2024

Defense Date 08/28/2024

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Child care,child care policy.,child care system,emerging early childhood leaders,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Krop, Cathy (committee chair), Picus, Lawrence (committee member), Robison, Mark (committee member)

Creator Email ntopp@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113999U1P

Unique identifier UC113999U1P

Identifier etd-ToppNaraLa-13444.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-ToppNaraLa-13444

Document Type Dissertation

Format theses (aat)

Rights Topp, Nara Laurel

Internet Media Type application/pdf

Type texts

Source 20240828-usctheses-batch-1203 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu