Photography by Izaiah Johnson
Even in the first days of school, Albert Sanders Jr. says, he can often tell which children have been in a classroom before: Is this child able to listen to a book for five minutes? Can she tell the difference between letters and numbers?
Sanders, a St. Louis Public Schools veteran and a 2019 Missouri Regional Teacher of the Year, is also one member of the Tomorrow Builders Fellowship, a group made up mostly of educators tasked by nonprofit WEPOWER with identifying ways to address disparities in early childhood education. This summer, the fellows built off an IFF report, "The First Steps to Equity," for their design process, which will culminate in a more solutions-oriented "Community Playbook," slated for release in December.
“A lot of us believe that the early childhood education system in the region is broken,” says Kate Booher, a group member who worked in classrooms for a decade and is now earning a Ph.D. at Saint Louis University. “The youngest children are bearing the burden of that and carrying that into adulthood.” She points to studies showing a correlation between lack of early childhood education and, years later, the likelihood of a young adult’s dropping out of high school or being caught in the legal system.
Caregiver income and neighborhood can affect whether children are enrolled in a school or daycare or cared for under more informal arrangements with family or friends. There are also long waiting lists for the best programs, and quality varies widely. “Only 19 percent of children who are eligible for subsidies have access to a slot at a provider that has met requirements beyond licensing,” notes IFF's report. Though there are, strictly speaking, enough slots, there’s a minimal guarantee of program quality, with staff qualifications varying greatly. Missouri is one of a few states without a standardized accreditation system to help guide education decisions for caregivers, who often rely on word of mouth and online reviews instead.
The Tomorrow Builders have examined other cities’ approaches to early childhood education, visiting such places as Detroit (which offers such resources as the Detroit Parents Network) and Tulsa (where the fellows learned about one of the nation’s first attempts to make pre-K education universal, resulting in academic gains).
Booher knows that equality of opportunity isn’t realistic within the current system, but the Tomorrow Builders hope to design a system in which neither race nor ZIP code plays a deciding role in the chances of the young. Says Booher: “We need to make the system work for all kids.”
Click here to sign up to download the Tomorrow Builders' playbook for transforming early childhood education in St. Louis City and County, slated for release in early December.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated from an earlier version.
Care Concerns
A statistical look at early childhood education
7% Maximum percentage of a family’s income that affordable care should cost, according to federal guidelines
$8,318 Average annual market-rate cost of early childhood education services in St. Louis
$16,000 Average annual cost for average childcare for two children in Missouri (more than 98 percent of a full-time minimum wage worker’s salary)
5% Percentage of early childhood education centers and homes in St. Louis that are accredited
$10.72 Median hourly wage for childcare workers, often resulting in high turnover
70% Percentage that children who receive high-quality early education are less likely to be arrested for a violent crime than those who do not.
Source: IFF, "The First Step to Equity"; Clark-Fox Policy Institute, "Make Work Work"
