Every child in Detroit deserves an opportunity to access high-quality education regardless of race. and 1 more... less...
Increased and Aligned Funding
# of early childhood seats to meet Detroit families' need (seat gap)
Current Value
28,496
Definition
Description
Story Behind the Curve
Limiting/Negative Factors (Factors pushing the trend down)
- Inadequate Teacher Wages
- Barriers to Program Quality
- Heavy Cost Burdens
Positive Factors (Factors pushing the trend up)
- Michigan’s QRIS Program
- A Wave of Historic Funding
- Visibility of the Cross-system Impact ECE has
Factors Creating Disparities
- Disjointed System Data
- Inadequate Training
- Frontline Hardships
Root Factors (conditions that cross-cut the factors above influencing the trend)
- Lack Quality Programs and Professionals - Without High-quality early childhood programs, data, and supports we cannot sufficiently promote teacher preparedness and compensations as well the appropriate physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development of young children.
- Lack Affordability and Funding - Without addressing the issues of childcare affordability and funding we will not be able to meet the needs of families and those of childcare providers who simply cannot lower the price of care on their own.
What Works
We have aligned our Leading Strategies to address the root factors identified by our Story Behind the Curve. Our What Works information includes Policy Priorities alongside Research Spotlights we've used to inform the development of our Action Plans.
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What Works to address Quality challenges preventing us from meeting Childcare Needs? |
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Imperative |
Leading Strategies |
Policy Priorities |
Research Spotlight |
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Imperative #4 |
Improving ECE facilities' quality through the renovation and construction of high-quality seats. |
Advocate for implicit bias training for ECE professionals and for micro-credentialing applications
Integrate standard facility quality measurements within the QRIS.
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Micro-credentials Study: Micro-credentials have their roots in the “digital badge” movement that first gained traction as a way to support adult learning for the workforce. One of the earliest players was a group called Open Badges, created by Mozilla Foundation in 2013 with funding from the MacArthur Foundation. The previous year, Mozilla and Peer 2 Peer University in collaboration with MacArthur (2013) released a working paper that described their vision of digital badging as a vehicle for lifelong learning for adults. The same year, the Clinton Global Initiative announced an effort to expand access to Open Badges to help workers certify their skills and improve their economic futures (MacArthur Foundation, 2013). Around 2017, a report published by American Institutes for Research in 2013 (Finkelstein, Knight, & Manning, 2013)—funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Vocational and Adult Education—noted that digital badges could help validate functional skills valued in workplace settings. |
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Imperative #3 |
Developing common standards and a career lattice for early childhood programs and professionals. |
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Imperative #6 |
Better coordinating philanthropic giving. |
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What Works to address Affordability challenges preventing us from meeting Childcare Needs? |
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Imperative |
Leading Strategies |
Policy Priorities |
Innovation Spotlight |
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Imperative #4 |
Align, expand, and better leverage available resources to increase the number of high-quality early childhood facilities |
Advocate for sustain eligibility at 185% FPL
Advocate for premium pay pilot for Detroit, and continued increases in reimbursement rates and with innovative structures e.g. enrollment v attendance |
Innovation Wage Parity: In Michigan, 66 percent of children live in households where all available parents are currently working, and 26 percent of all Michigan children are part of low-income families. The cost of high-quality childcare is out of reach for many working families, including those who earn middle-class wages. At the same time, large swaths of early childhood educators — even those with college degrees — earn unlivable wages.
Innovative examples used in other states to achieve wage parity for early childhood professionals include dedicated public funds in the form of set-asides or new taxes, community benefit agreements, individual or business tax credits, opioid settlement dollars. Compensation parity” is defined as parity for salary and benefits for equivalent levels of education and experience, adjusted to reflect differences in differences in hours of work, and including payment for non-child contact hours (such as paid time for planning). NIEER |
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Imperative #3 |
Attract, better compensate, and retain members of the early childhood workforce. |
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Imperative #6 |
Increase state and local funding and resource awareness. |
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Clear Impact Suite is an easy-to-use, web-based software platform that helps your staff collaborate with external stakeholders and community partners by utilizing the combination of data collection, performance reporting, and program planning.