Jamie Davies O’Leary (January 8, 2019) Last month, the Center for American Progress (CAP) published a list of recommendations for newly elected governors to take on early childhood within their first 100 days. The article, “Early Childhood Agenda for Governors in 2019,” is exactly as it sounds, offering up an ambitious list of actions for the country’s 36 new or re-elected governors.
Let’s take a look at how Ohio Governor-elect Mike DeWine—who campaigned on promises to invest in Ohio’s children—aligns with these recommendations. How many of these promises are being rolled out, or likely to be by the end of April, within his first 100 days? The table below offers a cursory analysis.
Early childhood suggestions for a governor’s first 100 days (Center for American Progress)
| Demonstrate a commitment to early childhood | |
|---|---|
| Status: Has DeWine done this, or is likely to do this? | |
| Discuss early childhood in the State of the State Address | Yes.The annual State of the State address is an opportunity for a governor to lay out her/his priorities. In recent remarks given to Cleveland.com writer Andrew Tobias, DeWine has promised to that Ohio’s children will be the “first priority” of his administration. You can bet it will be a powerful theme of his speech. |
| Include early childhood investments in budget proposals | Yes.DeWine has specifically said that early childhood issues will make their way into his budget proposal, which will come out in March. Many of his early childhood proposals have a significant price tag: for example, raising families’ eligibility for Publicly Funded Child Care (PFCC) from 130% to 150% of the federal poverty level, as well as expanding home visiting services and mental health provision in schools. |
| Raise public awareness about the early childhood landscape | Yes.DeWine’s campaign shone a much-needed spotlight on early childhood and we can expect this to continue throughout his term. GroundWork Ohio, an early childhood advocacy group led by former Ohio Senator Shannon Jones, deserves credit for pushing childhood issues to the forefront through its Vote for Ohio Kids campaign and timely research. |
| Build a governing structure that supports early childhood | |
| Status: Has DeWine done this, or is likely to do this? | |
| Create a combined office of early childhood education | Unlikely.The administration of early childhood education programs is surprisingly complex, as evident in this recent Bipartisan Policy Center analysis. BPC examined the governance of early childhood education across states, the extent to which funding streams were split across state agencies, and the placement of various ECE initiatives. A quick glance at Ohio’s fact sheet alone illustrates how varied the early childhood oversight landscape is: funding for early care and education comes from at least 12 federal funding streams (to say nothing of Ohio’s state GRF-funded ECE grant). Creating a combined office of early childhood education through which to fund and regulate these varied programs would pose quite a headache. And it may not be necessary to achieve improved alignment, given the additional options below. |
| Appoint a Children’s Cabinet and encourage interagency coordination | Yes.CAP recommends that governors use the power of executive order to appoint a cabinet of heads of state agencies overseeing children’s issues, in order to help coordinate the delivery of services, data-sharing, etc. DeWine’s recent creation of the Office of Children’s Initiatives (overseen by LeeAnne Cornyn) demonstrates his commitment to improvement agency coordination across state agencies. |
| Appoint an early learning advisor in the governor’s immediate office | Yes.DeWine’s very first staff announcement was for a new position, Director of Children’s Initiatives. |
| Create formal advisory committees to convene key stakeholders | Yes.Ohio already has an Early Childhood Advisory Council (ECAC), which provides guidance to the governor on early childhood programs. The existence of such a council is spelled out in state law and is required by the federal Head Start Act of 2007. Its members are appointed by the governor. It remains to be seen how the DeWine administration will lean on the ECAC for guidance. Given upcoming quality mandates facing early care centers, it might be prudent to use the council as a central point from which to commission research that might include needs assessments, an examination of barriers to quality (what will it take to get more centers star-rated?), a deep-dive into what aspects of the quality rating system drive improvements, etc. |
| Use the power of the governor’s office to promote data-driven decision-making | |
| Status: Has DeWine done this, or is likely to do this? | |
| Understand the true cost of child care | TBD.The Center for American Progress has done some interesting work around estimating the “true cost of care,” and suggests that the provision of care costs anywhere from $1,230 to $15,000 per infant, per year. There is no right—or easy—answer to this question. What’s clear is that Ohio early care and preschool teachers face serious wage gaps when compared to their K-12 teacher peers. Given that the quality of care hinges, in large part, on the quality of teachers and their interactions with young children, attempts to improve quality statewide will inevitably drive up cost. |
| Identify child care deserts | TBD.DeWine and his team would do well to dive into recent child care desert data, released by CAP in late 2018, and consider what other data needs they face in answering vital questions about access, supply, and quality—especially for the nearly two in five Ohioans living in a child care desert. Shockingly, according to that analysis, most of these folks live in suburban deserts. This belies assumptions about care access and underscores the importance of data collection to affirm (or challenge) assumptions and inform policy change. |
| Support the early childhood workforce | TBD.Given the wage gaps facing early childhood educators, and the increasing mandates embedded in the state’s Step Up to Quality System, prioritizing support for the ECE workforce is critical. This could take shape in many ways: streamlining/reducing compliance burdens facing centers (as it relates to teacher quality requirements); creating an innovation fund for centers to tap into—for teacher retention, training, or professional development; or creating tax credits for ECE teachers to reduce their own tax burdens. The National Conference of State Legislators has some interesting ideas on this front. |
| Analyze infant and maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity | TBD.DeWine views home visiting as one strategy to help reduce infant mortality, so this topic is at least on the periphery of his mind. Given Ohio’s especially concerning mortality rate for black infants (deaths for this group increased last year), this would be is a good priority. Efforts to help coordinate, improve, and streamline data collection efforts as it pertains to the well-being of Ohio infants and children are sensible; and doing so during the early phases of the Administration makes the most sense. |
Despite not having officially been sworn in as Ohio’s 70th governor, it’s likely that DeWine will make headway on several of these 100-day recommendations. He’s also likely to make progress on at least two of CAP’s (long-term) recommendations for a comprehensive early childhood system as well: expansion of home visiting and providing high-quality, affordable child care for all families. (CAP’s third long-term recommendation, to provide full-day universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year olds, is highly unlikely in a DeWine governed Ohio and Republican-dominated state legislature.)
Admittedly, this list of recommendations for governors is only one such list—and it comes from a self-described progressive think tank, at that. This analysis does not intend to suggest that these eleven ideas are the only initiatives worth worrying about, or even the best ones. But the fact that the DeWine administration is on track to meeting at least several of them is exciting for early childhood advocates. As Cleveland.com’s Brent Larkin opined,
As governor, DeWine is likely to make more significant investments in programs involving health, infant mortality and early childhood education than any governor in state history. It’s impossible to overstate the potential value of those expenditures.
Perhaps just as exciting—at least for anyone following politics in 2019—is that early childhood may be one of the few remaining policy bastions that’s capable of bipartisan consensus.