Even before the outbreak of COVID-19 and resulting mass closures, high-quality child care was in short supply. Between 2018 and 2019, half of states actually saw a decline in the number of child care centers.

This is among the reasons why results from recent elections, in which voters turned out in droves to back pre-K investments, were exciting for the early childhood education community. In Colorado, a new nicotine tax will fund free preschool for about 67,000 4-year-olds statewide. In Oregon, voters in Portland’s Multnomah County passed a measure backing universal preschool. And President Joe Biden has made access to free preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds a cornerstone of his domestic policy proposals.

From tax credits to employer incentives, such investments could mark an overdue and unprecedented step toward universal pre-K. But history tells us that such proposals may be met with stiff policy and political headwinds in Washington. Because while the benefits of pre-K are widely accepted, policymakers know access alone is insufficient to make good on the promise of early childhood education. In fact, it can make matters worse.

Policymakers on the right will worry about the economic returns on significant early childhood investments, as there are no guarantees of access to high-quality programs. For policymakers on the left, the appeal of such investments may be tempered by well-founded equity concerns, as Black children are more likely to enroll in a low-quality early childhood education site than their white peers. This means that a rise in access, without a concomitant focus on quality, could exacerbate achievement gaps by perpetuating a system of haves and have-nots.

Read the full article about early childhood education by Bridget Hamre at The 74.