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Introduction

While many young children are thriving and have access to the conditions and resources they need to grow up healthy, a substantial number of young children face more challenging conditions. These conditions—rooted in an unequal and often racialized¹ distribution of resources in the United States—have compounded over time, and today manifest as inadequate access to health care and well-funded, quality early care and education (ECE) programs and schools; poverty; food insecurity; lack of mental health care; and exposure to violence. The opportunity gap represented by these challenges can easily translate to an achievement gap that can not only affect future academic outcomes but also lead to disparities in physical and mental health and well-being.

A central emphasis of this report is that, although the opportunity gap is usually defined in terms of its effects on future academic performance, one must understand the interconnectedness of gaps in other domains, such as physical health, mental health, and social-emotional development, in order to develop strategies for closing this gap that address the healthy development of the whole child. In recognition of this essential interconnectedness, the opportunity gap is defined in this report as the unequal and inequitable distribution of resources and experiences on the basis of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English proficiency, disability, immigration status, community wealth, familial situations, geography, or other factors

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¹ Racialization is defined as the act of giving a racial character to someone or something or the process of categorizing, marginalizing, or regarding according to race (Merriam-Webster, 2022).

that contribute to or perpetuate inequities in well-being across groups of young children in health, social-emotional development, and education. The purpose of this study was to identify and describe causes, costs, and effects of the opportunity gap among young children and to make recommendations on how to improve these conditions and promote success for children—at home, in communities, and in schools.

ABOUT THIS STUDY

To better understand the nature of the opportunity gap and the factors driving disparities in outcomes among young children, the sponsors of this study² asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene an ad hoc committee of experts to respond to the statement of task presented in Box 1-1. The committee’s membership represents the diverse areas of expertise—early childhood and primary education, child development, public health, mental health, sociology, demography, neuroscience, economics, and public policy—that must be brought to bear to fully understand the interconnectedness mentioned previously and the complexity of the statement of task.

In responding to its statement of task, the committee focused on opportunity gaps in three domains—education, physical health and health care, and social-emotional development and well-being. In each of these domains, the committee examined the numerous gaps that prevent young children from having equitable access to resources and experiences. It should be noted that, although the committee’s statement of task specifies a focus on children from birth to age 8, we recognize that the causes of the opportunity gap may begin before birth, and its effects may persist well beyond third grade into adulthood.

STUDY APPROACH

Evidence presented in this report was gathered from a range of sources. The committee met in closed sessions six times over the course of the study to discuss its findings and develop conclusions and recommendations based on the evidence gathered. The committee’s first (virtual) meeting in February 2021 provided an opportunity to hear presentations from representatives of the study sponsors during a session that was open to the public. This meeting allowed the committee members to ask clarifying questions related to

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² This study was sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families (Department of Health and Human Services), Bainum Family Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Brady Education Foundation, Foundation for Child Development, Heising-Simons Foundation, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

the statement of task. Another virtual public information-gathering session, webcast live, was held in May 2021. This session was focused on measuring the opportunity gap and understanding barriers to accessing benefit programs.³ The committee also held four public listening sessions at which invited speakers presented research on measuring the opportunity gap, on inequality and children’s brain development, on child poverty and the opportunity gap, on behavioral insights and parental decision making, and on addressing inequality in the United States from “cradle to kindergarten.” In addition to these meetings, the committee commissioned a paper on the economic costs of the opportunity gap to inform its recommendations and conducted extensive searches of the literature related to the domains outlined in the statement of task.

While a comprehensive systematic review of all primary literature related to all of the domains relevant to the committee’s charge was not within the scope of this study, the committee developed a three-pronged approach to reviewing such a large research base. First, the committee reviewed several National Academies reports related to the scope of this work (Box 1-2), as well as additional up-to-date peer-reviewed analyses and reviews of the literature. The findings gleaned from these sources provided a base summary of the state of the evidence on child opportunity and outcome gaps and policies and practices that can improve or exacerbate access to opportunities. Relevant findings are briefly summarized throughout each chapter of this report. Second, to document inequities in access to opportunities and the sources of these inequities, the committee reviewed comprehensive historical analyses of inclusion and exclusion and policy analyses of state/local variations in program design, implementation, and funding; current program participation; unmet need; and take-up barriers, such as administrative burden. When data were available, the committee summarized access issues by race/ethnicity, immigrant status, income, and disability/health status, and examined qualitative research describing whether children’s culture, racialized history, and language needs have been addressed in programs serving young children. Finally, the committee examined reviews of evaluation evidence for policies and programs, and recent studies if no such reviews were available. Causal and quasi-experimental evidence, broken down by subgroups, is summarized when available, as are research and data gaps. Given the limited number of national studies estimating the impact of opportunity gaps with large-enough sample sizes to enable subgroup analyses, the committee also considered high-quality correlational research studies making clear whether intervention effects are associations or causal and for which groups.

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³ The Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief for this meeting is available at https://www.nap.edu/read/26416

The statement of task asked that the committee examine the connection between the opportunity gap and potential resulting achievement gaps for young children. The approach to addressing this question was guided by a recognition that children and their families interact with numerous systems and environments in ways that can either mitigate or exacerbate disparities that affect both short- and long-term outcomes.

While the statement of task is oriented toward future educational achievement, it asked that the committee make recommendations not only for education policy, practice, and research, but also for how to improve conditions and promote success for young children more broadly. To understand how varying conditions can affect young children, the committee examined both historical and current drivers of inequities in education, health, and social and emotional well-being. The committee also reviewed evidence related to promising policies and practices with the potential to close the opportunity gap for young children.

THE REPORT CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The committee drew on a number of sources to inform its development of a framework that could describe the complexity of how various structural drivers and individual, family, and community factors interact across a wide variety of domains, not only during the period from birth to age 8, but also prior to birth and into later life, to create the opportunity gap (Start Early, n.d.; Bronfenbrenner, 1992; Kuh et al., 2003; Institute of Medicine & National Research Council [IOM & NRC], 2015; National Academies, 2016, 2019a,b; World Health Organization, United Nations Children’s Fund, & World Bank Group, 2018). First, to identify areas for examination within the study scope, the committee looked to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). While it is important to note that the United States is one of two countries in the world that has not ratified the CRC (UNICEF, 1990), its provisions for what nations should do to ensure that children’s rights are protected helped shape the committee’s thinking on areas of research for discussion in this volume. Among other provisions, for example, the CRC asks that nations—to the extent possible—ensure the survival and development of the child (Art. 6); ensure the development of institutions, facilities, and services for the care of children and the right of children of working parents to benefit from child care services and facilities for which they are eligible (Art. 18); ensure that assistance to disabled children is provided free of charge, taking into account the financial resources of the parents or others caring for the child (Art. 23); and recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health (Art. 24; UNICEF, 1990).

The committee also examined the frameworks and approaches presented in recent relevant National Academies reports and in literature related to the statement of task. The science of early development; the mechanisms of early adversity, stress, and resilience that affect sensitive periods of brain and biological development; and the implications for young children and their trajectories into adulthood is well established (National Academies, 2000, 2019c). Based on this scientific evidence, a strong case has been made for early intervention and investments and a strengths-based approach to support young children (García Coll et al., 1996; Walker et al., 2011). Ecological models have long acknowledged that disparities in children’s access to opportunities are driven by structural factors, such as the macroeconomy, policy choices, and structural racism, that are beyond the direct control of families. There is growing recognition across disciplines that racial, ethnic, and immigrant stratification manifested by structural racism and the illegality associated with immigrant status should be incorporated as key components in traditional models focused on early adversity,

brain development, and healthy child development (Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2021a; Shonkoff, Slopen, & Williams, 2021). Building on these frameworks and the body of scientific evidence, the committee developed a conceptual model of the opportunity gap experienced by many young children (Figure 1-1). This model recognizes that children and their families interact with numerous institutions and programs within their communities. These interactions are influenced not only by policy and economic contexts (e.g., drivers) but also by structural racism,⁴ which often affects access to—and the quality of—opportunities. The model shown in Figure 1-1 depicts how family and social factors (e.g., culture, home language, parent education), environmental and community factors (e.g., access to safe spaces for play, lack of environmental contaminants, violence-free neighborhoods), structural inequities (e.g., structural racism, residential segregation, disparities in school funding), economic drivers (e.g., unemployment, prices of goods needed to raise children), and policy drivers (e.g., federal social safety net and social protection and support policies, local school funding formulas) interact with one another to influence—and have the potential to create inequities in—access to high-quality opportunities. As in other models, these opportunities include educational experiences and high-quality health, economic, and psychosocial supports from the prenatal period through the early years and across the life course. This report differs from others in presenting a comprehensive review of the evidence on structural factors that shape differences in children’s opportunities based on race/ethnicity, immigration, and disability/health status and their intersection.

UNDERSTANDING THE HISTORICAL AND STRUCTURAL DRIVERS OF THE OPPORTUNITY GAP

As background for the detailed discussion in the following chapters, the remainder of this introduction provides historical contexts and examines structural factors that have created and continue to perpetuate the opportunity gap. Also provided is an overview of the changing demographics of children from ages 0 to 8 and evidence showing that the effectiveness of public policies designed to provide opportunities for these young children will increasingly be evaluated on how they affect the well-being of children of color and children of immigrants. Reviewed as well is research outlining barriers that impede access to sources of resources and supports for young children and their families.

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⁴ Structural racism is defined in this report as “a system in which historical and (or) contemporary public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in different, often reinforcing, ways to maintain or compound racial inequalities” (Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change, 2004, p. 11; National Academies, 2022a, p. 1).

To understand the nature of the opportunity gaps experienced by young children, one must first understand the historical contexts that are their origins and that underpin the structures and barriers that often cause disparities in outcomes to persist. While rooted in history, many of these institutional and economic drivers continue to affect access to resources, supports, and high-quality experiences in ECE, health and health care, and social-emotional development and well-being. The resulting opportunity gaps disproportionately affect children from households with low income and from marginalized populations, not just in the early years from birth to age 8 but across the life course. The increasing racial/ethnic diversity of U.S. children is resulting in greater numbers of young children who are disproportionately low income; therefore, these opportunity gaps, if left unaddressed, will be experienced by more children over time.

Historical Precedents in Education

An analysis of opportunity gaps in the early years and the early grades requires a historical understanding of the evolution of the systems in which these gaps are experienced and of how, from these origins, structural and interpersonal inequities have interacted to create the opportunity gaps and outcome disparities of today. To provide context for issues covered in this report, Table 1-1 provides a brief review of historical precedents in education across systems and settings.

Preprimary and elementary education systems and settings have developed over time with relative independence from one another, in part because of the differences in origins and goals summarized in Table 1-1. This disconnect can affect factors such as teacher qualifications, program quality standards, and program oversight, which in turn affect the quality of children’s learning experiences (IOM & NRC, 2015). Even with the growth in access to and investment in ECE over the last five to six decades as a mechanism for bridging early opportunity gaps—accomplished through the growth of Head Start, state pre-K, and the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG)—program funding, access, and quality remain inadequate (IOM & NRC, 2015; Lombardi et al., 2016; Malik et al., 2018; National Academies, 2018; Ullrich & Schmit, 2019; Keating et al., 2020; Meek et al., 2020; Friedman-Krauss et al., 2022).

It is important to note that the historical inequalities affecting children from marginalized populations may be compounded when one accounts for identity intersections. The concept of intersectionality describes the way in which inequality associated with multiple social categories of identity (e.g., class, race, ethnicity, nativity, gender) can overlap and compound inequities in outcomes for individuals and communities (Crenshaw, 1991). Indeed, such characteristics as race, social class, gender, national origin, language

TABLE 1-1 Historical Precedents in Education in the United States across Systems and Settings for Children from Birth through Age 8

SOURCE: Adapted from IOM & NRC, 2015.

background, and disability have been intricately interlaced throughout history and have been associated with reductions in opportunity (Valencia, 2010). In the late 1800s, for instance, the so-called ugly laws—also known as the “unsightly beggar ordinances”—prevented people with visible disabilities and deformities from accessing public spaces, including public transportation (Schweik, 2009). Of significance, ugly laws were enforced in various states as late as the 1970s. These legal barriers disproportionately impacted the lives of people of color, especially those with disabilities, in terms of community participation, civic engagement, and access to and use of services in multiple sectors (Walker, 1996; Lee, 2009).

Intersectional historical analyses of educational opportunity in ECE and in the early elementary grades are necessary to understand and reduce opportunity gaps among young children. Disability, for instance, has historically been a category subjected to exclusion and discrimination. However, an intersectional lens can provide insights into how the intersection of disability with other categories, such as race and language, increases barriers to opportunity. Herein lies a daunting challenge: understanding the dual nature of disability and its intersections in order to provide supports and protections to those who need them while avoiding the use of these intersections to produce opportunity gaps and perpetuate the stratification of certain groups (Artiles, Dorn, & Bal, 2016).

Segregation as a Structural Driver of the Opportunity Gap

Segregation is a major structural driver of inequalities in resource allocation, opportunity, and family and child outcomes related to health, education, and economic advancement. Over the course of U.S. history, segregation has been used as a tool for exclusion, separating children by race, income, language, and disability. Residential segregation, both racial/ethnic and income/wealth-based, separates families and children into neighborhoods with vastly different resources. The research reviewed in this section demonstrates that children from historically marginalized communities consistently and disproportionately experience resource gaps that can affect their developmental health (Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2010, 2020; Orfield & Frankenberg, 2014; Chetty et al., 2020). Residential segregation is the main driver of school segregation, which in turn is associated with inequitable exposure to qualified teachers, class size, curriculum, and pedagogy. Children may also be segregated within schools by language, disability, or other characteristics, further increasing their isolation.

Residential Segregation

Residential segregation—the physical separation of groups into different neighborhoods—is a result of discriminatory policies and practices, both historical (e.g., racial covenants, redlining, displacement through urban renewal; Rothstein, 2017) and ongoing (e.g., discriminatory lending and real estate practices, exclusionary zoning, “opportunity hoarding”⁵). Because most school assignments are residence based, residential segregation is also at the root of school segregation. In fact, residential and school segregation can be mutually reinforcing as a result of the local property taxes in funding public schools (Rothwell, 2012).

Residential Racial/Ethnic Segregation

Levels of residential segregation are higher for children than for adults for every major racial/ethnic group (Iceland et al., 2010; Jargowsky, 2014; Owens, 2017). This segregation is not benign, but leads to neighborhoods that are both separate and greatly unequal in terms of resources and opportunities (Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2010; McArdle & Acevedo-Garcia, 2018; Owens, 2020). In addition to its impacts on education, discussed in a

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⁵ Opportunity hoarding—“a behavior that reserves for one’s own children the best possible educational opportunities, the inevitable flip side of which is excluding others from those same good opportunities” (Walters, 2007, p. 17)—contributes to and compounds the effects of segregation. It is related to individual behaviors, but these behaviors are facilitated by policies and structures (Hanselman & Fiel, 2017; Sattin-Bajaj & Roda, 2020; Cashin, 2021).

later section, residential segregation negatively impacts health outcomes by exposing residents to lower housing quality (Williams & Collins, 2001; Kramer & Hogue, 2009), concentrated poverty, and reduced access to economic opportunities (Williams & Collins, 2001; Schulz et al., 2002; Mays, Cochran, & Barnes, 2007; Kramer & Hogue, 2009; Kotecki et al., 2019). Research has found that high levels of residential segregation appear to be related to worse outcomes for Black infants (Polednak, 1991; Bird, 1995; Collins, 1999; Kotecki et al., 2019) and Black adults (Polednak, 1993; Hart et al., 1998; Collins, 1999; Jackson et al., 2000; Kotecki et al., 2019). Research has found further that it is not “racial isolation” in itself that drives gaps in opportunity but the associated conditions, including discrimination, disenfranchisement, and historical and current inequitable access to resources (Faber, 2020).

While racial/ethnic and economic integration are intertwined, high levels of racial/ethnic segregation cannot be explained by income alone. Children are more economically segregated than are adults, but after accounting for family income, racial/ethnic segregation among children remains high. Segregation of poor children of all major non-White racial/ethnic groups from poor White children is very high, even higher than that of children of all incomes combined (McArdle & Acevedo-Garcia, 2018). Further, while segregation by income has been increasing, racial/ethnic segregation of children is still higher than is income segregation.

The negative effects of residential segregation may persist throughout childhood into adulthood, providing opportunities for interventions aimed at mitigating those effects, as well as improving children’s access to neighborhoods and schools with resources to support healthy development. Given that segregation is a structural problem with roots and manifestations in many sectors, interventions to mitigate it span housing, education, and health. Indeed, many in the public health field see segregation as a social determinant of health and health equity, and, accordingly, view as public health initiatives such nonhealth policies and programs as fair housing; programs to improve neighborhood choice, such as those targeting housing mobility; increased enforcement of laws focused on housing discrimination; and projects designed to improve neighborhood conditions (Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2008; Kotecki et al., 2019).

Residential Socioeconomic Segregation

Increases in income segregation have overwhelmingly been led by families with children. Indeed, segregation levels for such families are roughly double those for families without children, in large part because of rising income inequality and unequal school options along school district boundaries that incentivize families with children who can afford it to find

housing in school districts with more resources. Upper-income families have thus been able to access neighborhoods with a larger property tax base and better schools, thereby separating their children from their lower-income counterparts (Owens, 2016). This economic segregation is further enabled by zoning codes that limit or entirely prohibit types of homes that are affordable to lower-income families, which tend to be disproportionately Black and Hispanic. Strict zoning codes are one example of the opportunity hoarding by which privileged families can sequester themselves in exclusive areas with neighbors and school populations that reflect local demographics.

School Segregation

School segregation is perhaps the most critical pathway by which residential segregation impacts child well-being, given that 84% of public school students attend assigned schools, usually based on place of residence (Noel, Stark, & Redford, 2016).

As a result of court rulings eliminating numerous desegregation orders and plans, especially throughout the 1990s and 2000s, prior gains in desegregation have gradually been reversed (Reardon et al., 2012; Frankenberg et al., 2019). Thus although diversity within student populations has increased over time, schools throughout the United States continue to be segregated along racial and ethnic lines; Latinos in the Western United States are particularly affected (GAO, 2022). This resegregation has also been shaped by the lasting effects of discriminatory housing and other local policies, such as school boundary gerrymandering (Richards, 2014), defined as the drawing of irregularly shaped borders (as opposed to borders around cohesive communities) that determine school attendance zones. School leaders make decisions about school attendance zone boundaries and school assignments within those zones, taking into account an array of community factors, including race, income, and parental education (Monarrez & Chien, 2021). Some research has explored the role of school boundary gerrymandering in preventing students from lower-income families from attending high-resourced schools, a practice generally associated with increases in segregation, particularly in communities undergoing rapid demographic shifts (Richards, 2014, 2017). School boundary gerrymandering has been used to reduce segregation in some communities, but it is also used to consolidate resources in more affluent communities and decrease school diversity (Saporito & Van Riper, 2016; Richards, 2017).

Similarly, research on the effects of school choice⁶ policies has highlighted how these policies have the potential to exacerbate racial segregation of schools. For example, some families choose schools that have fewer students from marginalized populations and are better resourced, while other families choose schools where they can self-isolate within their own racial/ethnic community. Other parents may choose a school other than their local traditional public school, such as a charter, based on proximity to home, and these schools may reflect racially segregated demographics within the community (Bifulco & Ladd, 2007; García, 2008; Jacobs, 2011; Kotok et al., 2017). Private school vouchers have also been found to have the net effect of exacerbating segregation (Potter, 2017).

Racial/ethnic segregation is associated with concentrated school poverty, disproportionately inflicting the harms of concentrated poverty on Black and Hispanic students. While public schools have increasing shares of low-income students, Black and Hispanic students disproportionately attend high-poverty schools. In 2013, low-income students made up 52% of enrollment in public schools overall. The average White or Asian student attended a school that was 40% or 42% low income, respectively, but the corresponding percentage for the average Black or Hispanic student was 68% (Orfield et al., 2016). Segregated schools provide reduced access to resources, supports, and services for students of color, particularly Black, Latino, and Indigenous children and youth (Frankenberg et al., 2019). A National Academies report documents a $23 billion funding gap between schools serving predominantly non-White versus mainly White learners, “despite serving the same number of children” (National Academies, 2019a, p. 192). Segregation patterns are also negatively associated with achievement, college completion, income, and long-term employment (Condron et al., 2013; Frankenberg et al., 2019; Reardon et al., 2019).

The educational achievement gap between middle-income and low-income students has widened, in part as a result of income segregation (Owens, Reardon, & Jencks, 2016). Evidence suggests that when classrooms are more socioeconomically diverse, learning in both preschool and elementary school settings, specifically in language, math, and reading, is greater (Cascio, 2021). Some of these studies have found this association with greater learning gains regardless of children’s own socioeconomic status (Schwartz, 2010; Reid et al., 2015). Schools with lower levels of concentrated poverty lead to improved achievement through a number of mechanisms, including “more equitable access to important resources such as structural facilities, highly qualified teachers, challenging courses, private and public funding,

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⁶ School choice allows public funds to follow students to the schools they attend and permits families to select alternatives to public schools, such as charter schools, private schools, or home school.

social and cultural capital,” lower levels of social disorder and violence, and higher educational expectations compared with segregated schools (Wells, Fox, & Cordova-Cobo, 2016, p. 12). As with other structural drivers of opportunity, it is not the composition of children’s socioeconomic status in itself that predicts learning gains; rather, the conditions resulting from underinvestment that affect nearly every other domain of life—health, education, and economic stability—are associated with deficits in learning. That is, concentrated poverty and community underinvestment suppress opportunity, including in learning (Coley et al., 2019; Wodtke et al., 2022).

Segregation in Early Childhood Education

Unfortunately, children are most segregated at the very young ages, a critical time in their development when their racial attitudes are still developing and when cross-racial friendships are most common. Segregation at the preschool level occurs both across and within programs. Head Start programs disproportionately enroll low-income and Black students (Joshi, Geronimo, & Acevedo-Garcia, 2016). Hispanic children are disproportionately less likely to attend center-based preschools, while children from families of higher socioeconomic status are more likely to do so (Frankenberg, 2016). And a study of 28,000 public preschools found that more than half of Hispanic and Black students attended preschools with at least 90% children of color, a level of isolation even greater than that of K–12 students (Frankenberg, 2016).

Data indicate that ECE classrooms with greater racial segregation of Latino and Black children are associated with lower-quality instruction, emotional support, and global quality scores (Reid et al., 2015). Similar patterns have been identified in the early grades, with greater racial isolation predicting lower math and literacy learning (Aikens & Barbarin, 2008; Benson & Borman, 2010; Ready & Silander, 2011). Other studies have replicated this finding in the early grades and throughout the K–12 continuum, indicating that residential segregation is a strong predictor of opportunity and outcome gaps in education and income (e.g., Johnson, 2011; Bischoff & Reardon, 2014; Reardon, 2015).

Disability Segregation

Research indicates that inclusion in high-quality general ECE programs is associated with a host of positive social and academic outcomes for children with and without disabilities, and that early inclusion is associated with inclusion later in children’s school trajectories (Rafferty, Piscitelli, & Boettcher, 2003; Green, Terry, & Gallagher, 2014; Lawrence, Smith, & Banerjee, 2016). Yet, segregation by disability status is also a reality of

the ECE system that extends into the early grades and across the K–12 education system. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is clear about the requirement to educate children with disabilities in the least restrictive environment possible and to secure placements for them in settings that they would attend if they did not have a disability (20 U.S.C. § 1400 [2004]). For children with disabilities, segregation can be a violation of this requirement, affecting their ability to learn alongside their peers without disabilities. Today, more than half of preschoolers with disabilities who receive IDEA services receive those services outside of general ECE programs (U.S. Department of Education, 2021). There are some disparities by age in this regard; for example, 3-year-olds are the least likely to receive services in inclusive settings, while 5-year-olds are the most likely. There are also substantial differences across and within states, with Colorado serving the highest percentage of preschoolers with disabilities in inclusive settings and Louisiana serving the lowest (Meek et al., 2020).

In many instances, preschool special education systems were required to be established long before robust public preschool systems were put in place. Over time, even as the number of public preschool slots expanded, the percentage of children with disabilities receiving services in those settings barely changed (Smith et al., 2020). Today, data indicate no association between the amount of public pre-K available for 4-year-olds in a state and the percentage of preschoolers with disabilities receiving services in those programs (Meek et al., 2020), pointing to underutilization of public pre-K in expanding inclusive learning for children with disabilities. In particular, the lack of coordination of IDEA service delivery in ECE settings outside of public schools and Head Start programs may be an important factor in these low inclusion numbers.

Many of these inequities are undergirded by chronic underfunding of identification and service systems, together with policies that affect children with disabilities inequitably, especially those from racialized backgrounds and those who speak languages other than English at home (Gillispie, 2021; Hinds, Newby, & Korman, 2022). At the current level of funding, IDEA cannot ensure sufficient quantity and dosage of high-quality services for children who need them. In addition, the system does not always ensure appropriate and accurate identification (specifically with respect to under- and overidentification); access to services, particularly early intervention and preschool special education services for children of color; high-quality supports and accommodations in sufficient dosage to promote learning and growth across learning and education goals; and discipline policies that address disproportionately high rates of harsh discipline for children with disabilities (National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2020; Gillispie, 2021). Each of these deficits contributes to the existing opportunity gaps for these children.

Language Segregation

The default use of English in the U.S. education system is long-standing; however, the contexts through which language policies are implemented have the potential to reinforce disparities and devalue the cultures and languages of marginalized populations. For example, language has been used as a tool for exclusion, segregation, and assimilation (described in Douglas & the Supreme Court’s decision in Lau v. Nichols; Gándara & Orfield, 2010; Department of the Interior, 2021), as exemplified by the creation of Indigenous boarding schools and the establishment of Mexican schools in the Southwest and California (Gonzales, 2011; Glenn, 2015; Surface-Evans, 2016). In fact, as recently as 2016, California was an “English-only” state, mandating exclusively English instruction in public education. Arizona remains the sole English-only state in the nation today, and its policies require segregating English learners. Across the country, English learner policies vary greatly, but in practice, many of these children remain segregated in schools (Gándara, 2020). For children who speak a non-English language at home, segregated learning may deprive them of equal education opportunities (Castro & Meek, 2022), and is associated with poorer outcomes (Artiles et al., 2010; Rumberger & Tran, 2010; Estrada, Wang, & Farkas, 2020).

Today, language segregation significantly overlaps with racial and income segregation (Gándara & Aldana, 2014). Research shows that dual language learners and English learners are more likely than their non–dual language and non–English learner peers to attend schools that are racially, economically, and linguistically segregated (Orfield & Frankenberg, 2014). This finding points to the importance of considering the interconnectedness of race, income, and language as they relate to opportunity, and how the effects of systems and policies are compounded to inhibit opportunity for children. Many dual language learners and English learners are segregated at the classroom level for at least part of the school day to focus on English acquisition. Often these blocks of segregated English learning time are long, reducing the time students have to engage in learning other subjects, such as math and science. That deficit in turn creates an opportunity gap and contributes to disparities in longer-term outcomes, such as high school graduation (National Academies, 2018). Research has found that the level of segregation of English learners in a school is a significant predictor of the gap in academic outcomes between those children and their peers (Rumberger & Tran, 2010). Yet these segregation practices and policies persist in schools, despite research showing negative impacts on educational opportunity for English learners who are excluded from rigorous or advanced coursework (National Academies, 2018), and positive academic and social benefits of dual language immersion or bilingual learning models for both dual language and English learners and their native English-speaking peers (Serafini, Rozell, & Winsler, 2020).

DEMOGRAPHIC AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES AFFECTING CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

This section reviews a number of shifts affecting the opportunities available to young children, including changes in demographic characteristics, the economy and labor markets, poverty, and geography.

The Changing Demography of Children from Birth to Age 8: Implications for the Opportunity Gap

Understanding the overall size, needs, and demographic characteristics of the child population is critical to designing effective policies and programs that provide equitable opportunities for all children to reach their full potential. The size of the child population and children’s specific needs determine the demand for institutions and services such as ECE, schools, pediatric health care practices, and family social services. In the United States, most national child-focused policies are not universal, nor do they provide funding to fully meet demand (Currie, 2006). A consequence of these national-level gaps is state variations in allocation of benefits that meet children’s basic needs, resulting in deficits that can create opportunity gaps and lead to underserved groups of children (Bruch, Gornick, & Van Der Naald, 2022).

The size and demographics of the child population are changing rapidly. Children are the most racially/ethnically diverse age group in the United States, and children of color, multiracial children, and immigrant children are driving growth in the child population (Frey, 2018). The Census Bureau projects that the child population under age 18 will grow from 74 to 80 million from 2020 to 2060, by which time 60% of children are projected to be Black, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, or multiracial (Vespa, Medina, & Armstrong, 2020). Figure 1-2 shows that the share of White children under 18 declined from 74% in 1980 to 50% in 2020, and is projected to decrease even further to 39% by 2050. The share of Hispanic children almost tripled between 1980 and 2020, rising from 9% to 26%, and is projected to grow further to 31% by 2050. The share of Asian and multiracial children is projected to grow to 7% and 8%, respectively, by 2050, while the share of Black and American Indian children is projected to remain constant at 14% and 1%, respectively. Other research indicates that the share of children in immigrant families will increase from 23% in 2009 to 34% by 2050 (Passel, 2011). These demographic shifts mean that the success of public policies will increasingly be evaluated according to their effects on the well-being of children of color and children in immigrant families.

Of the 74 million U.S. children under 18 in 2020, fewer than half, 35.4 million, were aged 0–8—the focus of this committee’s work. There were 17.3 million White children aged 0–8, more than 9 million Hispanic children, 4.7 million Black children, 1.8 million Asian children, 2.3 million multiracial children, and fewer than 250,000 American Indian children (Figure 1-3). The demographic composition of the population of young children aged 0–8 in 2020 was similar to that of the total child population. Fewer than half of children under 8 were White (49%), more than a quarter were Hispanic (26%), 13% were Black, 5% were Asian, and 7% were other/multiracial; fewer than 1% were American Indian.

The surge in the diversity of the child population is being driven by changing fertility patterns, the aging of the baby boom generation, and the most recent wave of immigration starting in the 1960s (Frey, 2018). Immigrants are fundamental to the U.S. economy and social fabric, fueling labor markets and contributing to the diversity of cultures and languages. The Immigration Act of 1965 opened up legal immigration to people from all over the world but restricted immigration from North America, setting the stage for the rise in the undocumented population (National Academies, 2015). In 2020, a significant share of the U.S. child population, about 18 million children under 18, lived in immigrant families, defined as having at least one foreign-born parent (Urban Institute, 2022). More than 8.7 million children aged 0–8 lived in immigrant families, representing 25% of young children (Figure 1-4). The majority of young children in immigrant families (92%) are born in the United States, and thus are U.S. citizens (see Appendix A). Compared with children under 8 who are second-generation immigrants born in the United States (8 million), a much smaller number (700,000) are first-generation immigrants born abroad. Since the second generation is younger than the first generation, there may be generational differences in

educational needs (Passel, 2011); for example, a much higher share of the second generation of children in immigrant families will need ECE.

By design, children in immigrant families face opportunity gaps due to their exclusion from eligibility for antipoverty programs and other family policies based on their own and their parents’ or other family members’ immigration status (Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2021b). Even if children in immigrant families are eligible, they underutilize programs (Capps et al., 2020). Children who are immigrants and children in immigrant families who are U.S. citizens face severely high poverty rates—much higher than those of children in nonimmigrant families—due, in part, to their receiving less or no income from public supports (National Academies, 2019a; Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2022). Thus children in low-income immigrant families, the majority of whom are U.S. citizens, experience opportunity gaps resulting from their exclusion from antipoverty programs that have positive impacts on child

health and development (National Academies, 2019a). A growing research base shows that state-level restrictions on immigrants can be harmful to children’s health (Perreira & Pedoza, 2019); conversely, states that have less criminalizing immigrant policies have less health care inequity between citizens and noncitizens (Young, Beltrán-Sánchez, & Wallace, 2020).

Policies restricting immigrants’ ability to access antipoverty programs also have implications for racial/ethnic inequities in child opportunities and outcomes. Although on their face, restrictions based on immigration status are race neutral, they have disproportionately negative impacts on Hispanic children. Recent waves of immigration, primarily from Asia and Latin America, are driving changes in the racial/ethnic composition of the child population as a whole and the portion of that population in immigrant families. While young children in immigrant families are more racially/ethnically diverse than those in nonimmigrant families, Figure 1-5 shows

that fully half of children in immigrant families are Hispanic, while 18% are Asian and 16% are White, whereas in nonimmigrant families, a larger share of children are White (61%), compared with 17% Hispanic and 1% Asian. Hispanic children represent the greatest share of immigrant children and also experience higher rates of poverty than Black and non-Hispanic White children (National Academies, 2019a). A disproportionate share of Hispanic children may be exposed to opportunity gaps due to restrictive eligibility criteria for immigrants that prevent them from accessing antipoverty programs.

Structural Changes in the Economy and Labor Markets

Inflation, unemployment, and economic recessions decrease families’ economic security, exposing their children to volatile and decreasing family income. Labor markets affect employment, hours worked, and wages earned by parents to cover the basic costs of raising their families (e.g., food, housing, child care). Economic opportunity gaps for families with children arise as a result of stagnant wages, growing wage inequality, greater job instability, and precarious work hours and schedules. Economic opportunity gaps also are driven by uneven economic growth and structural changes in the labor market, including the rise of skills-based technological jobs, domestic outsourcing, franchising, platform-based gig work, and monopsony (e.g., mergers); bias in hiring and promotion practices; declining unionization; and stagnant minimum wage levels (Weil, 2014; Bahn, 2019; National Academies, 2019a). The result is that the wages of many families in the bottom half of the labor market have not kept pace with inflation, and employers now offer fewer core benefits, including health insurance and support for workers’ caregiving needs, such as paid family and medical leave and child care.

Stagnant wages and rising prices of basic goods mean that despite working full time and full year, many families do not earn enough to cover the minimum cost of raising their children. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, about one-third of families raising children did not earn enough income to cover minimum expenses, a situation that disproportionately affects low-income and Black, Hispanic, and immigrant families (Joshi et al., 2022). Conversely, those at the top of the wage distribution see wage growth and more employer benefits. The result is a growing divide between high-paying jobs with good benefits and low-wage jobs with no employer supports. Black, Hispanic, and immigrant workers are disproportionately concentrated in these latter, often essential frontline jobs. To reduce economic opportunity gaps driven by structural changes in the labor market, an ecosystem of supports is needed for parents to supplement low wages and provide health insurance, paid family and medical leave, and high-quality child care.

Labor regulations help protect workers from some of these structural changes by reducing mandatory overtime and increasing wages. However, racial exclusion from labor regulations designed to protect workers and raise wages contributes to economic opportunity gaps. When the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was passed in 1938 to protect the rights of employees across the country by establishing requirements for a minimum wage, bargaining rights, and overtime, domestic workers were exempted from these rights. At that time, more than 60% of gainfully employed Black women worked as domestic workers (Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 1998). Thus, this policy created an opportunity gap by disproportionately decreasing economic stability and wealth building for Black women and their families. Policy changes in 1967 that extended FLSA coverage to the retail, services, and agriculture sectors had substantial positive effects on wages for low-wage and Black workers, helping explain the reduction in the racial earnings gap during the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s (Derenoncourt & Montialoux, 2021). Research in this area provides insight into how policies can be changed to reduce the large racial disparities in economic opportunities that persist today.

Poverty

During the civil rights era, many social service programs that had been implemented in ways that explicitly discriminated against marginalized populations were dismantled, and equality in the ability to participate in public aid programs increased. Indeed, nearly 200 pieces of legislation were passed during the Great Society era under President Lyndon Johnson. Legislation and substantial investment during this time period ushered in new protections in civil rights (e.g., passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964), the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, projects for urban beautification and renewal, nutrition assistance, new consumer safety and environmental regulations, supports for social action, the beginning of the war on poverty, increased investment in K–12 education, and the creation of Head Start (Aaron, 2010; Meyer & Sullivan, 2013; Hinitz, 2014).

Although views on how Head Start should be structured initially varied, ultimately the program was innovative in its design as both a provider of comprehensive services (e.g., education, nutrition, health, early screening services) and a means of building social and emotional competencies in young children. In addition, Head Start implemented performance standards for family engagement as a way to involve families in the program’s planning and administration to ensure that they had a voice in decision making around such issues as curriculum, finance, staffing, and other policies—a practice that set Head Start apart from many other social service programs (Hinitz, 2014).

The growth of research on educational interventions for children living in poverty, such as the HighScope Perry Preschool Project, and later, research pointing to the sensitive nature of brain development in the earliest years, made a strong case for public investment in ECE programs. The passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965 also increased support for promoting full educational opportunity in the K–12 system through grants for districts with higher populations of students from families with low incomes, grants for textbooks and library books, and funding for special education as a poverty-reduction strategy (Nelson, 2016).

Despite the many substantial advances in increasing equality achieved during the civil rights era, these efforts also coincided with an important paradigm shift in the early 1960s: instead of providing public funds to support mothers in caring for their own children, policies shifted to requiring work for public benefits and subsidizing child care as part of these work requirements (Vogtman, 2017; Minoff, 2020). In 1971, Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act, which would have created public funding for a national ECE system. However, President Nixon vetoed the legislation, citing “family‐weakening implications” and concerns about “communal approaches to childrearing over against the family-centered approach” and diminishing “both parental authority and parental involvement with children” (Nixon, 1971). As Kamerman and Gatenio-Gabel (2007) conclude in their review of ECE policy in the 21st century, the government’s role in ECE “is still viewed by some as trespassing into the private lives of its citizens” (p. 27), and as such, not an area for public investment. In the 1990s, the CCDBG, representing a major step in child care programming and investment, became the major federal funding source for child care. States were responsible for setting standards beyond the minimal federal standards and operating the program. The result was wide variability in family access and eligibility, and in children’s experiences in child care (Bipartisan Policy Center, 2021).

Also in the 1990s, as part of efforts to reform welfare programs, Aid to Families with Dependent Children was replaced by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which imposed more stringent work requirements and time limits on the receipt of benefits. TANF continues to demonstrate racial inequities in states’ administration and resource allocation that contribute to higher poverty rates among Black children (Hahn et al., 2017; Parolin et al., 2021). Indeed, a 2019 study on the effects of TANF on the Black–White child poverty gap found that states with higher percentages of Black residents were less likely to prioritize investment in cash assistance programs and that eliminating the inequities in spending priorities among the states could reduce the Black–White child poverty gap by up to 15% (Parolin et al., 2021).

The National Academies report A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty (2019a) presents overwhelming evidence that, compared with children

not living in poverty, those living in poverty generally experience worse outcomes that affect their development and well-being not just in the early years, but into adulthood. The effects of poverty and the ways in which it creates and perpetuates opportunity gaps are numerous. For example, parents living in poverty have fewer material resources and less access to services that promote healthy development relative to their wealthier peers. Young children living in families experiencing this kind of material hardship have less access to stable housing, adequate nutrition, medical care, and many other essential needs (National Academies, 2019a; Kalil & Ryan, 2020).

The effects of poverty on parents also have implications for child outcomes. Parents living in poverty are more likely to experience decreased emotional well-being, stress, and conflict, which can impact their ability to parent in ways that promote healthy cognitive and social-emotional development in their children (National Academies, 2019a). For children, the stressors associated with poverty within the home and neighborhood environment have been correlated with differences in brain development; lower achievement in education; and in the long term, reduced opportunities and income disparities in adults (National Academies, 2019a; Troller-Renfree et al., 2022). Gaps in outcomes in early skills begin early—some measures indicate as early as 9 months. Despite evidence that more than half of children—in particular, children from lower-income families and Black and Hispanic children—are entering kindergarten with lower literacy and math skills compared with their peers, it is in these early years that investments in children are the smallest (Chaudry, 2021). Although some children living in poverty may be resilient in the face of these negative effects, evidence shows that poverty is significantly linked to multiple negative effects that create opportunity gaps. Policies, programs, and practices with the potential to mitigate these effects are discussed in detail in Chapter 7.

Geography

The contexts in which families live vary greatly from state to state, among communities, and within neighborhoods. Across all of these contexts, however, environments in which families have access to safe and healthy neighborhoods and high-quality education and health care have been found to support healthy development. Conversely, as stressed throughout this report, young children living in neighborhoods with high poverty where families often have less access to high-quality care, educational opportunity, and supports are more likely to experience worse outcomes in education, development, health, and social-emotional well-being (e.g., lower school quality, lower health care quality, diminished health, increased crime, reduced economic mobility; National Academies, 2019a,b).

Children living in rural communities may have less regular parental supervision and often have less access to regular care and to community resources that can support healthy development (e.g., quality out-of-school programming) compared with their nonrural peers. For parents of young children living in rural communities, limited access to public transportation and fewer child care options can make it difficult to find stable employment. Children in these communities also are likely to have less access to high-quality educational opportunities. Poverty rates are higher in rural than in urban communities, and rural children are more likely to live in extreme poverty (O’Hare, 2009). The effects of poverty in rural communities, as well as in suburban and urban areas of concentrated poverty, are compounded by the fact that families living in these areas are less likely to live close to community social service organizations that can provide important supports (National Academies, 2019b).

Geography can also influence equity in educational experiences. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which was subsequently reauthorized in 2001 via No Child Left Behind and, in 2015, via the Every Student Succeeds Act, established state and local accountability for monitoring academic performance across a number of demographic characteristics (e.g., race, socioeconomic status, home language) as a way to ensure that all children would have equal access to rigorous academic content (National Academies, 2022b). At the state level, school education agencies play a major role in determining state academic standards, accountability measures, policies and priorities, and curriculum. Individual school districts also have a substantial amount of control over how schools and classroom teachers function. These policies—and the ways in which they may vary both among and within states—can affect a wide variety of factors, such as instructional time policies, teacher credentialing, access to public pre-K, and school funding, that impact children’s access to high-quality educational opportunities (National Academies, 2022b).

Policies related to housing, segregation, urban planning, and school funding, among others, have resulted in systemic geographic disparities in outcomes for children and families. As discussed previously, segregation can be a strong predictor of opportunity gaps, especially when it leads to differential concentrations of groups in high- and low-poverty schools. In general, high-poverty schools cannot provide the types of opportunities provided by low-poverty schools, a differential that creates, maintains, and perpetuates opportunity gaps (Reardon, 2021).

The neighborhoods where children live, grow, and learn have substantial impacts on their current health and well-being (Acevedo-Garcia, Noelke, & McArdle, 2020), expectations (Galster, 2012), and future success (Chetty, Hendren, & Katz, 2016). Neighborhoods are characterized by both assets (e.g., high-quality schools, availability of healthy food, green spaces)

and stressors (e.g., toxic environments, concentrated-poverty schools), which can either reinforce or mitigate the supports or deficits of the child’s family environment and the child’s own individual characteristics.

The connections between neighborhood socioeconomic status and a host of child and adolescent outcomes—including links to health, life expectancy, behavior problems, juvenile delinquency, and academic achievement—have been well documented (Kawachi & Berkman, 2003; Leventhal, Dupéré, & Brooks-Gunn, 2009; Aris et al., 2022; Shanahan et al., 2022; Slopen et al., 2023). Other neighborhood factors—such as public safety; levels of trust among neighbors; availability of safe recreational spaces; access to affordable, healthy food; and exposure to violence—also influence children (Newburger, Birch, & Wachter, 2011; Sharkey et al., 2012; Sharkey, 2013; Ellen & Glied, 2015). Although most of these studies do not establish causality between neighborhood conditions and child outcomes, they strongly suggest that a wide range of neighborhood characteristics affect child wellbeing across a number of dimensions.

Several rigorous studies have distinguished family from neighborhood influences and revealed independent neighborhood effects. For example, research on the Moving to Opportunity program showed that children who moved from a high-poverty to a low-poverty neighborhood before the age of 13 had greater earnings and higher-quality college education as adults compared with children remaining in high-poverty areas (Chetty, Hendren, & Katz, 2016). Other research found that neighborhood characteristics predicted outcomes for low-income Latino and African American children in such areas as exposure to violence, risky behaviors, physical and behavioral health, education, marriage and childbearing, and youth labor market outcomes, even after controlling for many household, child, and caregiver traits (Santiago et al., 2014).

Research on neighborhoods has advanced beyond the use of single indicators, such as poverty, to more complex aggregate indices that capture a range of neighborhood stressors and assets. These measures incorporate an understanding that the effects of neighborhood stressors on child wellbeing can be cumulative, as when high-poverty neighborhoods also have high levels of violent crime, but also can potentially be offset by positive neighborhood factors (Theall, Drury, & Shirtcliff, 2012; Wei et al., 2021).

One such aggregate measure of neighborhood characteristics is the Child Opportunity Index (COI) 2.0 (Figure 1-6). The COI combines 29 separate component indicators in three overall domains—education, health and environment, and social and economic—into a composite opportunity index score, which positions/ranks each neighborhood relative to all other neighborhoods in its metropolitan area, its state, and the nation. Each of the individual indicators was vetted for relevance to child development based on empirical literature on neighborhood effects and/or conceptual

frameworks of neighborhood influences on children (Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2020). While there now exist several publicly available, aggregate indices of neighborhood characteristics, the COI is specifically focused on characteristics important for children and includes child-relevant indicators, such as the presence of early childhood education centers, the availability of healthy food, and walkability. Furthermore, a recent evaluation comparing commonly used neighborhood indices recommended the COI’s use in policy and decision making, finding that it performed consistently overall in terms of its relationship to 24 diverse life outcomes related to mortality, physical health, mental health, subjective well-being, and social capital (Lou et al., 2023).

Several recent studies using the COI have found significant associations between neighborhood opportunity and a range of child health outcomes. Growing up in a neighborhood with higher opportunity is associated with lower child and caregiver mortality (Slopen et al., 2023), longer life expectancy at birth (Shanahan et al., 2022), and better cardiometabolic health (Aris et al., 2022), and may protect children from poor families from the physiological impacts of stress (Roubinov et al., 2018). Conversely, lower neighborhood opportunity has been linked to increased emergency department visits and hospitalizations, longer hospital stays, and hospital readmissions (Kersten et al., 2018; Bettenhausen et al., 2022; Fritz et al., 2022), especially for conditions that could have been treated in or prevented through a primary care setting (Beck et al., 2017; Krager et al., 2021; Kaiser

et al., 2022; Ramgopal et al., 2022). Others have shown that children from lower-opportunity areas have delayed access to care in the case of an acute emergency, such as appendicitis, which can increase the risk of complications (Bouchard et al., 2022).

The COI has also been used to demonstrate high levels of racial/ethnic inequity in children’s neighborhood opportunity. For instance, in the 100 largest metropolitan areas, non-Hispanic White (39%) and Asian and Pacific Islander (40%) children are concentrated in very high-opportunity neighborhoods—those neighborhoods containing the 20% of the total U.S. child population living in the highest-opportunity neighborhoods across the United States. In contrast, Hispanic (33%) and Black (46%) children are disproportionately concentrated in very low-opportunity neighborhoods—those containing the 20% of the total U.S. child population living in the lowest-opportunity neighborhoods across the United States. Inequities persist even after controlling for poverty status: 66% of all poor U.S. Black children and 50% of all poor U.S. Hispanic children live in very low-opportunity neighborhoods, compared with 20% of all poor U.S. White children (Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2020). These stark inequities in the neighborhood opportunity levels of children by race/ethnicity reflect the high levels of child residential segregation discussed earlier (Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2008).

ACCESS TO RESOURCES, SUPPORTS, AND OPPORTUNITIES

Although a number of social programs exist to support families with young children, access to these programs and the opportunities they offer can be low as a result of administrative burden and barriers created by the ways in which the programs are implemented. This section summarizes program characteristics that can impede access to and uptake of these programs, contributing to the persistence of opportunity gaps. Further detail can be found throughout this report.

Administrative Burden

Administrative burden encompasses challenges related to the time and energy required to access—and maintain access to—public programs and the benefits they provide. While the intent of these programs is to provide assistance to those in need, many of these burdens result from deliberate policy choices that limit access and perpetuate disparities (Herd & Moynihan, 2018). A National Academies report on reducing child poverty highlights the importance of equitable and ready access to benefit programs and describes how bureaucratic processes, which may differ from state to state, can vary across and within programs. These variations in implementation create barriers to access for eligible families (National Academies, 2019a)

and cause the benefits of these programs to reach some groups more than others and some states more than others. Likewise, administrative burdens may affect some groups more than others and can result in participation rates that differ substantially by race, ethnicity, neighborhood, or other individual characteristics (National Academies, 2019a).

Pamela Herd (Georgetown University) presented to the committee on barriers to accessing benefit programs and described two of the major social and behavioral costs related to administrative burden—learning costs and compliance costs (Herd, 2021; National Academies, 2021).

Herd defined learning costs as the way in which individuals or families gather information about how to access the services available to help meet their needs. Her presentation highlighted a project of the California Policy Lab that found that 20% of families in California’s social welfare system were not accessing student stimulus benefits. In another example highlighted in the National Academies report referenced above (National Academies, 2019a), variations in enrollment requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) contributed to participation rates that varied from 59% to 100% of eligible families, depending on the state.

Compliance costs—those costs associated with following administrative rules and meeting program requirements—can also affect take-up of programs and benefits. Individuals and families attempting to access multiple programs and benefits face particular administrative hurdles because of a lack of program linkages. Compliance costs can include, for example, the time spent on administrative processes, the frequency of recertification, and the difficulties associated with gathering and submitting necessary documentation, among others. A barrier for people living in rural areas, for example, can be a lack of transportation to travel to in-person appointments required to maintain benefits, which can result in reduced participation (National Academies, 2021). Similarly, while nearly all infants eligible for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children participate in the program, only 25% of eligible 4-year-olds do so, in part because of the challenges of recertification (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2022). Understanding and keeping track of policy changes can also create challenges that affect access to programs and benefits. In Tennessee, for example, 10% of children enrolled in Medicaid were dropped from the program in 2018 as the result of a recertification process, which included a 47-page form that could be completed only by mail. Families that failed to complete the form or submitted it late were dropped from the program (Herd & Moynihan, 2020).

In addition to learning and compliance costs, it is important to recognize the psychological costs associated with administrative burden. The difficulty of navigating these systems and the stigma associated with accessing these benefits can lead to chronic stress, frustration, and anger, with

negative impacts on mental health (Herd & Moynihan, 2018, 2020; Herd, 2021).

Some states are working to decrease the administrative burden of benefit programs by automating the application process, allowing individuals and families to submit applications and renew eligibility online, connecting families to other support programs, and implementing presumptive eligibility policies that can allow individuals and families to access services before their applications are fully processed. Yet while these efforts to simplify processes at the state and local levels have been demonstrated to save both states and applicants money, inconsistent implementation across states and the associated administrative burdens present a significant challenge to families (National Academies, 2019a). Similarly, while some states enable families that participate in one safety net program to be enrolled automatically in others for which they are eligible, the vast majority require families to complete multiple burdensome application processes.

Policy interventions that recognize the diversity of needs of families and the challenges they encounter in accessing supports have the potential to improve health and education outcomes for young children and help close the opportunity gap. Reducing administrative burdens could help eliminate barriers to accessing and participating in programs designed to achieve this goal.

Implementation of Programs

As noted earlier, the implementation of benefit programs can vary substantially from state to state, leading to differing participation rates among those who qualify and vastly different levels of support. The previously cited National Academies report, for example (National Academies, 2019a), highlights variations in monthly payments to families through TANF that could not be accounted for by differences in the cost of living—from a low of $170 in Mississippi to a high of $1,021 in New Hampshire. State-to-state variations in supplements to federal programs and additional tax credits also influence the amounts families may receive and can create disparities resulting simply from where families live. For some programs, even when access is not the primary barrier, participation may be limited because of insufficient funding. For example, the Child Care and Development Fund is funded at a level that allows it to support only 17% of eligible children (National Academies, 2019a).

In certain cases, eligibility requirements may exclude certain groups (e.g., both documented and undocumented immigrants or individuals who have been convicted of felonies). Although these groups might otherwise be eligible for certain benefits based on their household income, they may

be excluded from such programs as SNAP, Medicaid, and Supplemental Security Income. Children in immigrant families are much less likely to qualify for and benefit from such programs, even if they themselves are U.S. citizens. And even for groups that are eligible, the stigma associated with accessing these programs can reduce participation. In addition, fear of jeopardizing their opportunity to gain permanent resident status or U.S. citizenship—most prevalent among Latino families—may prevent some immigrant families from accessing these benefits (National Academies, 2019a; Herd, 2021). Policies that perpetuate disparate outcomes harm both citizen and noncitizen families and children and reduce the benefits and resources that would otherwise be available to them, creating opportunity gaps. This is especially the case for children and families who are racial and ethnic minorities.

OVERVIEW OF THE REPORT

As demonstrated by the broad range of background information presented in this chapter, the committee’s review of evidence in this report is extensive and covers multiple domains in order to capture the complexity of the opportunity gap. Chapters 2 and 3 review gaps in access to and quality experiences in learning systems, gaps that have been shaped by history and persist as a result of policy; these chapters also describe promising policies for bridging these gaps, as well as an inclusive framework for narrowing or eliminating disparities in outcomes. Chapter 2 focuses on young children from birth through pre-K, and Chapter 3 on children in grades K–3.

Chapter 4 examines the effects of social determinants of health on physical health and how disparities in physical health and access to health care can be drivers of opportunity gaps from the prenatal period through the early years of life. Chapter 5 focuses on how gaps in opportunities to foster positive social-emotional development and well-being and mental health in parents and children create persistent opportunity gaps across the life course, and how community resources and targeted policies and practices that improve family functioning and mental health and well-being can help close these gaps. Chapter 6 looks at the economic costs of the opportunity gap and the associated gaps in research. Chapter 7 provides an overview of policies, promising practices, and potential opportunities that governments, community organizations, philanthropic organizations, and other stakeholders can consider to reduce, mitigate, and eliminate disparities among young children. Finally, Chapter 8 provides the committee’s key conclusions and recommendations for addressing the opportunity gap among young children from birth to age 8.

REFERENCES