Closing the Opportunity Gap for Young Children (2023) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 17-62
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From page 17... ...
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 1Racialization 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)
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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.
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• Review available evidence on family and community factors, and pre-K to grade 3 school factors, that promote, mitigate, or diminish opportuni ties and achievement for children. • Discuss the economic costs posed by the opportunity gap and the po tential economic benefits of investing in strategies, interventions, and policies to address opportunity gap concerns for children from birth to age 8.
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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.
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• Transforming the Financing of Early Care and Education (2018) • English Learners in STEM Subjects: Transforming Classrooms, Schools, and Lives (2018)
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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.
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, structural inequities (e.g., structural racism, residential segregation, disparities in school funding) , economic drivers (e.g., unemployment, prices of goods needed to raise children)
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These drivers and factors continue to interact and shape experiences in later stages of the life course. NOTE: ECE = early care and education.
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. 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)
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. Child Care Centers Child care centers were established in the United States primarily to provide safe and secure settings for young children while their parents were at work, or in the case of philanthropy-funded "day nurseries," which emerged during the early 20th century, as a way to assimilate immigrant children into American society (Johnson-Staub, 2017)
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Examples in the United States include federally mandated programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, as well as Head Start, which provides early learning opportunities for young children from low-income families. The learning environments in these programs are influenced by other care and education traditions, and as they have become well established, these programs have also influenced other settings and services (Kostelnik & Grady, 2009)
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. 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.
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. Because most school assignments are residence based, residential segregation is also at the root of school segregation.
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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.
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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)
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. 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, 6School 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.
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. 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)
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. Each of these deficits contributes to the existing opportunity gaps for these children.
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. 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)
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. 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)
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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)
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child population, about 18 million children under 18, lived in immigrant families, defined as having at least one foreign-born parent (Urban Institute, 2022)
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; 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)
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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.
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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 highquality child care.
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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)
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. 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)
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. 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.
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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 highquality educational opportunities.
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. One such aggregate measure of neighborhood characteristics is the Child Opportunity Index (COI)
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. 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.
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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.
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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)
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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)
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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.
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Forbidden language: English learners and restrictive language policies, 102–17. Los Angeles, CA: Civil Rights Project.
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. Building bipartisan support for child care toolkit: 2021 update.
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. Elementary English learner classroom composi tion and academic achievement: The role of classroom-level segregation, number of English proficiency levels, and opportunity to learn. American Educational Research Journal, 57(4)
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. A return to the "Mexican room": The segregation of Ari zona's English learners. The Civil Rights Project.
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. Equity starts early: Addressing racial inequities in child care and early education policy.
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International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy, 1(1)
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. America's child care deserts in 2018.
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. Racial residential segregation of school-age children and adults: The role of schooling as a segregating force.
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. School segregation and racial academic achievement gaps.
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. Do irregularly shaped school attendance zones con tribute to racial segregation or integration?
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. Inequitable access to child care subsidies.
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