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Resilient Bladen (NC)

Research & Resources: Let’s talk what happened this year

The Alliance for Early Success has snapshots, both national and for each state, of early childhood environments and progress in 2022. North Carolina’s page shows a complicated picture heading into a new year and legislative session.

Some main takeaways (plus some of my own observations):

  • The organization considers the state’s racial disparity among children living in poverty high.
  • 67% of Hispanic/Latinx children younger than 8 were living 200% below the poverty line in 2020, compared with 64% of Indigenous/Alaska Native children, 62% of Black children, 50% of Hawaii Native/Other Pacific Island children, 30% of white children, and 25% of Asian children.
  • The overall percentage of young children living in poverty is down in recent years, at 45% compared with 52% in 2015.
  • There were some policy wins:
  • The budget merged the state’s NC Health Choice program with NC Medicaid, which particularly helps children with special health care needs get the care they need.
  • The legislature raised childcare subsidy rates from 2015 to 2018 rates with federal relief funds, and the state started studying how to restructure its subsidy model to reflect the true cost of high-quality early care and education.
  • The state allocated an additional $9 million in recurring funds to raise NC Pre-K rates by 9% since 2020-21, aimed at increasing salaries for teachers in private settings.
  • There’s lots more to do.
  • There were no funds appropriated for early childhood teacher compensation as the workforce struggled.
  • Though the Division of Child Development and Early Education extended some compensation support through the end of next year, the legislature hasn’t appropriated state funds to fill gaps as stabilization funds run dry and classrooms close.
  • There were no funds for a subsidy floor.
  • Advocates have pushed in recent legislative sessions for funds to provide a floor rate to child care providers serving children on subsidy. This would get rid of some of the disparities in resources that programs in lower-income and rural communities have to serve children with high-quality care and education.
  • There was no action around new ways to fund child care.
  • Though a bipartisan group came up with ideas on how to increase access to affordable child care, including grants for centers to open infant/toddler classrooms and increases in the subsidy rates for the youngest children, no legislative action followed.

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I am a writer from book writing services and would love to b a part of this research team. You guys are doing a great job with the research and resources and I think these stats are going to help the organizations a lot.

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