in A town in IdahoIn the southeastern part of the state, families strive to “read, talk, and play” with their children every day while the broader community moves toward the goal of achieving universal preschool education. .
in anotherLocated on the outskirts of Boise, many services that were once unavailable are now available, including a food pantry, Head Start preschool, health center, and immigrant family liaison office. live under one roof It is located close to the town center and easily accessible to families in need.
inside northern panhandleAt a time when early learning programs tend to operate in isolation, providers are coming together in person and online to share ideas, attend training, and build connections.
They are one of dozens of bespoke programs called “.early learning collaboration”, which have sprung up in communities across Idaho in recent years. It’s part of a collaborative, bottom-up approach, driven by early learning advocates and led by local residents, to build a system of early care and education in the state that wouldn’t otherwise exist. Thing.
the state of idaho one of the last remaining states There is no funding for public kindergartens. In fact, it is unconstitutional for K-12 schools there to spend state funds on children under the age of five.
Even as many states, including politically conservative ones, begin to invest in early learning, Idaho is resisting, and some far-right lawmakers are calling for more government intervention in education. They claim that it becomes ineffective. harm children and erode “traditional” values, including: Nuclear Family.
But that doesn’t reflect the reality of Idahoans. More than half of children are under 6 years old Since both parents are working, some kind of care arrangement must be made.and estimate 28% of family members The need for child care and lack of access to it prevents some parents from working and supporting their families’ economic well-being. (the Estimation Idaho’s economy is missing out on nearly $500 million a year because of inadequate child care infrastructure, the state says. )
Because neither the federal government nor the state of Idaho has stepped in to help young children and their families. Despite this great need, early learning advocates across the state have organized a patchwork of local programs that simultaneously solve current problems facing communities while also generating support for future efforts. Other red states have adopted this cooperative model, but Idaho’s approach is unique in that it lacks state funding.
The success of locally conceived early learning solutions in the Gem State could serve as a roadmap to other parts of the country where elected leaders refuse to invest in early care and education. Proponents believe.
“Community spirit trumps anyone’s political agenda.”
The first collaboration that started in 2018.
Leaders of the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children, a nonprofit advocacy group, have not been able to convince state lawmakers. But they knew that their children were struggling to come to kindergarten having missed all sorts of academic and developmental milestones, and they expected them to somehow catch up. Meanwhile, low-income households were squeezed by the cost of care and lack of quality options.
Beth Oppenheimer, executive director of the Idaho AEYC, believed that Idahoans needed help. She and her colleagues came up with the idea to start offering it to her families, with or without support from state leaders.
“Let’s start building the system. Let’s get started. something‘ Oppenheimer remembers thinking.
With a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Idaho AEYC funds creation of 10 early learning collaboratives We work across the state with the goal of increasing access to high-quality, affordable early care and educational opportunities. These programs bring together local leaders from the education, business, and nonprofit sectors, as well as parents and community members, to ask, “What problems in early childhood are we trying to solve in this place where we live? ?” you will be asked.
In the five years since its inception, the program has grown from 10 regional partners to 25. Many were founded in rural red communities represented by some of the same state legislators who have been vocal opponents of investments in early learning.
But that’s the beauty of bringing neighbors together to create unique solutions, advocates say.
Tenille Cole, interim education director for the United Way of Southeastern Idaho, a nonprofit that serves as the backbone of the region’s coalition partners, said that while there are many conservatives in Idaho, He likes to support local control of policies and programs, noting that he is not a conservative but favors local control of policies and programs. State or Federal Order. “It’s local control,” she says of the cooperative model.
In the small farming town of American Falls, the district superintendent promoted a “read, talk, play” message that was widely embraced by families and made early learning a point of pride.
“Here, the community can support it, because it’s a community thing,” Cole says of American Falls. “Community spirit trumps anyone’s political agenda.”
Read about how American Falls, a one-stop farming community in conservative Idaho, embraced a goal that supporters describe as progressive: universal preschool.
Martin Balben, director of the Early Learning Collaborative Project at AEYC of Idaho, said the prevalence, size and strength of local collaborative efforts underscores the hopelessness that many families feel.
“The story here,” Balben says, “is that the need for investment in early childhood education, especially birth to five, is so great that local residents continue to ignore the culture wars in Idaho. I’m saying that.”
Heather Lee, director of operations for the Early Learning Collaborative Project at the Idaho AEYC, points out that parents’ desire for their children to thrive goes beyond ideology.
“You don’t hear as much partisanship” from families as you do at the state Capitol, Lee said. “I’ve heard your stories of hardship.”
Inherent in this model is the understanding that a one-size-fits-all approach will not work in the geographically, politically, religiously, and culturally diverse state of Idaho, which extends from the tip of the Canadian border to the Canadian border. It’s almost 800 miles long. Base bordering Nevada and Utah.
Kathy Kowalski, owner and director of The Learning Garden, an early learning program in Post Falls, a small city in northern Idaho, says the community-driven nature of these efforts emphasizes the uniqueness of each region of the state. I feel respected.
“Our communities are very different. It’s hard for people in Boise to really understand what’s going on in North Idaho,” Kowalski said. “That’s what I love about the Early Learning Collaborative: We’re bringing it back to the local area.”
Fight the long game and get short-term results
Idaho didn’t invent the idea of local early learning co-ops.In Mississippi I used the model 10 years.the state of arkansas launch Similar programs.
The difference is that these states fund joint ventures.
“We need to do it the other way around,” Oppenheimer says. “We need to build a state-funded system, but other states have figured out how to build systems and fund them at the same time.”
So far, the experiment is going well. Every day, thousands of families across Idaho benefit from programs created in their communities.
At American Falls, families have become more involved in their children’s learning and development. That includes fathers, who advocates say are clearly more engaged in raising children than ever before. About three-quarters of the town’s 3- and 4-year-olds now attend high-quality kindergartens, up from about a quarter five years ago. Tests that measure children’s early literacy rates have been continually improved since the beginning of the collaboration.
In the five-county North Idaho region, families can afford child care as much as finding it, and in the past two years alone, more than 500 families have used child care scholarships to help pay for child care. . Many recipients are single parents who work full time.
“When I saw we won the scholarship, it was a huge weight off my shoulders,” one parent told North Idaho Cooperative Leaders. “I always wondered how I would be able to support my family, but now I am confident that we will be okay.”
“Having an extra few hundred dollars in my bank account made a huge difference in what I was able to provide for my children,” the parent said.
In the long term, Oppenheimer says the success of his collaborators is undeniable, and he hopes that as local residents and early learning advocates build the system, the funding will become sustainable along with it. There is.
“Our goal is not to fund this forever,” Oppenheimer says of the Idaho AEYC. “We are a nonprofit organization. We cannot be responsible for funding early childhood education in Idaho.”
Future funding does not have to come from the state, but it would be a pleasant surprise for early learning advocates. That could come from businesses or public-private partnerships.
Some collaborations are already so ingrained in the community that even if Oppenheimer’s group disappears, those programs will continue, she said.
In American Falls, many businesses sponsor early learning programs in the community. In the past, the town’s auto dealership paid for a family game night, and a local hospital provided materials for another family event.
Lamb Weston Co., a major potato producer based in Idaho, operates a processing plant in American Falls. The company has joined local partners to help fund scholarships to expand access to preschool for children in town.
“Companies like to raise money in their own backyard, especially in rural Idaho,” Oppenheimer said.
But for companies like Lamb Weston, she added, this is more than just charity work. “They realized that their employees weren’t complaining sick as much because they had childcare. They had more people who wanted to work and went to work every day. American Falls Employees Our membership base is stable and thriving.”
American Falls is, as Oppenheimer puts it, the “gold star” of Idaho’s cooperative model, but other towns aren’t far behind. The existence of their program, not to mention its success, proves that despite the lack of government support, local, homegrown efforts can be a means of building early care and education infrastructure.
“That’s difficult,” Oppenheimer says. But we are playing the long game. ”
