Early Childhood Education and Care in the United States: An Overview of the Current Policy Picture

Abstract

Abstract Early childhood education and care (ECEC) in the US includes a wide range of part-day, full-school-day, and full-work-day programs, under educational, social welfare, and commercial auspices, funded and delivered in a variety of ways in both the public and the private sectors, designed sometimes with an emphasis on the “care” component of ECEC and at other times with stress on “education” or with equal attention to both. Although ECEC scholars and advocates are increasingly convinced of the need to integrate all these program types, categorical funding coupled with diverse societal values continue to support the differences. The result is a fragmented ECEC system, of wide-ranging quality and with skewed access, but with some movement in recent years toward the integration of early childhood education and care.

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