In the 1930s and 1940s we see more government intervention: the implementation of the New Deal and the Lanham Act led to financial investment in early childhood education programs.
Erikson believed that if adequate academic support was provided in the early years of a child's life then they would have a much more positive learning experience in later adolescence.
The system supported families of all incomes, and the government paid approximately two-thirds of the costs, with parents covering the rest (at a rate of about $9 or $10 a day in today's dollars[when?]).
In addition, a largely Democratic contingent sponsored the Strong Start for America's Children Act in 2013, which provides free early childhood education for low-income families.
Specifically, the Act would generate the impetus and support for states to expand ECE; provide funding through formula grants and Title II (Learning Quality Partnerships), III (Child Care) and IV (Maternal, Infant and Home Visiting) funds; and hold participating states accountable for Head Start early learning standards.
[9] To this day one of America's larger challenges regarding Early Childhood Education is a dearth in workforce, partly due to low compensation for rigorous work.
The New Jersey case Abbott County School District v. Burke and South Carolina case Abbeville County School District v. State established early but incomplete precedents in looking at "adequate education" as education that addresses needs best identified in early childhood, including immediate and continuous literacy interventions.
[10] In the 2005 case of Abbeville v. State, the South Carolina Supreme Court decided that ECE programs were necessary to break the "debilitating and destructive cycle of poverty for low-income students and poor academic achievement."
Besides mandating that all low-income children have access to ECE by age three, the court also held that early childhood interventions—such as counseling, special needs identification, and socio-emotional supports—continue through grade three (Abbeville, 2005).
The department's budget highlights doing away with the pre-school development grant program, which aided 18 states in spreading out access to pre-K for 4-year-old children during the last few years.
However, the administration withdrew the requirement that such program started serving children for a longer day and school year due to insufficient funding.
The Center for American Progress said President Trump and the House of Representatives advocated deep cuts in programs that were supposed to help impoverished families rather than attend to the needs of low and middle-income households through paid leave and child care as well as increasing minimum wage.
Poor care, health, nutrition, and physical and emotional security can affect educational potentials in the form of mental retardation, impaired cognitive and behavioral capacities, motor development delay, depression, and difficulties with concentration and attention.
Inversely, early health and nutrition interventions, such as iron supplementation, deworming treatment and school feeding, have been shown to directly contribute to increased pre-school attendance.
provide unequivocal evidence that [public investment] in early childhood care and education can produce economic returns equal to roughly 10 times its costs.
[18][19] The sources of these gains are (1) childcare that enables mothers to work and (2) education and other supports for child development that increase subsequent school success, labor force productivity, prosocial behavior, and health.
The economic consequences include reductions in public and private expenditures associated with school failure, crime, and health problems as well as increases in earnings.