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The upheaval caused by the pandemic may provide an opportunity to rethink Ohio's approach to early education.

Early education advocates such as Shannon Jones, executive director of Groundwork Ohio, say that for once, money doesn鈥檛 seem to be the main challenge for early education. The combination of stimulus money, local grants and state spending offers an opportunity to re-envision the patchwork of early-education programs.

鈥淎re we going to squander the opportunity by not thinking about what young children really need for lifelong success?鈥� Jones asked.

鈥淚 kind of agree and disagree with the statement,鈥� said  , CEO and president of The Centers for Families and Children in Cleveland, operating seven early learning centers and serving about 1,000 kids each year.

Morse agrees that there currently might be more funding flexibility for organizations providing early education, but funding flexibility can鈥檛 fix the myriad challenges providers face. As an example, the need is high, and waiting lists are long, even when capacity isn鈥檛 limited to 60 percent as it has been during the pandemic. 

鈥淚f the child is in a high-quality early learning center like ours, 89 percent of the kids who leave our centers are ready for kindergarten. If you look at the state, only 60 percent of kids are ready, and if you look at Cleveland, we鈥檙e talking like in the 30 percents,鈥� Morse said. 鈥淎nd the patchwork 鈥� it鈥檚 almost as complicated as like sending your kid to college. I mean, you鈥檝e got Head Start funds coming, you have Pre4CLE, you have universal pre-kindergarten vouchers that are coming in from the state that are  [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] funded, you have grants. To help a family figure out 鈥榟ow am I going to send my kid to pre-school,鈥� it鈥檚 like you have to do a FAFSA [Free Application for Federal Student Aid, for college-bound students].鈥�

Morse said there needs to be a statewide approach to early learning, to get away from that patchwork of funding sources.

But for lower income families, access to education is only part of the challenge. The pandemic prompted The Centers to invest in online programming, which will likely stay beyond the pandemic. But internet access is still a barrier for manly local families. 

And access to iPads or internet hotspots 鈥� which was increased during the pandemic 鈥� won鈥檛 solve everything.

鈥淒oing that when a family is dealing with having very low income, and the crises that occur in someone鈥檚 life, make it very difficult for that to be effective,鈥� Morse said. 鈥淭he other big thing was most of our families are working, but they鈥檙e working low-paid jobs. They鈥檙e also essential workers, so when we went down to shutting down, I mean their ability to get to work and the likelihood that they may lose their job because they weren鈥檛 able to get their kid into care was significantly higher.鈥�

are essential to helping children and families navigating the earliest years, Morse said. Those are services that The Centers offers as a Head Start provider. He said his organization is beginning to move toward a two-generational model of service.

鈥淲e鈥檙e going to provide access to all of those services in a comprehensive way with the goal of eventually having a child come to us either as an infant, or even working with a pregnant mom, that by the time that family leaves us when that kid goes to kindergarten, that family is out of poverty,鈥� Morse said. 鈥淭hat we can leverage all our services 鈥� early learning, workforce, health services 鈥� to help lift that family up.鈥�

Morse said even though services like this are expensive, they will save money long term.

鈥淚f kids are ready for kindergarten, that solves a whole lot of down-the-line problems for the family obviously, most importantly, but for the state, for us as tax payers,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his is a very worthy investment.鈥�