How Colorado went from ‘Laggard to Leader’ in Early Childhood Education

Shortly after Polis made those phone calls to the families of the 4-year-olds, he told me during a fireside chat where we discussed the progress Colorado has made in moving, as he puts it, “from laggard to leader early childhood education,” and what it would take for other states to do the same.

The conversation was broadcast live to a virtual audience during the sixth annual Reagan Institute Summit on Education may 24th. A recording has since been made available to the public. Below, you can read the highlights of the conversation, which have been edited and condensed for clarity, or watch the full discussion.

EdSurge: You have made early childhood education one of the top priorities of your administration. I would love to know the backstory there. What inspired your interest in this space?

Governor Jared Polis: Well, I’ve been involved with education for over 20 years, I served on the State Board of Education in Colorado, and it was really the data that first prompted me to get involved with high-quality universal early childhood education. [I saw] the robust body of data showing not only the positive financial benefits of early childhood education, in terms of reduced grade repetition and reduced youth allocation, but that it is equally important to close the achievement gap before it occurs, which it’s so much more effective than everything we need to do and we’re trying to do in fifth grade and eighth grade and tenth grade. It really makes a world of difference, those early years, in giving each child a good start.

The universal preschool program is obviously one of his great victories as Governor of Colorado. Can you explain a bit what it will look like and how do you think it’s going so far?

cops: When I became Governor of Colorado, we only had half-day kindergarten. And again, the preschool was only for, if you will, the wealthy, with some slots for low-income people. Everyone else was struggling to figure it out. So the first thing we did my first year was make full-day kindergarten available to all families, and that saved them $400-$500 a year. But also, he made sure that everyone could access full-day kindergarten, because before that, there were families that couldn’t afford it, so some kids went home at 11:30 and didn’t get the benefit of the learning time. other children did.

After we had that in place, we went to the voters with universal free preschool. The funding mechanism we use is effectively a tax on vaping or nicotine. We had this kind of loophole where vaping was zero taxed even though cigarettes were taxed.

That’s a dedicated funding source, which is important. It is not subject to political debate. It is not subject to different parties or politicians coming in and persecuting it. It is a dedicated funding source for universal free preschool, which we are now rolling out this fall.

The demand is very strong. we have already had more than 25,000 families sign up, and in fact, they were matched with their preschool provider. Ninety-one percent was matched [with] Her first [choice]and others who didn’t will be able to go back and choose another provider.

we call it a [mixed-delivery program]. We wanted everyone who offers high-quality preschool to be able to [participate in] this program to serve families at a time when costs are rising and families are making sacrifices. We did not want that sacrifice to be the education of their children.

What about early childhood educators? Many of them make great personal and financial sacrifices to continue providing care and education in what effectively amounts to a broken system in this country. How does the state of Colorado support early childhood educators?

cops: We are supporting them in two ways. First, [we’re providing programs with] solid funding for universal preschool, spending about $6,000 per student. So for a class of 10, that’s about $60,000. And the preschool is part-time; in general, it is around 15 to 20 hours a week. So you could often have, effectively, around $120,000 in funds, if [the program is] running two classes of 10. That doesn’t mean everything is going to [the educators]. As you know, there are a lot of overhead [to run an early childhood program]. But the key is that this solid source of funding did not exist before.

The salary scale is moving closer to the K-12 professional salary scale; It’s not like we pay our K-12 teachers enough, we need to do more there. But at the very least, we want to make sure that our early childhood educators have that level of professional pay that allows them to support themselves.

For the future pipeline, we’ve made training to become a certified early childhood educator free through our community college systems. We analyze some professions in very high demand. [with] labor shortage. Early childhood education was among those professions, and we said, ‘Let’s make it free.’ and that’s a real ‘free’, as I like to say. There is no shipping and handling. There are no textbook costs. There are no classroom fees.

It’s a real free to allow them to pursue that career. Asking people to go into debt and make huge sacrifices without the huge profit potential is a much more difficult question. And sure enough, in all of the programs that we’ve made free, participation increased by 20 to 30 percent. We are excited to do that to open the doors of the early childhood profession.

It has been successful in bringing people together and building coalitions despite a challenging political climate at the national level. Tell me about your commitment to good policy on partisanship, especially in this environment.

cops: When I was first elected in 2018, running on a platform of full-day kindergarten and adding preschool, my first call as governor-elect was to a Republican representative, Jim Wilson of Salida, Colo., a former superintendent who had been working in full-day kindergarten for many years. And I said, ‘Let’s finish this. He was our lead sponsor, along with Democrat Barb McLachlan, on the all-day kindergarten bill.

When we built the coalition around preschool, it happened in very conservative counties. I mean, this happened in red and blue counties, because everyone, 67.8 percent of people in the entire state, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, agree that kids should be able to go to preschool. So it really resonated across the partisan divide, the geographic divide, the economic divide. And we are very excited that this fall the children of Colorado will be able to go to preschool.

I have heard many people say that early childhood education is, or can and should be, a bipartisan issue. Obviously in the state you have found that to be true, but have you found it outside of Colorado?

cops: You know, it’s harder to say. I worked on this issue in Congress, at the national level. I had high hopes that whatever was in Build Back Better could potentially include preschool. Obviously he didn’t. It’s a little bit more difficult at the national level because you get into a little more ideological discussion of what the federal government should or shouldn’t be involved in.

But I think if people are guided by the data, at least making sure that more children have access to early childhood education, [they’ll see that] it is practical and effective. It can meet goals that conservatives and progressives share, such as reducing crime and improving the upward mobility of families. These are all great things, and I encourage people of both parties to seek to support early childhood education, regardless of the level of government in which they work. It could be at the school district level or it could be at the municipal, state or federal level. level.

You mentioned your time in Congress. I’m curious how your understanding of early childhood education has evolved since then.

cops: I’ve always been a huge advocate, but frankly the ability to do more and actually do it rather than just talk about it, was part of what prompted me to take this path as governor.

I certainly spent a decade talking about it. We launched universal preschool bills and it was a great effort. And there was a real opportunity after I left; Build Back Better almost did it. But the fact is that it hasn’t happened at the national level yet.

I’m patient, but 10 years is a long time, so I came home to do it in Colorado instead of just talking about it in Congress for another 10 years.

Anyone can participate: a district, a city, mayors, governors, and members of Congress, and I am still hopeful that one day we will have this opportunity for early childhood education across the country.

What advice do you have for other governors or leaders seeking to impact the early childhood landscape, either nationally or in their jurisdictions?

cops: It is a great benefit for the people of your state. You can save people money, improve the current workforce, invest in the next generation, [and it’s] an opportunity to improve academic performance and results. And it really aligns the needs of today with the needs of tomorrow in a compelling way that can help set your state up for success.

We are excited about this new direction and moving Colorado from being a laggard to being an early childhood leader. And, of course, we’re moving forward with more opportunities for high-quality child care, including employer-based and on-site child care. [options], so that parents do not have to run so much and can visit their children during lunch. We want to be at the forefront of making Colorado the best state to have children.