At A Loss For Words: How America Is Failing Our Children

8. A Perfect Storm

8 A Perfect Storm T he United States is a country that values education and innovation, yet we can’t seem to get our children off to a good start. Parents are increasingly frustrated by the difficulty of finding affordable child care. Professionals bemoan the low quality of much of what is available. Researchers report a dearth of settings that provide children with a strong language foundation. By the time they enter kindergarten, significant numbers of our children are already being left behind. And the problem seems to be getting worse. Why are so many children in the United States coming to school without a strong early language foundation? Why aren’t they getting the early experiences that prime them for later success? What is keeping our country from providing the services and supports that families need and that other countries routinely supply? If we’re going to be successful advocates for our children, then we need to understand the changes in our society, the pressures on our families and on our early childhood service providers, and the barriers that have stood in the way of more effective public policies. The past thirty years have been a period of rapid social change, and our public policies have not kept pace. Wider opportunities for women and an increase in the cost of raising a family have contributed to a dramatic rise in the numbers of women who are in the workforce when their children are young. Longer work weeks and increases in divorce and single parenthood have combined with these trends to increase the use of child care and to decrease the amount of time that young children spend with their parents. Parents continue to be their children’s “first and most important teachers,” but they are increasingly reliant on others during the critical language learning years. At the same time, because early education has been seen as largely a parental responsibility, public supports for it have been minimal. Although child care is expensive for parents, their payments in most cases do not cover the full cost of quality. The teachers, baby-sitters, and childcare providers upon whom parents must rely to support their children’s language development are increasingly underpaid, underprepared, and 102 Chapter Eight undersupported in their jobs. The family, friends, and neighbors who could be counted on as conversation partners in earlier eras are less and less available. With our information-age economy demanding higher levels of education , we are asking more of our children today than ever before. The importance of an early language foundation that prepares children to meet high educational demands is increasing, even as our children’s chances of getting such a foundation are increasingly in jeopardy. In most countries with modern economies, the care and education of young children is seen as an important public investment. In contrast, policy makers in the United States have tended to assume that most parents can and should see to their young children’s learning needs on their own and that government and employers should make only modest investments in family leave, family support, and early childhood education As a result, supports that are routinely available to parents in other industrialized countries are lacking or in short supply in most U.S. communities. Currents of Change We have entered the Information Age, a time of unprecedented global connectedness and access to knowledge. New opportunities for women, greater access to higher education, powerful new technologies, and dramatic advancements in medical care have improved our economic productivity and quality of life. It should be a time of hope. Yet the waves of economic and social change that have brought so much promise are increasingly also coming together with negative effects, creating a “perfect storm” that is imperiling too many of our children. The supports that parents and teachers need in order to provide children with a strong early language foundation are being eroded, and we are failing to take the necessary steps to strengthen or replace them. In order to understand the magnitude of the changes and of their impact on young children and their families, let’s look briefly at some of these waves. Increased Workforce Participation by Women Women made up less than a third of the United States labor force in 1950. By 2001, there were almost as many women working as men; the labor force was nearly 47 percent female.1 The change affected women with young children as well as those...