Hope starts with investing in early childhood education

This story was written by Randiah Camille Green and created in partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. It is part of a year-long series focusing on the Hope Starts Here initiative in Detroit.

While Detroit struggles with having enough early childhood education slots to meet community needs, experts in the field say a lack of funding and low wages for providers are the root of the problem. Two groups, Black Family Development, Inc. (BFDI) and the Early Childhood Investment Corp. (ECIC), are leading the charge to improve early childhood systems for both child care workers and families.

“What does it take to provide more seats? We need to have more people (working),” BFDI CEO Kenyatta Stephens said. “People aren’t going into early childhood because they are only making minimum wage. Sixty to 70% of people working in early childhood are on public assistance … And if they are qualified and can charge more for their services, people in the community can’t afford it.”

BFDI and ECIC are partners in a citywide Hope Starts Here initiative, supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Kresge Foundation, to champion young children and their families.  The initiative has six imperatives, or goals, to improve and provide quality early childhood education, health, and access to care. BFDI and ECIC work under Imperative 3, High Quality Programs and Professionals, which has three strategies — developing common standards and supporting providers with professional development opportunities; attracting, better compensating, and retaining the early childhood workforce; and aligning the early childhood and K-3 systems.

A 2023 “True Cost of Care” report, in which ECIC, BFDI, and Hope Starts Here participated, found that Michigan child care providers earned an average salary of just $23,020 in 2019. That came out to about $11 per hour, no matter their level of experience or qualifications. The report also found that there are nearly twice as many children in Michigan (about 62,000) who are eligible for Child Care Development and Care subsidies through federal and state funds than the 36,000 who are actually receiving them. “Making the Case for Fully Funding the Early Care and Education System in Michigan,” reports that the State of Michigan would need to invest an additional $2.2 billion in subsidies into the early childhood system to meet the true cost of care, just for those families at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. In this report, ECIC also presented several strategies to increase public and private investment in early childhood education and care in Michigan.

Last year, the organization piloted an Infant Toddler Quality Improvement program, which gave providers upfront scholarships to cover a month of care at a time. This allowed early childhood providers to pay workers a higher wage and to hire more staff. Around 20 Detroit-based early childhood providers participated in the pilot…