Opening Doors to Child Care Through Seamless Integration With The Education System

Posted by Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity on January 20, 2026

High quality, affordable child care is critical infrastructure that enables economic growth and strengthens education. High-quality, affordable child care is critical infrastructure that enables economic growth and strengthens education. State governments and employers increasingly recognize child care as an essential investment for workforce participation, talent retention, and long-term economic competitiveness.

Our latest Spotlight exclusive explores a new paper from Fedcap’s Community Impact Policy Institute that looks at the potential benefits of integrating child care, early intervention, and early education with the broader public education system as a way to expand child care access and better serve families. Specifically, we provide a coordinated strategy to expand supply, streamline regulation, enhance the workforce, and align early learning outcomes across systems. Together, they focus on co-locating services within existing schools, removing regulatory and administrative barriers to capacity expansion, building a sustainable child care–education workforce pipeline, and embedding early learning into New York’s P–20 accountability framework to ensure continuity, transparency, and stronger educational outcomes from birth through adulthood.

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