‘Set Their Feet Upon Surer Paths’
By Katharine B. Stevens
OP-ED
November 3, 2015
Eighty-five years ago this November, President Herbert Hoover convened a White House Conference on Child Health and Protection to address advancing the healthy development of country's youngest, most vulnerable citizens. "We approach all problems of childhood with affection," he said in his welcome address, stressing that the conference aimed to "lighten the burdens of children, to set their feet upon surer paths to health and well-being and happiness." Hoover's eloquent words reflected deep national concern over the care and protection of children that gained momentum in the early 20th century, leading to first private and then public efforts to ensure young children's well-being.
But over the past decades, we've drifted far from the clear focus on children's welfare that Hoover so vividly expressed. Today, federal early care and education policies are a hodgepodge of fragmented funding streams, disconnected from each other and from a clear, coherent purpose. In the dysfunctional landscape of federal early childhood policy, policymakers have gotten locked into choosing among three bad options: tinkering around the edges of existing programs, trying to cut them or adding new ones on top of what is already in place. And none of these approaches will enable us to achieve the most important aim: giving America's least-advantaged children a fair chance at a happy, productive life.
As I describe in a just-released report, "Renewing Childhood's Promise: The History and Future of Federal Early Care and Education Policy," an 80-year legacy of federal policymaking in early childhood has left us with three problems in particular. The first is that current debates are driven by established bureaucratic institutions, not core goals. Entrenched interests advocate for specific funding streams rather than for children. Our current debates are confined to well-worn ruts in the early childhood policy road, when instead we should be taking a step back, defining our fundamental goals and pursuing the most promising avenues to achieve them.
The second problem is that federal policy has evolved to reinforce a counterproductive, false distinction between so-called custodial and developmental care for children. Today, all programs for very young children – no matter what they are called – have two purposes: supporting parents' work in a 24/7 economy and promoting children's healthy growth and learning during the most crucial period of human development, from birth through age four. Those two aims are complementary, equally important strategies for building human capital in our nation's most disadvantaged communities. Federal programs must advance both.
The third problem is that an overly narrow focus on children's economic status and cognitive skills has replaced the broader vision Hoover put forward 85 years ago – to promote the "health and well-being and happiness" of poor children. Increasing family income and student test scores, while both important, are a means to an end, not ends in themselves. Children need much more than money and academic skills to grow up well; social, emotional, spiritual and cultural dimensions of children's lives are also crucial.
The welfare of America's children matters greatly to the future of our nation. And human flourishing, not short-term gains, should be the goal of early childhood policy – giving all children, no matter the circumstances of their birth, the chance to pursue a good life. We must aim to help children grow into adults who are able to "build meaningful dignified lives of their own making," in Arthur Brooks' words: finishing high school, working to earn a living, creating a stable family before having children and contributing to the wider community as law-abiding citizens. That goal is much harder to accomplish than the technical objectives of keeping children out of poverty and raising their test scores. But it is ultimately what's really worth pursuing.
"Let no one believe that these are questions which should not stir a nation," Hoover said almost a century ago. "If we could have but one generation of properly born, trained, educated, and healthy children, a thousand other problems of government would vanish."
See Also
Report ~ November 2, 2015
Blog ~ July 6, 2015
Report ~ April 8, 2021