What Happens When Children Have Access to Early Learning?
While Illinois has continued progress in expanding access to early childhood education and care, rising costs and workforce challenges continue to impact families and providers.
This summer, our Childhood Education and Care is Essential campaign will explore why early childhood education and care along with continued investments are essential for a stronger and equitable system. The campaign will examine workforce compensation, cost of care, equity and access, and the impact on children, families, and communities.
In the following blog, Annaliese Newmeyer, Educator Advisory Council (EAC) member and Head Start education coordinator, shares her experiences as an educator and how early childhood programs benefit children, how financial pressures can strain families, and what happens when more families can access early childhood learning and care.
What Happens When Children Have Access to Early Learning?
I have both a professional and personal stake in early childhood education. I've worked in the field for more than 20 years, and I'm also a mother of a 7-year-old and a 10-month-old. I understand the importance of the first five years of a child's life not only as an educator, but as a parent.
More Than Preparation for School - A Community of Support
We all know the data around the importance of these first five years and how it impacts a child’s school success. But early childhood education (ECE) is more than preparing children for school—it provides families with a community of support. We often say that families need a village, and that's exactly what early childhood programs become: a trusted village.
We connect parents with resources, help them understand child development, advocate alongside them, and create opportunities for families to build relationships with one another. We do this by observing their children and sharing developmental information at home visits and curating classroom events based on this data. We learn about their family culture in order to provide classrooms where their child feels seen and supported. We create extra programming as needed at our sites like a store with hygiene and home goods or a mother support group, where mothers can reflect and grow in their roles as mothers. We check in on parents in their personal goals, such as finding a new job or better housing, and then providing recommendations and resources.
At my school, we also intentionally create experiences that bring families together. This past year, we hosted a Garden Kick-Off celebration to open our community garden. Children planted seeds to take home, participated in hands-on art activities, and our local library joined us, so every child left with a library card and a new book. These events aren't just fun—they create a sense of belonging and strengthen the relationships that help families thrive. It creates connections between families, schools, and neighborhood resources.
Navigating Systems and Challenges
We also host school fairs to introduce them to their options for kindergarten, and then we take them through the process of applying for and choosing among 20 schools. For the families I serve, applying to CPS is a complex online application system. You need to create accounts, manage emails and passwords, research school options, and rank their choices—all a full year before their child even starts kindergarten. For families living in neighborhoods that have experienced years of disinvestment, including disinvestment in their local schools, this process can be especially challenging. Parents may need to look for schools outside their neighborhood to better suit their child, so they are expected to research schools across the city, understand different programs, and somehow make the "right" decision without the support or resources many families need. Because we have created a village—our families have the teachers, the family support workers, and the other families to lean on to help make these big decisions that will impact their child for years.
One experience that has stayed with me involved a mother who came back to our program seeking help for her daughter. Her son had attended our school several years earlier, and during that time we helped her navigate the evaluation process and obtain an IEP for him. When her daughter began attending a local public school and were told that her needs were too challenging for them, they came back to us, because she knew we would listen, help her understand the system, and care for her daughter with compassion. That moment reminded me that our work extends far beyond the classroom. Families don't just need quality instruction—they need trusted partners who can help them navigate complex systems and advocate for their children.
As an early childhood educator, I find myself caught in the middle when it comes to caring for my own infant. I earn too much to qualify for childcare subsidies, yet too little to afford the nearly $2,000 per month cost of a high-quality early childhood program. Like so many families, my husband and I have had to carefully weigh the cost of childcare against our income and make significant cuts to our budget. We ended up paying a family member and then my husband was laid off and chose to stay home for the foreseeable future to save us some money. This creates a lot of stress on our family and a lot of pressure on me, being the sole provider. My husband will also lose out on his career momentum and it could affect him gaining another job. No family should have to choose between quality childcare and financial security.
Bridging Community
Access to high-quality early childhood education benefits the entire family. Parents are able to work, provide for their families, and contribute to the economy because they know their children are in a safe, nurturing environment. They know their children are with adults who will comfort them when they're sad, celebrate their successes, teach them to solve problems, build friendships, regulate their emotions, encourage them to ask questions, and discover the joy of learning. One of the greatest privileges of this work is seeing former students return years later. They proudly tell me they graduated at the top of their class, discovered a love of reading, excelled in math, or earned straight A's. Those moments remind me why this work matters. I am proud to have been part of their village—to have helped them see themselves as mathematicians, authors, scientists, artists, and capable learners long before they believed it themselves. This is why early childhood education is more than childcare - we are the bridge into our communities, we create community, we are the backbone of our communities, and the investment needs to reflect this.