While there has been increased attention to racial disparities in health, wellbeing, and academic outcomes for Black, Latine, and Native American children living in low-income households, the root causes of these inequities have not been identified. As a result, there continues to be a lack of equitable policies and strategies to address centuries of oppression and systemic inequalities.

The Start with Equity: NC Early Childhood Education Equity Analyses Project, led by the Equity Research Action Coalition (ERAC) at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG), conducted landscape analyses and engaged with community early education partners across the state of North Carolina to identify policies and strategies that show effect or promise in mitigating racial and economic disparities in early care and education (ECE). The research, led by FPG Fellow Iheoma Iruka, PhD, ERAC founding director, also focused on how policies can be more effectively enacted and implemented to advance equity.

The work by the Coalition, which was in partnership with the Educational Equity Institute and advised by Child Trends, received funding from Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, with support from the BurroughsWellcome Fund and other North Carolina donors. This project, which was framed by the report Start with Equity: 14 Priorities to Dismantle Systemic Racism in Early Care and Education, started with the goal of understanding how and whether North Carolina’s ECE programs and policies are meeting the needs of children and families from racially, linguistically, and economically marginalized communities.

Recognizing the systemic nature of inequity—due to segregation and underinvestment or disinvestment in community resources, supports, and opportunities—the researchers utilized the Child Opportunity Index 2.0 (COI) to identify which communities in North Carolina offer the fewest resources for children. The index is based on 29 indicators across education, health and environment, and social and economic domains. The index indicated that the central part of the state and urban metro areas—including the Triangle, Triad, and Mecklenburg County—offer the highest childhood opportunities, while the lowest opportunity zones are in the far east, south, and far west regions of North Carolina.

The report notes the importance of exploring at the census tract level, not just at the county level, because there is significant variation even within high-opportunity counties. In addition, findings show that the percentage of Black children in a community is negatively related to the level of opportunity: the lower the opportunity, the greater the percentage of Black children. In contrast, as opportunity increases, the greater the percentage of white children. There was no relationship between COI scores and the percentage of Latine children in communities.

“The early years are a sensitive period for brain development, and also a critical time for language, social, and emotional development,” says Iruka. “To ensure North Carolina continues to progress, all children must be provided with an opportunity to thrive, and this means prioritizing children, families, and communities who are historically and presently being left behind.”

Committed to partnering with early childhood education community partners, with their expertise and unique perspectives on working toward equity in their communities, the researchers engaged with a range of individuals working in ECE, including community agency administrators, executive directors of Smart Start partnerships, community activists, and early intervention specialists, as well as owners and directors of child care centers. Group meetings and individual hourlong meetings with each partner provided researchers an understanding of what community members see as most salient in their communities, as well as programs and projects that should be brought to light.

Many community partners agree that public funds need to be distributed equitably. They also say there is a critical need to embed equity in the training and professional development of the workforce in ways that meet the needs of children and families. Researchers note that, “community-level inequities have reverberating impacts on the retention of the ECE workforce, access to early intervention services, and provision of services to dual-language learners.”
The report offers recommendations for policy and community leaders:

• Prioritize and target specific populations and communities furthest from opportunity, including: racially and ethnically minoritized populations, infants and toddlers up to age 2; communities of concentrated poverty; unhoused children and children experiencing homelessness; dual-language learners; and children with disabilities.
• Move beyond compliance to focus on quality improvement efforts by restructuring how quality is measured and by ensuring the equitable allocation of technical assistance, coaching, training, and other quality improvement support by allocating greater resources to those with the greatest need. Maintain a laser focus on an accountability and continuous quality improvement system that is aligned with the goal of closing disparities in outcomes.
• Focus on family child care (FCC) homes as part of a robust mixed-delivery system by increasing initiatives to support FCC providers, such as creating FCC networks or incorporating pre-K into FCC.
• Address poverty-level wages for the early childhood workforce.
• Ensure that subsidy rates are sufficient for child care providers to provide quality programming.
• Address data governance and lack of data for equity analyses by possibly using the Head Start model to obtain more comprehensive data to: (1) identify communities and households farthest from opportunity by conducting racial equity analyses that require attention to child, family, and community socio-demographics, such as race, ethnicity, income, language, adversity, and their intersectional identities; and (2) utilize geographical markers to better target resources.
• Ensure attention is focused on addressing equity in access and resources for all. One possibility is to leverage the Head Start model to ensure that all children and families have access to resources, especially those in communities with multiple and layered inequities. Providing children living in poverty with the same access to resources—but with limited attention to environmental and intergenerational stressors and trauma—will not ultimately advance equity.

“The early years are a sensitive period for brain development, and also a critical time for language, social, and emotional development,” says Iruka. “To ensure North Carolina continues to progress, all children must be provided with an opportunity to thrive, and this means prioritizing children, families, and communities who are historically and presently being left behind.”