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Hey y’all! Welcome back to your Advocacy Alphabet with Natasha Kile, your AECA Public Policy Chair. This time, we’re talking about F is for Funding.
If you’ve ever tried to make the case for early childhood investment to someone who holds the purse strings, you know how the conversation often goes. Early childhood is seen as a social good – something warm and worthy, but not exactly a budget priority. A nice-to-have. A favor to families.
It’s time to change that narrative. And the good news is, the numbers are on our side.
Decades of economic research have made the case clearly and repeatedly: investing in high-quality early childhood education is one of the smartest financial decisions a state or community can make. Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman has demonstrated that every dollar invested in early childhood yields a return of seven to thirteen dollars over time – through reduced costs in remedial education, criminal justice, and social services, and through increased productivity and tax revenue. These are not feel-good estimates. They are rigorous, peer-reviewed findings that economists and policymakers across the political spectrum have embraced.
And yet, early childhood remains chronically underfunded compared to K-12 and higher education. In Arkansas and across the country, child care providers operate on razor-thin margins, educators earn poverty-level wages, and families pay more for child care than they do for college tuition in many states. The system is not broken by accident – it is underfunded by design, and it will only change when advocates make enough noise to shift the political will.
That’s where you come in. When you talk to your legislator, your school board member, or your neighbor about early childhood funding, lead with the economics. Tell them that investing in the first five years saves money down the road. Tell them that a strong child care system is an economic engine – it keeps parents in the workforce and businesses running. Tell them that Arkansas families, children, and communities cannot afford for us to keep getting this wrong.
The return on investment is undeniable. Now we just need the investment.
The Heckman Equation offers accessible research and tools for making the economic case for early childhood. Visit heckmanequation.org to explore.
Do you have an advocacy story you’d like to share? I would love to feature your voice in a future column. Reach out to me at policy@arkansasearlychildhood.org.
p.s. You can find all the posts in the Advocacy Alphabet series here
Natasha Kile
AECA Public Policy Chair
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