    [Senate Hearing 118-351]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                           S. Hrg. 118-351

                  BUILDING BLOCKS FOR SUCCESS: INVESTING IN
                           EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                            JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

                                     OF THE

                         CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                 APRIL 10, 2024

                                   __________

              Printed for the use of the Joint Economic Committee

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

            Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                                    __________

                         U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    56-028                      WASHINGTON : 2026
    =======================================================================

                            JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

        [Created pursuant to Sec. 5(a) of Public Law 304, 79th Congress]

    SENATE                               HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
    Martin Heinrich, New Mexico,         David Schweikert, Arizona, Vice
        Chairman                             Chairman
    Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota             Jodey C. Arrington, Texas
    Margaret Wood Hassan, New Hampshire  Ron Estes, Kansas
    Mark Kelly, Arizona                  A. Drew Ferguson IV, Georgia
    Peter Welch, Vermont                 Lloyd K. Smucker, Pennsylvania
    John Fetterman, Pennsylvania         Nicole Malliotakis, New York
    Mike Lee, Utah                       Donald S. Beyer Jr., Virginia
    Tom Cotton, Arkansas                 David Trone, Maryland
    Eric Schmitt, Missouri               Gwen Moore, Wisconsin
    J.D. Vance, Ohio                     Katie Porter, California

                      Jessica Martinez, Executive Director
                     Ron Donado, Republican Staff Director

                               C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                         Opening Statements of Members

                                                                       Page
    Hon. Martin Heinrich, Chairman, a U.S. Senator from New Mexico...     1
    Hon. David Schweikert, Vice Chairman, a U.S. Representative from
      Arizona........................................................     3

                                   Witnesses

    The Honorable Javier Martinez, Speaker, New Mexico House of
      Representatives, Albuquerque, NM...............................     5
    Ms. Melissa Boteach, Vice President for Income Security and Child
      Care/Early Learning, National Women's Law Center, Washington,
      DC.............................................................     6
    Lindsey M. Burke, Ph.D., Director, Center for Education Policy,
      The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC........................     8
    Mrs. Colleen Hroncich, Policy Analyst, Center for Educational
      Freedom, Cato Institute, Washington, DC........................    10

                           Submissions for the Record

    Prepared statement of Chairman Martin Heinrich, a U.S. Senator
      from New Mexico................................................    30
    Prepared statement of The Honorable Javier Martinez, Speaker, New
      Mexico House of Representatives, Albuquerque, New Mexico.......    34
    Prepared statement of Ms. Melissa Boteach, Vice President for
      Income Security and Child Care/Early Learning, National Women's
      Law Center, Washington, DC.....................................    38
    Prepared statement of Lindsey M. Burke, Ph.D., Director, Center
      for Education Policy, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC..    48
    Prepared statement of Mrs. Colleen Hroncich, Policy Analyst,
      Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute, Washington, DC.    54
    Questions for the Record submitted to Ms. Melissa Boteach from
      Senator Amy Klobuchar and Response.............................    58
    Questions for the Record submitted to Ms. Melissa Boteach from
      Senator Peter Welch and Response...............................    61

      BUILDING BLOCKS FOR SUCCESS: INVESTING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

                                  ----------

                           WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2024

                                United States Congress,
                                      Joint Economic Committee,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 3:15 p.m.,
    before the Joint Economic Committee Chairman, Martin Heinrich.
        Senators: Heinrich, Klobuchar, Hassan, Welch, Kelly, Vance.
        Representatives: Schweikert, Beyer, Porter.
        Staff: Matthew Cernicky, Jaxson Dealy, Sebi Devlin-Foltz,
    Ron Donado, Colleen Healy, Jeremy Johnson, Brooke LePage,
    Jessica Martinez, Garrett Wilbanks.

     OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HON. MARTIN HEINRICH, A U.S. SENATOR
          FROM NEW MEXICO, CHAIRMAN, JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

        Chairman Heinrich. This hearing will come to order. I would
    like to welcome everyone to today's Joint Economic Committee
    hearing titled, ``Building Blocks for Success: Investing in
    Early Childhood Education.'' Today's hearing will begin with
    five-minute opening statements from myself, from the Vice
    Chairman, and each of our four witnesses. We'll then proceed to
    questions, alternating between parties in the order of member
    arrival, and members are reminded to keep their questions to no
    more than five minutes.
        Now for opening statements. This Congress, this Committee
    has repeatedly discussed how important it is to invest in our
    nation's kids and their families. Time and again, our witnesses
    have reiterated how investing in kids strengthens our economy
    immediately and long into the future. Today we're focusing
    specifically on the economic benefits of early childhood
    education.
        The data clearly shows that having access to affordable and
    reliable early child care childhood education unlocks benefits
    for parents, for their kids, and for the economy. Many of our
    own personal experiences back this up. Affordable early
    childhood education makes it easier for parents and caregivers
    to work, to afford groceries and rent, and to save for
    retirement.
        In total, researchers estimate that inaccessible child care
    costs anywhere between $8.3 and $78 billion, billion with a
    ``B,'' in lost wages each year. High quality pre-K also helps
    kids do better in school later in life and can even improve
    their future job prospects. And when parents can keep working
    without having to worry about providing child care themselves,
    businesses don't have to spend time and money hiring and
    training their replacements. This could save companies billions
    of dollars every year.
        Federal investments in early childhood education also keep
    child care centers open and raise wages for child care workers.
    The benefits of accessible and affordable child care pay off
    long into the future with higher lifetime earnings, better
    outcomes for many kids who participated in early childhood
    education and this, in turn, leads to a stronger workforce,
    economy, and revenue base at the local, state, and federal
    levels, all while driving down spending on social services.
        Unfortunately, right now this win/win scenario remains out
    of reach and that's because the current private market for
    early childhood education simply cannot and is not meeting the
    needs of most families. As of 2018, more than half of people in
    the United States lived in a child care desert where slots fall
    alarmingly short of demand, resulting in long wait lists and
    high prices.
        Families are currently spending an average of 10 percent of
    their income on child care, despite the fact that the
    Department of Health and Human Services recommends no more than
    7 percent. Government funding and support for these programs is
    essential for our country and our economy to reap the maximum
    benefits of early childhood education.
        While investments in the American Rescue Plan helped bring
    down the cost of care for families and support child care
    workers, that funding was obviously temporary and I've
    repeatedly advocated for more federal child care funding, but
    Congress has yet to meet this growing need. Because of this
    inaction, it's largely been up to states to lead the way on
    guaranteeing affordable early childhood education.
        Today we'll hear more about how we fought to lead the way
    in New Mexico, setting the standard when it comes to providing
    accessible child care and pre-K for every family. That journey
    started over 10 years ago when families and advocates in New
    Mexico fought to amend our state constitution to tap into our
    Land Grant Permanent Fund so we could deliver the benefits of
    early childhood education to every single one of our kids.
        I was proud to be the first of New Mexico's federal elected
    leaders to support this effort. And after over 70 percent of
    New Mexicans voted for it in 2022, I was proud to lead the
    effort to secure the Congressional approval that was required
    to put this program into action. As a result, funding for early
    childhood education in New Mexico is going up by roughly $150
    million per year.
        New Mexico has also implemented the Early Childhood Trust
    Fund to further ensure sustainable funding. These new funds are
    still getting out the door, but already research is showing the
    benefits for families and providers. That includes early
    results from research done by the Cradle to Career Policy
    Institute at the University of New Mexico. They found that the
    early childhood education expansion in New Mexico is making it
    possible for parents to return to the careers that they put on
    hold in order to stay home with their children.
        Some are starting their own businesses or returning to
    school or putting the savings towards buying a house. Parents
    are reporting less stress and better mental health. And this is
    helping providers too. Forty-three percent of child care
    providers were able to increase staff wages. Sixty-three
    percent were able to improve facilities and 59 percent report
    increased quality of care.
        When all is said and done, nearly all families in New
    Mexico will ultimately have access to free child care and early
    education helping them to cover other important expenses and
    invest in their futures. For families in New Mexico with
    infants in center-based care, these savings would cover over
    seven months of the median rent or over half of the average
    downpayment on a house in our state. That's lifechanging for
    families and our economy now and into the future.
        At the federal level, we are far from the standard New
    Mexico has set, but we've made good investments in federal tax
    credits and programs that help families recoup certain child
    care expenses. Programs like the Child Tax Credit, the Child
    Dependent Care Credit, and the Child Care and Development Block
    Grant allow families to offset or subsidize the cost of raising
    a child. The Biden Administration is also doing its part,
    passing a landmark Executive Order supporting the Care Economy
    last year and taking important steps to boost wages for
    Headstart workers and cut the cost of on-base child care for
    military families and certain grants from the CHIPS Act require
    recipients to show how they'll provide child care to their
    workers, making sure that our investments in new manufacturing
    don't leave parents behind.
        Treasury Secretary Yellen has described the child care
    market as a textbook case of a broken market. I would agree
    with that. But if we can build momentum, we can get this market
    working, all while helping get parents back to work as well.
        I'm looking forward to hearing more from our witnesses
    today about how investing in Early Childhood education can help
    the United States boost labor force participation and invest in
    future generations.
        [The prepared opening statement of Senator Heinrich appears
    in the Submissions for the Record.]
        Chairman Heinrich. And I'll now turn over to Vice Chairman
    Schweikert, for his opening statement.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Thank you, Chairman Heinrich.

        OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HON. DAVID SCHWEIKERT, A U.S.
      REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARIZONA, VICE CHAIRMAN, JOINT ECONOMIC
                               COMMITTEE

        Vice Chairman Schweikert. When you and I were young, for
    every six dollars that was spent on a child there was one
    dollar spent on seniors. To date, that is reversed and by the
    end of this decade it'll be one dollar for a child, eight
    dollars for those over 65. It is our demographics that are
    moving, that are consuming much of these resources.
        Where I have concern and where we want to be intellectually
    robust and honest and also looking at some of the test money
    here, so please help me through this. We're trying to
    understand. Do we conflate universal pre-K with child care? Are
    they different things? Do they have different requirements,
    different models, if so, we need some answers on some of the
    data. It's still preliminary, so it's not been well vetted
    coming out of the Inflation Reduction Act that it actually, in
    spots, it actually increased the cost of actual child care for
    those who are not in one of the subsidized systems.
        The second thing is I wish to understand, particularly when
    our friends from New Mexico, which I'm very interested in what
    you've been doing, being from a state that also has a Land
    Trust very similar to you, is some of your statistics on, as
    you've been growing your population, why this substantial spike
    in post-COVID absenteeism. Is it a sampling error? Is it that
    you're reaching more or wealthier families that have
    alternatives? Help us understand what works and what doesn't
    work.
        The other observation here is help us also have quality
    data and literature. We dug into a number of the academic
    articles. Some of them are almost a decade old and have truly
    contradictory information. You know we all remember the quotes
    from an article, what, seven, eight years ago, saying on year
    three we don't see the same statistical evidence of progress.
    And then almost one from the say era saying the complete
    opposite. Help us. Is there something that's much more recent,
    post-COVID?
        And also, the last thing I will share, as we go into a
    population where U.S. fertility rates have substantially
    collapsed the United States last year the best estimate, and
    it's not final, is 1.63. We are now below much of Western
    Europe. There is not a single study that actually shows of
    policy, other than buying people houses in, what is it,
    Hungary, and that barely moved numbers. So in that case, how do
    we have as high a quality next generation who are prepared for
    the skillsets that are required? Is this the path or should we
    actually think much more creatively with the resources we have
    and the understanding of the pressures our demographics are
    going to create on those resources? And with that, I yield
    back.
        Chairman Heinrich. Now I'd like to introduce our four
    distinguished witnesses. Speaker Javier Martinez is the New
    Mexico State Representative from District 11 and serves as the
    31st Speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives. In his
    nine years in the legislature, Speaker Martinez has led the
    fight to build a more inclusive economy. This work has included
    expanding the New Mexico Working Families tax credit, making it
    one of the most generous and inclusive in the country and
    championing the New Mexico Child Tax Credit.
        Speaker Martinez was also integral in the effort to amend
    the State Constitution to invest additional money from our
    State's Land Grant Permanent Fund in early childhood education.
    Speaker Martinez has been a tireless advocate for New Mexico's
    community for more than two decades.
        Mrs. Melissa Boteach is the Vice President for Income
    Security and Child Care and Early Learning at the National
    Women's Law Center, overseeing the organization's advocacy,
    policy, and public education strategies to ensure that all
    women and families have the income and supports that they need
    to thrive.
        Prior to joining the NWLC, Ms. Boteach spent nearly a
    decade at the Center for American Progress, where she founded
    and led the Poverty to Prosperity Program, establishing
    projects to uplift the voices of low-income communities.
        Mr. Vice Chairman, I'll hand it over to you to introduce
    the other two witnesses.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. I would like to introduce our two
    distinguished witnesses. Lindsey M. Burke, Ph.D., is the
    Director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage
    Foundation, where she oversees research and policy on issues
    related to preschool, K through 12, higher education reform.
    She was appointed to serve on Governor Youngkin's Landing Team
    for Education.
        Mrs. Colleen Hroncich is a policy analyst at the CATO
    Institute for Higher Education and Educational Freedom. Prior
    to that, she was a senior policy analyst with the Commonwealth
    Foundation.
        Thank you both for joining us today.
        Chairman Heinrich. And why don't we just start on this side
    and go right across? Speaker.

      STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAVIER MARTINEZ, SPEAKER OF THE STATE
             HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, STATE OF NEW MEXICO

        Speaker Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
    Mr. Vice Chairman, for the opportunity to address you here
    today. It is an honor to be in your presence. I'm Javier
    Martinez and I serve as Speaker of the House for the New Mexico
    House of Representatives. I'm also the son of hardworking
    immigrant parents and it is a testament to my parents, Javier
    and Ana, and their belief in the American dream that I'm here
    today.
        I chose a life of public service because like all of you in
    this room I too believe in the power of the American dream, and
    I want all families and their children to achieve the same
    dreams that my parents were able to achieve.
        Allow me to paint a brief picture of early childhood in New
    Mexico for you. Every year we have roughly 22,000 children who
    are born in our state. Many of these children face enormous
    challenges from the onset. Eighty percent of births in New
    Mexico every year are paid for by Medicaid dollars, so that
    tells you the level of poverty we're dealing with.
        And in addition to that, more than half of the births in
    New Mexico, year-to-year, half to those are to a single-parent
    household. In fact, more than 40 years ago in New Mexico, an
    average child had, on average, 11 adult meaningful
    relationships, both parents, extended family, grandparents, a
    baseball coach, a priest in their life. Today, on average, less
    than two. That means not even both parents, generally speaking,
    are in the picture.
        When we talk about it taking a village to raise a child, in
    New Mexico, we are having to rebuild that village and that is
    the work that we've undertaken over the last few years.
    However, I want to be clear that as New Mexicans, we refuse to
    let these statistics define us and limit our vision for the
    future. In fact, quite the opposite. New Mexico is now
    investing in high quality, culturally and linguistically
    responsive early childhood services from prenatal all the way
    to the age of five.
        Following the Heckman Equation from Nobel Prize winning
    economist, Dr. James Heckman, which finds a 13 percent return
    on investment for comprehensive, high-quality birth to five
    early education, New Mexico is betting on all of her children.
        Because of the boon years that New Mexico has experienced
    the last few years, we now have an unprecedented opportunity
    and a responsibility to put our values into action and build an
    Early Childhood system that can be a model for the rest of the
    country. For over a decade, as the Chairman pointed out, a
    diverse coalition of community champions patiently and
    persistently built political will to do something big and bold
    and significant on early childhood in our state. And slowly but
    surely, we gained momentum and that is thanks, in no small part
    to leaders like you, Mr. Chairman, who was the first federally
    elected official to endorse our movement.
        Thanks to that movement, New Mexico is steadily rebuilding
    that village that it takes to raise a child. In 2019, we
    launched a cabinet-level Early Childhood and Care Department so
    that there is now a dedicated group of professionals whose only
    job is to make sure that we're meeting the needs of every child
    during their most formative years. The research shows that the
    most impactful time to invest in a child is between the ages of
    zero and three because that's when 80 percent of brain
    development takes place.
        In 2020, we established the Early Childhood Trust Fund,
    which makes annual distributions of 5 percent for Early
    Childhood programs. And as the Chairman mentioned, in 2022, by
    a wide bipartisan margin voters in New Mexico approved a
    landmark constitutional amendment which guarantees all children
    in the state the right to an Early Childhood education. This
    amendment also establishes a dedicated, sustainable funding
    stream for early childhood education from our $25 billion Land
    Grant Permanent Fund. At the same time, we're also building up
    the infrastructure that has not been built over generations in
    New Mexico and that includes building expanded child care
    eligibility for parents in middle-class families, that includes
    tax reform, including passing a state-level child tax credit
    and a working family tax credit, which is one of the most
    generous in the country and piggybacks off of your federal
    Earned Income Tax Credit.
        In this last legislative session, we also reduced the tax
    burden on private child care providers because in our system it
    is important to keep that braided implementation system of
    public and private providers.
        New Mexico might be unique, but know that many states face
    similar challenges to our state as well when it comes to early
    childhood. Federal ARPAR funding was very helpful in helping us
    build up our system, but that money runs out, and states have
    to step up now and address the needs and the challenges in
    their communities. These investments, however, are worthwhile,
    both from a social perspective and from an economic
    perspective.
        My message to all lawmakers is to please be bold and
    persistent and to invest in your children. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of the Honorable Javier Martinez
    appears in the Submissions for the Record.]

        STATEMENT OF MELISSA BOTEACH, VICE PRESIDENT FOR INCOME
     SECURITY AND CHILD CARE/EARLY LEARNING, NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW
                        CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.

        Ms. Boteach. Good afternoon, Chairman Heinrich, Vice
    Chairman Schweikert, and other distinguished members of the
    Joint Economic Committee.
        My name is Melissa Boteach and I'm the Vice President for
    Income Security and Child Care at the National Women's Law
    Center. I'm grateful for the opportunity to testify before you
    today on the economic benefits of investing in child care and
    early education and on solutions to stabilize and rebuild this
    critical foundation of our economy.
        When you leave today's hearing, I want you to remember the
    story of Merline Gallegos, a homebased child care provider in
    New Mexico and the mother of four children, two of whom have
    disabilities. Ten years ago, after struggling to find child
    care for her own children, Merline decided to dedicate herself
    to providing child care for families like her own and is now a
    certified child care and early education and special education
    teacher.
        Her workday starts at 5:00 a.m., teaching children through
    playing, singing, dancing, and reading, all while making
    observations and communicating with parents to facilitate each
    and every child's growth. Merline loves her job and she's
    worked hard to advance her education and to grow her business.
    And yet, she lives paycheck-to-paycheck in a system that
    chooses her to force between paying a living wage and raising
    fees on already struggling parents.
        But Merline has turned that pain into purpose and is part
    of the successful movement in New Mexico that won and is now
    implementing a constitutional amendment that will result in
    higher salaries and better opportunities for all child care
    professionals and more access to affordable child care for
    parents. Merline is one of hundreds of thousands of early
    educators who make work possible for the rest of us, prepare
    the next generation of children for success, and support
    widespread economic growth.
        The research is clear. When we invest in children starting
    a birth it yields long-term, positive outcomes for their
    health, education, and employment. When parents can find and
    afford child care, more mothers are able to enter and stay in
    the workforce, resulting in higher earnings now and over the
    course of their lifetimes. And when workers have stable and
    affordable child care, their employers have a more reliable and
    more productive workforce and our economy experiences greater
    growth.
        However, despite these important public benefits, child
    care is too often perceived of and funded as though it were a
    private luxury. While free education for school-aged children
    is a right, during the first five years of life, as the
    Chairman noted, children's brains are growing their fastest,
    parents are largely left to figure it out on their own. And
    while the government is the primary financier of fiscal
    infrastructure like roads and bridges, the cost of our nation's
    care infrastructure is primary borne by women's unpaid and
    underpaid labor.
        It was no surprise then that this fragile sector went into
    freefall when the pandemic hit. By January of 2021, one in six
    child care jobs had been lost and millions of women had been
    pushed out of the labor market. Lawmakers took action with the
    American Rescue Plan, which helped 220,000 child care programs
    stay open and helped reverse the rapid decline in women's labor
    force participation.
        Unfortunately, the long-term funding to create a
    sustainable child care system was not included in the Inflation
    Reduction Act, creating two dramatic funding cliffs. One this
    past September of 2023 and the second arriving in September of
    2024. These cliffs are wreaking havoc on the nation's families
    and providers.
        According to a February 2024 survey from the National
    Association for the Education of Young Children, nearly half of
    responding providers indicated they'd had to increase their
    program's tuition in the last six months. Many providers have
    left the field for jobs in retail, restaurants, or other low-
    paid sectors, exacerbating the child care supply crisis and
    leaving parents with few or no choices when it comes to finding
    child care.
        We know what works. The impact of public funding is evident
    in the success of the Federal Relief Funds and in the progress
    that Blue and Red states alike have seen where they've invested
    their own dollars. But state investments can't make up for the
    federal funding cliff. The one-billion-dollar increase in child
    care and Headstart in the recently passed Fiscal Year 2024
    Appropriations bill was an important downpayment. But with
    another funding cliff looming in September of 2024, Congress
    must act swiftly on the Biden Administration's supplemental
    request for $16 billion to continue to stabilize the child care
    sector.
        While this increased emergency funding is crucial, the goal
    is not just to return to an inequitable, pre-COVID-19 status
    quo. Sustained and robust funding that guarantees access to
    affordable, high-quality child care and early learning ensures
    a living wage for early educators and builds the supply is the
    only sustainable solution for our nation's child care crisis.
        For those who argue that we can't afford to make these
    investments, President Biden's budget shows that there would be
    more than enough revenue to support child care for all families
    if the wealthiest individuals and big corporations paid their
    fair share of taxes. Our child care crisis is a policy choice.
    We know what works and now we need the political will to act
    upon it. Merline's advice to us is to never give up. Please
    keep her and millions of families who rely on early educators
    like her in mind as you make critical decisions on investing in
    child care and early learning.
        [The prepared statement of Melissa Boteach appears in the
    Submissions for the Record.]
        Chairman Heinrich. Dr. Burke.

      STATEMENT OF LINDSEY M. BURKE, Ph.D., DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR
      EDUCATION POLICY, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.

        Dr. Burke. Good afternoon. My name is Lindsey Burke. I'm
    the Director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage
    Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are mine and
    are not to be construed as the official position of the
    Heritage Foundation.
        Thank you Chairman Heinrich and Vice Chairman Schweikert,
    for inviting me to testify today. Proponents of universal
    preschool tend to appeal to just two studies to make their
    case. The Abecedarian Preschool Study and the Perry Preschool
    Project, both of which found positive benefits for
    participants. But why do proponents continue to appeal to two
    studies that are 60 and nearly 70 years old, respectively?
    Because the results have never been replicated in other
    studies.
        The Abecedarian and Perry Studies includes just 57 and 58
    children, respectively, in the treatment groups and both
    suffered from methodological limitations, weakening their
    external validity. What about current early education programs
    like Headstart? When Headstart launched in 1965, proponents
    were clear that its sole purpose ``Is to prepare children for
    elementary school.'' It was designed as a preschool program.
        Today annual Headstart expenditures total $12.2 billion
    equating to more than $12,000 per child. Unfortunately, this
    great society relic has been failing children for decades. On a
    quiet Friday, before Christmas in 2012, when most of the
    federal government had already headed home for Christmas and
    left Washington, Health and Human Services, which administers
    Headstart, finally released a highly anticipated and four-
    years-old, overdue, but scientifically rigorous evaluation of
    the program.
        As the Heritage Foundation Jay Green wrote at the time,
    ``HHS might as well have put the results on display in a locked
    filing cabinet in a disused lavatory behind a sign that says,
    Beware of the leopard.'' It's no wonder the rigorous
    evaluation, which tracked 5,000 three- and four-year-old
    children through the end of third grade found that Headstart
    had little to no impact on their parent's parenting practices,
    their social/emotional wellbeing or their cognitive outcomes or
    their access to healthcare outcomes to healthcare.
        So what about at the state level? Tennessee's voluntary
    pre-K program is considered a gold standard preschool program.
    Here again, a randomized controlled trial evaluation conducted
    by scholars at Vanderbilt University found the control and
    experiment groups ``Began to diverge with the Tennessee
    preschool children scoring lowering than the controlled
    children on most of the measures. The differences were
    significant on both achievement composite measures and on math
    scores.''
        These findings are consistent in the preschool literature,
    although participants may experience some benefit upon program
    entry, those programs fade by first grade and evaporate by
    third grade. In addition to the academic shortcomings, more
    than half, 56 percent, of women with children would prefer to
    stay at home and care for their family, according to Gallup.
    The polarity of Americans, 44 percent, say it is ideal for one
    parent to stay at home when their children are young and
    another 36 percent say one parent should stay at home at least
    part time, according to PEW.
        PEW also found in a prior survey that among women with
    children under 18, a full 68 percent would prefer just part-
    time work or full-time homemaking. Among married mothers that
    rises to 76 percent. Just 23 percent of married mothers list
    working full-time as their ideal scenario. Even then, full-
    time, center-based care comes in last among families' preferred
    arrangements, which is 11 percent of working mothers saying the
    use of center-based care was best for young children. Yet, the
    push for universal preschool and daycare taxes those same
    mothers to pay for an arrangement counter to their preferences,
    reducing the money they have to spend on their own children.
        There is nothing more important for the future of America
    than strong families, so how can policymakers support families
    in accessing the types of early education and care that they
    want without preferencing one form of care over another? In
    addition to letting families keep more of their own money,
    Congress should build off the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act which
    expanded 529 savings accounts from the college level down to K-
    12 and allow those accounts to be used for preschool and early
    education and care expenses.
        Congress should also allow eligible families to take their
    Headstart dollars to private providers of choice, providing
    them with more flexibility and to remove unnecessary
    regulations from making a market in D.C. an actual thriving
    market that is affordable for families something that state
    legislature should also mimic. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Lindsey Burke appears in the
    Submissions for the Record.]
        Chairman Heinrich. Mrs. Hroncich, welcome.
        Mrs. Hroncich. Thank you.

    STATEMENT OF MRS. COLLEEN HRONCICH, POLICY ANALYST, CENTER FOR
         EDUCATIONAL FREEDOM, CATO INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

        Mrs. Hroncich. Chairman Heinrich, Vice Chairman Schweikert,
    and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to
    testify today. As already mentioned, my name is Colleen
    Hroncich and I'm a policy analyst at the CATO Institute's
    Center for Educational Freedom. The views I express in this
    testimony are my own and should not be construed as
    representing any official position of the CATO Institute.
        I'll make three main points today. First, the rhetoric does
    not match reality when it comes to early childhood education.
    Second, one size does not fit all. Preschoolers and their
    parents are too diverse for a federal government program to
    make sense. And third, the Department of Education's disastrous
    rollout of the revised Free Application for Federal Student
    Aid, better known as FAFSA, shows why the federal government
    should stay away from early childhood education.
        Rhetoric versus reality or something is not better than
    nothing. Every few years there's a push in Washington, D.C. for
    universal or nearly universal preschool. Proponents claim a
    whole host of benefits from improved reading ability to fewer
    dropouts and teen pregnancies to increased future income.
        In 2021, President Biden touted such vast benefits from his
    Universal Preschool Plan, that factcheck.org took him to task,
    noting ``There's plenty of research on specific targeted
    programs, but there isn't much on universal programs, and the
    research that does exist in many cases is more nuance and less
    optimistic than Biden suggests.''
        There's no consistent evidence that large-scale preschool
    programs are beneficial, and some are even harmful. In January
    2022, researchers from Vanderbilt University released a study
    of Tennessee's Voluntary Pre-K Initiative, which Dr. Burke just
    mentioned, and it found that children who participated in the
    program experienced significant negative effects compared to
    children who did not. Harms included worse academic
    performance, higher likelihood to have discipline issues and be
    referred for Special Education.
        Dale Farron, one of the lead researchers concluded that at
    least for poor children, ``It turns out something is not better
    than nothing.'' There're several possible reasons for this, but
    one prominent one seems to be that preschoolers learn best when
    they have time to play independently. However, large-scale
    programs tend toward whole group instruction, rigid behavioral
    rules, and very little time outside and in free play.
        Next, one size does not fit all. The wants and needs of
    preschoolers and their parents are too diverse for a federal
    program to make sense. I have four children and I saw this
    first-hand with my own kids. That they had different needs,
    each one. My oldest daughter was very shy, so my main goal with
    preschool for her was to get her comfortable with teachers and
    other children. I chose a preschool that emphasized play and a
    warm, nurturing environment.
        My second born was not shy. He was doing first grade math,
    always trying to keep up with his sister. He was doing first
    grade math and reading small chapter books when he was four.
    For him, the challenge of a more academic preschool made sense.
    If my own family has diverse needs, it's not surprising that a
    December 2020 poll from the bipartisan policy center found
    parents have a wide variety of preferences when it comes to
    child care and preschool with a somewhat even split among
    various models.
        A federal program would likely include mandates that would
    make it very hard for religious and homebased providers to
    participate and minimum hourly requirements would prevent part-
    time programs from participating at all.
        As you've probably seen, the nation's undergoing a
    transformation in K-12 education with more and more states
    taking a student-centered approach instead of the one-size-
    fits-all model. It would be a terrible irony if preschool
    education went in the other direction towards a more
    institutionalized system at the same time K-12 education is
    becoming more liberalized.
        And finally, the FAFSA debacle should put talk of a federal
    preschool program to bed. My youngest daughter is headed to
    Catholic University of America here in D.C. for nursing school
    in the fall. At least, we think she is. We still haven't found
    out what her expected cost of attendance will be because the
    federal government has taken such a massive role in college
    financing. Now most schools use FAFSA even for private awards
    and the Department of Education's attempt to revise the FAFSA
    program has been an unmitigated disaster and caused significant
    delays. I believe the Secretary of Education was here today
    testifying about that.
        This is putting the squeeze on colleges, students, and
    families, and especially lower-income families. There's a
    saying the bigger you are the harder you fall. When the federal
    government gets involved, any failures or problems will have
    widespread impacts. I don't know how anyone witnessing the
    FAFSA mess could think let's get the government more involved
    in early childhood education.
        The bottom line is America is too large and diverse for a
    federal preschool program to make sense. This is one reason the
    Constitution gives Congress no authority over education. Sound
    bites about large-scale preschool programs make the idea seem
    attractive, but it's important to look closer and recognize the
    harms that a federal preschool plan would have on families and
    providers. The rules and restrictions that would be part of a
    federal preschool program would likely force many preferred
    models out of business.
        We tried the bureaucratic talk down approach in K-12
    education and parents are clamoring for more options. There's
    no reason to think that more mandates and fewer options would
    help improve opportunities for children. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mrs. Colleen Hroncich appears in
    the Submissions for the Record.]
        Chairman Heinrich. Vice Chairman Schweikert has to go in a
    few minutes, so I'm going to let him start the first round of
    questions, then we'll alternate.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Thank you, Chairman. And it's
    always dangerous. I'm going to leave you all on your own and
    that Senator Peters is my friend, and he remembers when we
    adopted our first little girl. I was showing him pictures of
    the sibling that we've now adopted.
        I like this issue, which is sort of weird to hear from a
    Republican, but I often think we may have been caught in some
    of our dogma and listening to the Speaker, you almost wonder,
    saying, okay, his state has some very tough statistics. Is it
    time to think differently? Is it time to think of a much more
    holistic solution? And forgive my sort of fact-checking. It's a
    little compulsive. So, today we have, what, the latest data was
    12,700 more child care workers today than we did in pre-
    pandemic. So, that's not a lot of growth. It's 1, 2 percent
    growth, but at the same time, actually, the number of children
    is actually, as you know, how many of us have school districts
    that are actually closing schools because there're fewer
    children.
        So, Dr. Burke, I'm going to give you something that's
    brutally uncomfortable. So, I came to you and said today you
    have a clean slate. You have a state where the kids, let's be
    honest, have some tough issues. If I gave you--said to you, you
    get to create a holistic approach. What would be good for
    Arizona? What would be good for the entire country? What would
    be good for New Mexico? What would it look like? What actually
    is the right approach, as an economist, to approach this?
        Dr. Burke. Well, a couple of things. First, and to
    Colleen's point a second ago, there are issues that are really
    endemic among the K-12 sector that should be addressed as well,
    and so, that needs to be a part of the conversation. New Mexico
    is a state that lacks any education choice options for
    families, and so at the K-12 level, I would certainly start
    there.
        When it comes to the pre-K and early childhood education
    level, I think a few of the recommendations that I mentioned
    earlier would go a long way to helping New Mexico families
    expanding that 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act so that it makes 529
    accounts eligible for pre-K and child care expenses would go a
    long way. Many of the families in New Mexico are eligible for
    Headstart. Relegating those families to a distant federal
    program that has completely failed them academically that the
    GAO has found is replete with fraud that has many other issues
    that have made it an unworkable program relegating those
    families to that distant federal program we could do much
    better for them. If the federal government is to continue
    funding a program like Headstart, at least allow those families
    to access their share of that $12,000 and take it to a provider
    of choice.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Okay. Now, so the second half of
    that type of question is tell me a state that's doing it where
    it may not be perfect, but you're seeing positive outcomes.
        Dr. Burke. Well, if you're going to do a state-level pre-K
    program or early childhood education and care program, which
    even then we have to be extremely careful to not preference
    center-based care over family-based care. But if you're going
    to do it, go in the direction of a state like Florida is a
    better direction to go where they have a publicly financed pre-
    K system, but you can choose the private provider of choice in
    Florida. Florida has adopted that choice model throughout its
    system, pre-K all the way through it's K-12 system. So, if
    you're going to do it, that's the way to do it.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. It's open to both of you, but how
    about a state like Arizona, where we actually have a very
    vigorous choice system. I mean my child--my little girl is in a
    school called Basis. I had no idea second graders had two hours
    of homework every night, but it's working. I mean, you know,
    where's the robustness? Where's actually the joy and the
    kindness to the next generation in building the skillsets?
        Dr. Burke. Well, if I could just say quickly on Arizona,
    because Arizona is rightly held up as a model of choice in the
    K-12 realm. So, Arizona has the most robust education choice
    market in the country. The reason why it has been so successful
    is something that it should think about applying to its pre-K
    sector, which is it has an extremely light touch when it comes
    to its regulatory environment. If we look across the country,
    the number of family-based, in-home providers, preschool
    providers has been cut in half since 2005 and a big part of
    that is because of the over regulatory nature of oversight that
    we've seen in the states when comes to preschool. So, a lesson
    that we can take from Arizona is in its K-12 sector. Make sure
    that regulations are as light as possible. That they're
    actually providing oversight and accountability to families,
    but don't overregulate the private market. Don't make it harder
    for a private provider and in-home provider to operate. You
    want light regulations so that families have as many choices as
    possible in the pre-K space.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. And Mr. Chairman, I appreciate
    your kindness letting me go first. We have an issue to deal
    with in the House, can you imagine that?
        Chairman Heinrich. I've heard.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. But I want us to be
    intellectually robust here. This is one of the subjects where
    we go back to our campaign talking points and I think the moral
    thing for my kids, for everyone's kids, your grandkids is let's
    get our data. Let's get the facts straight and figure out how
    we make this next generation more prosperous because heavens
    knows we're going to need it. And with that, I yield back, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chairman Heinrich. Thank you. We will go through the rest
    of the questions in the order that folks arrived. And I'm going
    to start with you, Speaker Martinez. As we talk about potential
    federal legislation that can support families with young
    children, what lessons do you want my colleagues to take back
    to their districts and their states from what you've
    experienced so far and how have the states--I know it's a new
    program and it's being built as we speak, but investments have
    been made. Have they started to move the needle on
    affordability and access?
        Speaker Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of
    the Committee, for that question, very important question. I
    want to make sure we distinguish between the idea of building
    out only a pre-K program versus a comprehensive early childhood
    education Program. And let me explain, if I may, Mr. Chairman
    and members of the Committee.
        A comprehensive, robust early childhood education Program
    and system will include everything from home visitation
    services from prenatal to at least three years of age. Think of
    it as coaching life skills, parenting skills, and also combined
    with a robust child care system, and on top of that pre-K for
    those that are age eligible, usually three- to four-years old.
        If you focus on just one of those pieces, you will not get
    the results. Or if you get some results, they'll vary from
    place to place and the reality is that they'll be not as robust
    as we would like. And I'm a big believer that if we just do
    pre-K and nothing else, we're not going to move the needle very
    far. If you'd allow me, Mr. Chair, New Mexico's largest
    provider of home visitation programs is a private program,
    private, nonprofit tied to a religious institution, CHI St.
    Joseph's Children. They serve about a thousand kids every year
    between prenatal and three. It's a three-year program. They
    started a longitudinal study a few years back and some of the
    preliminary data is incredible and I'm going to read some of
    this out to you.
        This is a study done by the University of New Mexico. They
    choice 400 participants, 200 with home visiting services and
    200 without a randomized study, both groups with identical
    demographics. Children are now anywhere between three and six
    years old. Here are some of the preliminary findings.
        The service group had no need for neonatal intensive care,
    no need for visits to the Emergency Room in the first year of
    life, problem-solving skillsets for the children in the service
    group 28 percent higher than those who were not, 21 percent
    greater vocabulary, 14 percent higher fine motor function, and
    parents have had zero encounters with the criminal justice
    system. That's what we're seeing in New Mexico in one home
    visitation program.
        So, as you all consider building out these early care
    programs, keep in mind that it's not just one piece, but rather
    it needs to be the entire continuum. Furthermore, in New
    Mexico, we have choice. We have a choice in K-12. We have a
    robust charter school system. In fact, my children attend a
    Montessori charter school because that's what works for them,
    but we've got other amazing schools. We've got the Native
    American Community Academy, which is teaching young Indigenous
    children in their home language, in their cultural skillsets
    and assets.
        And we also have choice in our early ed system. Our
    parents, our families can take their subsidy and go to a
    homebased provider which may have no more than six kids and
    it's a grandmother cooking for the kids and teaching the kids
    life skills and academic skills or they can take their child
    into a center-based program if they so chose to. So, I think
    that keeping in mind how important it is to focus on the entire
    continuum is what's really going to help us move the needle and
    that's what we're seeing in New Mexico now as well.
        Chairman Heinrich. When my oldest son was an infant and a
    toddler, I was a consultant and later a city councilor and I
    was able to care for him myself while his mother worked during
    the day. She would come home in the late afternoon. We would
    switch roles and we embraced this challenging, but I think very
    successful arrangement out of choice. Certainly, many parents
    simply don't have that kind of privilege.
        Ms. Boteach, what are the impacts of the current limits in
    choice that many people have based on their geography or their
    income on the economy as a whole, on labor force participation,
    on economic productivity, and then obviously on the family
    involved?
        Ms. Boteach. Some people argue that we can't afford to
    invest in child care and early learning, but we would argue
    that we can't afford not to invest because it is not just
    important for a family's individual economic security,
    especially with two-thirds of families relying on a mother's
    income, but it also helps the economy overall. Recent studies
    showed that the lack of child care and early education is
    costing our economy about $122 billion. This is a post-pandemic
    update. And that is in lost economic productivity, in lost tax
    revenue from people getting pushed out of the labor force, so
    this is an issue not just for sort of the individual family
    unit, but for the health of the economy overall.
        From a small business perspective, there was just a hearing
    earlier this week where new polling from over 500 small
    businesses showed that nearly six in ten are saying it's harder
    to start and maintain a small business when their employees are
    experiencing such child care challenges. And so, really the
    lack of investment is having ripple effects, but we also know
    the inverse is true. That when we proactively invest in
    children, particularly from birth to five, we see long-term
    positive consequences of that.
        That's not just, again, for the economy overall, but for
    individual families. We did a study at National Women's Law
    Center with Columbia University, and we showed that if you made
    high-quality, affordable child care available for all, you
    would see a 17 percent increase in mother's labor force
    participation, resulting in over $100,000 in lifetime earnings
    and retirement security growth.
        And when you think about the pay gap, when you think about
    widening economic inequality and you think about the fact,
    again, that two-thirds of families are relying on that mother's
    income being able to actually enter, stay, and grow in the
    labor force is a critical component to their families' economic
    security.
        Chairman Heinrich. Thank you. Congressman Beyer, welcome.
        Representative Beyer. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
    And thank all of you for coming and for your written and your
    oral testimonies. I'm on the Ways and Means Committee in the
    House where we've been huge fans of the Child Tax Credit. It
    was passed in a very bipartisan way during the pandemic, and we
    just passed a bipartisan Child Tax Credit bill, which is stuck
    in the Senate at the moment, which we hope to get done before
    the end of the year.
        Speaker Martinez, I know New Mexico Working Families Tax
    Credit has been part of that and is still in place. The
    Children's Hospital of Philadelphia recently had a study that
    showed that financial assistance like the Child Tax Credit
    could eliminate rates of child abuse and neglect and that
    obviously alleviating economic stress in the family could
    tangibly improve child safety and lists economic stress as a
    risk factor for abuse and neglect in a family.
        Can you talk about how your New Mexico Child Tax Credit has
    been--has seems to be working for you guys?
        Speaker Martinez. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair and
    Representative Beyer. A great question. New Mexico has had a
    longstanding working families' tax credit which piggybacks off
    the Earned Income Tax Credit. For about 10, 12 years it was 10
    percent of the federal credit. In 2019, the New Mexico
    legislature, under the leadership of Former Chairman of Tax,
    Jim Trujillo, who recently passed away, a giant among New
    Mexico politics, he lead the effort to increase that Working
    Families Tax Credit from 10 percent all the way up to 25
    percent.
        That Working Families Tax Credit is also inclusive of
    children aging out of the Foster Care system who may not have
    children themselves, so they can claim themselves for a few
    years post Foster Program, and it is also inclusive of
    undocumented workers who file taxes. New Mexico, being a border
    state, has relative to our population a relatively large
    community of undocumented workers who are working out in the
    fields, working in agriculture, working in the oil and gas
    industry, and who are raising families. And we felt that it was
    only right to be inclusive of those families as well with our
    Working Families Tax Credit.
        With regard to the impacts, I think you're absolutely
    right, and the data you cite from your source I think is also
    correct. Those tax credits are putting money directly back in
    the pockets of working families. It is my belief and I think
    the belief of many researchers who I collaborate with that this
    is probably one of the most impactful poverty alleviation
    programs in the country. And let's not forget who started it,
    it was President Gerald Ford who lead the way all those many
    years ago. So, it's something that we're very proud of. We're
    proud to be one of the most generous in the country and also
    one of the most inclusive in the country.
        Representative Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
        Dr. Burke, I find it difficult to agree with most what
    Heritage recommends, but I always read you guys carefully and I
    learned a lot of things reading your testimony. One quick
    thing, 30 years ago I chaired a commission for two and a half
    years on child sexual assault in Virginia. And one of the
    conclusions was we needed to do criminal background checks on
    those who work with small children. It was stunning to find 350
    convicted predators working in child care things. So, when we
    moved to light regulation, let's not get rid of the criminal
    background checks.
        Dr. Burke. Agree on that.
        Representative Beyer. Okay. I think you make a really
    strong case, though, when you say the Headstart advantages are
    gone by second or third grade, some of these other studies. It
    seems to me, on the one hand, that argues that when you're a
    child living in poverty with no books in the home,
    undereducated parents, that you can't just educate them for two
    or three years and then give up. That they're going to need
    that extra help through most of their lives. How do you respond
    to that? That is, is it really a waste that we made that
    investment in them when they were three, four, and five years
    old just because it didn't persist when they went back to the
    crappy school system?
        Dr. Burke. Well, so the thing to think about with the
    Headstart study is it is a randomized controlled trial
    evaluation. So, two groups of children who were eligible for
    services applied, were able to access services if they wanted
    to, but then neither didn't access the Headstart Program for
    whatever reason to enroll. And so, we know on the front end
    that we control from any of these background variables that
    might've influenced the outcomes that we see in the data.
        And so, I say that because we know that, in fact, to your
    point, there was no difference at the end of the day between
    the same kids in poverty, single-parent home, whatever it might
    be, lack of books in the home, there was no difference for
    those children having gone through the Headstart Program and
    not having going through the Headstart Program. And again, this
    is an RCT, a rigorous evaluation done by HHS itself. And so,
    the custodial care question--and this is something that was
    brought up earlier is a separate question from the academic
    effects of something like preschool.
        I mentioned earlier that when Lyndon Johnson launched the
    Headstart Program in '65, that proponents were very clear that
    they saw it as a preschool program. Even if we set aside the
    fact that we aren't seeing robust academic effects as a result
    of Headstart, one still might make the case that the function
    of custodial care is an important function. And so, again, I
    would say if, and it's a big if, the federal government is
    going to continue to fund Headstart, at least give these
    families some choices to find options that work better for
    them.
        The current spending on Headstart at $12,000 is more than
    the average price of daycare in 37 states. So, giving families
    that money directly if you're going to continue to fund it,
    would most likely in most states be more than enough for them
    to access something that works better for them than the federal
    Headstart Program.
        Representative Beyer. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Heinrich. Senator Vance. Congresswoman Porter.
        Representative Porter. So, I have an investment opportunity
    for everyone in the hearing room today. For every dollar that
    you invest, you will get back at least four dollars. Anyone
    want to invest?
        Ms. Boteach. I'll take it.
        Representative Porter. It's pretty good. You won't lose
    your money. You'll always get back more than you put in. And
    unlike some of these investment schemes, mine is legal. Anyone
    in?
        This is just math. Four is more than one. More money is
    better than less money. Economists agree, Republicans,
    Democrats agree. This investment is not a hard decision. People
    would snap this up in the real world. Invest a dollar, get four
    back, no risks.
        Ms. Boteach, would you believe me if I told you that
    Congress had that same investment opportunity for our country
    and turned it down every year.
        Ms. Boteach. Sadly, yes.
        Representative Porter. Why would you believe that?
        Ms. Boteach. Because we know that the science is there that
    when we support children and families, especially starting at
    birth, that it yields long-term and outsized benefits for
    families and for our economy, and yet, here we are over 50
    years after Nixon vetoed universal child care still with
    families struggling to find and afford care and providers
    making poverty wages.
        Representative Porter. And I think you gave earlier; what
    is the total new estimate of how much this would generate for
    our--if we had affordable child care, full access to child
    care, what would this generate for our economy?
        Ms. Boteach. So, for a family----
        Representative Porter. For the whole economy.
        Ms. Boteach. For the whole economy, okay. So, we're losing
    right now $122 billion.
        Representative Porter. $122 billion that we could have in
    our economy and yet, what we hear around here all the time is
    that we don't have money to do things. So, Congress has had
    years to invest in universal child care. Every dollar we put in
    would've generated--estimates show about four dollars for our
    economy, yet, we still don't have it. Why? Ms. Boteach, why
    don't we have this?
        Ms. Boteach. Well, we need to build the political and
    public will. The voters are there.
        Representative Porter. Okay. So, the problem must be then
    the will of the people here because voters support this. So,
    let's talk about who's here. How would you describe the gender
    balance and average age of Congress?
        Ms. Boteach. It's skews older, male, and white.
        Representative Porter. That's correct. So, only about 28
    percent of members of Congress are women. The median age in the
    Senate is 65 and the median age in the House is 58. So, on
    average, lots of older people, lots of older men, lots of men.
    Is this the type of group who personally needs early childhood
    education?
        Ms. Boteach. Generally, not.
        Representative Porter. Generally not. So, early childhood
    education won't benefit many members most, the average, member
    of Congress. Most members kids are grown, so they don't have to
    care about where their kids are going. And even when their kids
    were young, most members leaned heavily on their wives, and I
    say wives because most members are men, heterosexual men, to
    juggle their kids' schedule. And frankly, there's a lot of rich
    people in Congress who didn't have to worry about how to afford
    child care or how to navigate the system because they were
    wealthy. Too many in Congress don't get it because they never
    had to live it.
        So, this leads to the familiar policy pattern. The older
    men, collectively, that's our Congress, not to take away from
    any individual champions, including Representative Beyer and
    Senator Heinrich, but the collective body of older, richer men
    in Congress over invest in things they understand, like the
    Pentagon, and they underinvest in things like early childhood
    education that don't personally benefit them, maybe don't even
    make sense to them, and maybe do not reflect how they lived
    their lives, even if they are big problems for the majority of
    Americans.
        So, Ms. Boteach, when institutions like Congress perpetuate
    longstanding social disparities for women like this, is there a
    term for that?
        Ms. Boteach. I think it's called patriarchy.
        Representative Porter. Patriarchy is correct. I would also
    call it structural sexism. When we say smash the patriarchy,
    when we say that structural sexism continues to permeate this
    body and this policy, our policies, that's what we're talking
    about. We're not imagining it. It's not about interpersonal
    slights. It is about what this body choses to get done and to
    fund and to focus on and what always ends up on the cutting
    room floor in legislation.
        Structural sexism is an age-old story. It's not going to go
    away by itself. It's going to go away because we make it go
    away. When we stop undervaluing the work of Black and Brown
    women, who are the majority of child care workers, when we
    start recognizing that women can and must contribute to our
    economy if we're going to have a globally competitive economy.
        So, Ms. Boteach, to fix this problem, Congress has to
    abandon these sexist, outdated ideas and start thinking more
    about investments. How much would Congress need to invest to
    establish universal early childhood education?
        Ms. Boteach. We've been advocating for $700 billion over 10
    years to invest in high quality early care and education, which
    could easily be supported by taxing wealthy individuals and
    corporations.
        Representative Porter. So, you're advocating for $700
    billion over 10 years. President Biden, remember, everyone
    proposed $400 billion for preschool and child care and yet,
    that would've, multiplied by four, generated trillions of
    dollars for our economy. So, all of our witnesses, everybody
    said that we'd take this bet we'd quadruple our money if we
    could, so investing in early childhood education shouldn't be a
    hard call, even given the profile of Congress. We should all
    want to make investments that pay back.
        So, if my colleagues are not moved by the clear economic
    benefit of investing in early childhood education, maybe
    they'll be moved simply by this single mom asking them to care
    on behalf of all the other parents of young children who are
    struggling in this country. I implore Congress to invest in
    child care, child care workers, and early childhood education.
    And I yield back.
        Chairman Heinrich. Senator Vance.
        Senator Vance. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to all
    of you for being here.
        Dr. Burke, I want to direct my questions in your direction
    and particular one of the things that I worry about in the
    child care conversation is that there is a pretty rigid class
    divide between how professionally educated people see child
    care options and preferences in family formation and how
    working-class Americans see family options and child care
    preferences. And I want to just sort of start, do you think
    it's an accurate characterization to say that those with
    professional degrees are much, much more biased towards those
    family-care models that depend on two earners at home and
    outsourcing child care, whereas working class Americans have a
    much stronger preference for at least part of the time one of
    the parents or some other relative being able to care for the
    child at home; is that an accurate characterization?
        Dr. Burke. Yes, I think that's generally the case.
        Senator Vance. So, just picking up on something
    Congresswoman Porter said earlier, there certainly obviously
    are all manner of ways in which Congress is not reflective of
    the American people as a whole, but, of course, one of the ways
    in which Congress is not reflective of the American people as a
    whole is that we have a much different education and income
    skew than the country at large. And I guess one thing I'm sort
    of wondering is has anybody talked about--just take the
    Headstart Program, okay, we obviously spend close to a trillion
    dollars in this country on early childhood care. We have a lot
    of my colleagues, especially on my side of the aisle tend to
    support what's called school choice where you give families
    different options. And I wonder if there've been any
    significant proposals in your mind, any credible proposals in
    your mind that would actually extend the choice model a little
    bit more broadly? And so, say, for example, you're
    professionally educated, or a working-class person and you
    would like to have every adult in the household working outside
    the home and you'd like to have child care paid for by people
    outside the home. That's one model.
        But another model, and, in fact, I think the preference of
    most Americans actually fits in with this model is if you're a
    mom or a dad, maybe it's been a few years, at least working
    part time so you spend more time at home with the kids and then
    you reenter the market workforce at some point later. And
    obviously, that was more true of women 50 years ago. It's
    increasingly true of men and women today. But I'm sort of
    curious, have you thought of any school choice like proposals
    that would not force the professional class preference on
    everybody, but would actually give people some choices for how
    they care for their children during those formative years?
        Dr. Burke. Well, thank you for those questions. And if I
    could just, for the record, say I would not take Congresswoman
    Porter's investment opportunity because it's investing with
    other people's money and it's making choices that they might
    not themselves want to make with those dollars.
        So, on the questions that you mentioned, Senator Vance, so
    as I mentioned earlier, the vast majority, three-quarters, 76
    percent of married women, married mothers would prefer either
    to work part time or to be full-time homemakers. And so, you're
    absolutely right that there's a preference among the majority
    of married mothers in this country to at least have some part-
    time opportunities rather than going full time into the
    workforce and relying on outsourced or paid-for child care.
    Just 23 percent of married mothers would prefer to work full
    time when their children are young.
        So, when we put the thumb on the scale of large federal or
    state spending on these pre-K programs, we're putting our thumb
    on the scale of more people going full time into the workforce,
    which might be against their preferences, more people utilizing
    center-based care, which might be contrary to their
    preferences.
        On the choice question, it's a great one. There's a great
    proposal that has excellent policies for reforming Headstart
    that Senator Mike Lee has championed over the years. It's the
    Headstart Reform Act and the policies in that proposal would
    take existing federal Headstart dollars and allow eligible
    families to use those at any provider of choice rather than
    relegating them to ineffective and quite frankly fraudulent and
    in some cases unsafe Headstart centers. So, giving some choice
    options within Headstart and again, moving forward with the
    2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reform which took 529s from just the
    college savings component down to K-12, continuing to expand
    that down to the pre-K and early ed level would provide some
    choice options and enable families--you could imagine a
    situation where you find out you're expecting--how your wife's
    expecting. You tell everybody in your family contribute to my
    529 day one and you're then able to build a pretty decent nest
    egg by the time, you know, are eligible for preschool to
    actually pay for that out of pocket. So, there are some choice
    mechanisms out there, if that makes sense.
        Senator Vance. Thank you for that answer. I'm mindful of
    time, so I'll just be brief. But just it occurs to me that
    there's something a little deranged about the conversation when
    we have, to your point, 76 percent of married moms, and I'm
    sure a lot of single moms and a lot of dads too who would like
    to spend more time at home with their children during those
    formative years and our answer to them is you've got to go to
    the workforce because that's what's going to raise GDP. Like
    what is wrong if that's the heuristic we apply to these
    decisions and public policy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Heinrich. Thank you, Senator. I'm going to do
    another quick round and I'm going to have to leave in a few
    minutes, so I'll hand the gavel off to Representative Beyer.
    But I'm curious. You referred a little bit about the structure
    of the 529 account as an early childhood solution and I want to
    ask you, Speaker Martinez--and first, I should say I like 529s.
    I think they're helpful to me today for my kids' college
    education, but when you match up 529s, and I generally support
    expanding them to additional educational structures, whether
    that's trade school or early childhood. But you know the
    reality of most New Mexicans, and most of your constituents,
    most of my constituents, when they're freshman college-age
    children start university, they don't have a 529 of any
    substantial means.
        Just talk a little bit about the scale of what you're
    trying to do in New Mexico and whether or not that would--how
    that would fit into a broader approach, including choices,
    which you've articulated?
        Speaker Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Look, I think in a
    perfect world we would all have access to 529 accounts. We
    would all fund them. We would all invest in them and our
    children when they turned 18 and go to college could cash them
    out. That's not the reality for our state. That's not the
    reality for most of the country. The notion that working
    families one of the parents want to stay home and be with the
    child, I support that. The problem is they can't afford it. The
    federal minimum wage is, what, seven dollars and change? How
    can you afford to stay home with your newborn? This is not
    about forcing people into the workforce for the purposes of
    increasing GDP. This is about families and being able to raise
    and nurture our children.
        So, if that's the route we want to take, then let's talk
    about a guaranteed basic income program and allow new moms or
    new dads to stay at home for three months, for six months, for
    whatever length of time they want to stay at home so that they
    can be with their child.
        Going back to your question, look, in an early childhood
    delivery system the notion of 529 accounts just doesn't compute
    with me. You need to be able to get your child sometimes within
    weeks of them being born into a program. I believe that is what
    we're building in New Mexico, which is, as you know, a blended
    system of delivery between private and public providers is the
    way to go.
        529 accounts for college, or higher ed, that's fine. I've
    got another one for you all. It's actually a Senate bill that
    Senator Cory Booker is running, and I believe, Mr. Chairman,
    you might be on that bill as well, and that's a baby bonds
    bill. Let's build baby bonds trust fund accounts for every baby
    born in this country or at least every baby that needs it,
    every baby from a working family to make sure that that child,
    once they turn 18, has a 40, 50, 60,000 dollar trust account
    that they can use for higher ed, that they can use to start a
    business, that they can use to buy their first house.
        Chairman Heinrich. Ms. Boteach, in your testimony, you talk
    about how this private market for child care and pre-K is sort
    of fundamentally broken as it leaves families with high costs
    and it really leaves providers in many, many cases with very
    low pay. Talk a little bit about what is needed in this sector
    to solve both of those things, to make sure that we're
    compensating providers fairly and adequately and also taking
    care of the parents who are shaping the next generation?
        Ms. Boteach. Thanks for that question. You know when you
    have a broken market, you need a third-party investor and given
    the public benefits of child care and early learning for
    children, for families, for the economy overall, child care is
    a public good and should be invested in, as such, with
    sustained and robust funding. And that injection of funding
    would allow for a building of a supply because one of the
    things we haven't really talked about today I you can give
    families monies for child care, but they have to be able to
    find it. And if there is not a workforce of well-paid,
    professional child care providers, whether they're home-based,
    school-based, center-based, friend, family, and neighbors, if
    we are not making that a job with living wage, we're not going
    to have child care there for people to use.
        And so, one of the things I think is important is, yes, we
    need to make child care more affordable, but we also need to
    make sure that the workforce who is over 90 percent women and
    disproportionately Black, Brown, and immigrant women, are paid
    a living wage for the essential work that they do. I'll also
    say that we're talking a lot about universal, but universal
    doesn't mean the same for everybody.
        We've also been really clear that a mixed delivery system
    is ultimately what is needed for birth to five, and that means
    that families should be able to choice if they want a home-
    based provider, if they want a center-based provider, if they
    want to use friend, family, and neighbor care, but right now
    families have no choice and that's, I think, a really important
    thing that oftentimes lawmakers miss is that when we don't
    invest in the system families don't actually have a choice.
    They're faced with just impossible choices. Do I leave the job
    when I need the money to make this month's rent, or do I stay
    and sort of try and find child care that I can't afford and
    then it's eating up over half of my paycheck. That's not a
    choice. And so if we actually want thriving families, thriving
    caregivers, sustained and robust investment is required.
        Chairman Heinrich. Thank you. I'm going to hand the gavel
    over to the very capable Congressman Beyer. And I want to thank
    all of our witnesses for being here today. I don't think there
    is a more important issue than how we can elevate our entire
    country by better educating our pre-K population and I really
    appreciate all of you contributing to this conversation.
        Representative Beyer. Thank you, Chairman Heinrich, very
    much and good luck this afternoon. We won't keep you much
    longer, but it's a fascinating conversation.
        Ms. Boteach, how do we make it more affordable?
        Ms. Boteach. So, if you put sustained and robust funding
    into the system and there's a variety of different ways that
    you can do that, but primarily, right now the main program is
    the Child Care Development Block Grant, and Build Back Better.
    There was a proposal for child care guarantee for states, et
    cetera. But the idea being that you give parents opportunities
    through these vouchers to be able to find a child care that
    meets the needs and the standards and that fits their family's
    needs and at the same time you have standards about how much
    early educators are making, making sure that it's a field that
    are paid like the professionals that they are with living
    wages.
        And you invest in supply building because, again, most of
    the costs of providing early care and education is labor costs.
    Because in order to have a high-quality environment for
    children and families there need to be appropriate ratios of
    caregivers to children.
        And so, that's the way forward is I wish--actually, I don't
    wish. I'm glad that it's not overly complicated. When you have,
    again, parents paying too much and when you have providers
    earning too little, sustained and robust funding is the number
    one policy intervention and then you can play with the details.
    But without that money there's no choice and that's one of the
    reasons why public funding is really a precursor to a lot of
    the large and structural changes that we need to make in our
    system.
        I'll also say that early childhood education is part of a
    larger suite of policies that we can invest in families--paid
    family and medical leave, a fully refundable and periodic
    payment child tax credit, WIC. These basic necessities are all
    part of the suite of programs to help children and their
    families thrive, and also, again, provide that choice. If
    parents choose how much to work, part time, full time, et
    cetera, things like paid leave, things like the child tax
    credit. There are a range of policies that support choice for
    parents, but if we don't invest in child care and early
    learning, one of those choices is taken away.
        Representative Beyer. You said something about different
    needs for different children. I know it showed up in Ms.
    Hroncich's testimony too, different kids. I have four children.
    I just realized I had four different preschool experiences
    based on who they were and where they went.
        Dr. Burke, you talked about the Headstart kids taking
    $12,000 and going and finding their best things, but also
    paired with the 76 percent of moms part-time or full-time. I
    know my mother stayed home full time with the six children, no
    choice. My wife much preferred to freelance where she could,
    but was home a lot.
        If we're willing to give them $12,000, shouldn't we also be
    willing to do robust child tax credits, because when we had
    those--I know this from my daughter and my two grandchildren,
    it made it a lot easier on that family to be able to afford
    things.
        Dr. Burke. Thank you for that question. So, on the
    Headstart question on Headstart spending, we should not, as a
    matter of course, at the federal level fund daycare and
    preschool. It is simply not the role of the federal government
    to do any of this. And so, hence, I always have the caveat at
    the beginning, if, the federal government is going to continue
    to fund Headstart, we should at least voucherize it, make it
    work more like the Child Care and Development Block Grant, half
    of which is voucherized to provide these families with more
    options.
        In terms of how we might drive down costs, I think one of
    the best things we could do, and this is largely a state-level
    reform, is to remove some of those regulatory barriers. I'm
    glad you mentioned the background checks earlier. That's one
    that makes sense for a provider to have in place. What does not
    make sense are things like in Washington, D.C. extremely low,
    two-to-one, infant to teacher ratios in a classroom, or even
    worse, a bachelor's degree requirement for the lead teachers in
    D.C.
        Washington, D.C. is the only place where there's a
    bachelor's requirement for these lead teachers. That
    significantly increases the cost of providing care.
        Representative Beyer. And yet, typically, the Heritage
    Foundation would argue that states should be able to make up
    their own rules and regulations.
        Dr. Burke. Absolutely.
        Representative Beyer. Which they've won and done in D.C.
        Dr. Burke. Sure, of course. But if D.C. wanted to make
    their market more affordable, they should look at the
    regulatory landscape and the regs that they've layered onto
    those providers we know do not improve care. They simply drive
    up costs and limit choices for families.
        Representative Beyer. I would also have to say I don't
    think we can say this is not the federal government's
    responsibility. The response of our nation is to form a more
    perfect union and if lifting up our children is part of forming
    a more perfect union, that would be our responsibility.
        Speaker Martinez, I was just meeting today with the head of
    Injuries at CDC, who pointed out that adverse child
    experiences, ACES, are closely linked with depression and
    suicide ideation among adolescence and young adults. What have
    you done in New Mexico on adverse child experiences?
        Speaker Martinez. Congressman, thank you for that question.
    It is a very important one for a place like New Mexico. In New
    Mexico, we have 23 independent sovereign Tribal Nations and
    many of them produce some of the most beautiful pottery you've
    ever seen. A child's brain, 80 percent of it develops before
    the age of three. Imagine a pottery in New Mexico forming this
    beautiful piece of pottery and before it dries in come these
    holes that are poked and made into this piece of pottery. Once
    it dries those holes make it so that piece of pottery can't
    hold water.
        For many, many years, that's what happened in New Mexico
    and our children. The rate of adverse childhood experiences
    ranked among some of the highest in the nation. These adverse
    childhood experiences could be exposure to domestic violence.
    It could be poverty, hunger, crime, drug abuse in the
    household. So, when our children start kindergarten, their
    little brains are impacted and sometimes permanently by these
    adverse childhood experiences.
        It is the purpose of a robust and comprehensive early
    education system to help offset those adverse childhood
    experiences. New Mexico's not alone. I think states, in
    general, that experience high rates of poverty will have
    children who experience high rates of adverse childhood
    experiences. ACES, for short, is what we call them. Without
    addressing and without mitigating those risk factors, children
    are, in fact, on a path toward many times self-destruction, be
    it drug abuse, be it involvement with the criminal justice
    system, be it that they become offenders themselves of the same
    things that impacted them.
        That's where issues and concepts like generational poverty,
    cycles of poverty, cycles of abuse come into play. New Mexico
    has a very unique history, 500 years of conquest, from when the
    Spaniards first arrived through the Mexican Period, the
    territorial period, and now the United States of America. And
    we have people who have lived on that land for thousands of
    years, long before this country was founded. It is those people
    that sometimes that still are dealing with that historical and
    generational trauma, as represented by those adverse childhood
    experiences that many of those children to this day continue to
    live with.
        That is the role of government in my state. That is my
    plight and my journey as Speaker of the House of
    Representatives in New Mexico is to create a system that helps
    alleviate exposure and mitigate the risk factors for our
    children.
        Representative Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, very much. We
    now recognize the gentlelady, the Congresswoman from
    California, Ms. Porter.
        Representative Porter. Thank you very much. I want to start
    by talking about other people's money because last time I
    checked that's what we spend is the American people's money.
    That's actually the function of Congress and there are no
    dollars that we spend that do not come from the American
    people. So, the argument that we shouldn't do something because
    it's spending other people's money would simply suggest that we
    don't spend any money at all, including zeroing out the defense
    budget. Is that, in fact, what you were suggesting, Dr. Burke,
    that we zero out the defense budget so that we don't spend
    other people's money?
        Dr. Burke. No, but it is the case that----
        Representative Porter. Right. I'm reclaiming my time.
        Dr. Burke. You are spending other people's money.
        Representative Porter. Always.
        Dr. Burke. And those choices needs to reflect what most
    Americans want.
        Representative Porter. Okay.
        Dr. Burke. Most Americans do not want----
        Representative Porter. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chair.
        Dr. Burke [continuing]. Universal child care.
        Representative Porter. This is not a hearing about
    federally-mandated Headstart. I don't know what you're talking
    about. This is actually not what this hearing is about. This is
    a hearing about the economic and individual investment and
    returns and benefits, both to the future generation of American
    children, as well as to our ongoing current economy. There are
    lots of ways that we could deliver this. Like Representative
    Beyer, I have had lots of different kinds of arrangements.
    Universal, to quote what Ms. Boteach said, doesn't mean ``the
    same.''
        Universal means that the funding, the outcome, the choice
    is there and available, if, if we have universal healthcare in
    this country, and we don't, some people might choose to go get
    a colonoscopy every year and a lot of people won't. It's the
    same thing with child care. I personally have had my children
    in big corporate care. I've had them hourly in-home, part time.
    I have had full-time live-in. I have been in a family-owned
    small business, and I have had in-home family-based care. All
    of it. And you know what it all was, really helpful.
    Particularly as a single mother because there is no other
    person.
        Senator Vance's hypothetical says that one parent might
    prefer to stay home. That's probably true. There's a lot of
    statistics that show that parents, men and women, have
    different preferences at different points in time, but what
    about the 10 million single moms? Where do they fit?
        Dr. Burke, where did you put your children in child care?
        Dr. Burke. Well, I'm not going to bring my children into
    this hearing, so it doesn't have any bearing on this.
        Representative Porter. Dr. Burke, do you have children?
        Dr. Burke. I do.
        Representative Porter. So, I'm sharing my story because my
    story is one that doesn't get heard in this Congress because
    you know how many single moms there are, one. Child care,
    custodial care to help people who may choose all kinds of
    different options. I've had full-time care. I've had three-
    fourths care. When I had a spouse, he stayed home some years.
    That was how we fit the pieces together, but that's what this
    hearing is about, not jamming one size fits all. But if there
    isn't the money, there won't be the choice. That's why we see
    married parents saying they would prefer to stay home because
    they have the option to stay home. Single parents don't say
    they'd rather stay home because they couldn't. So, our whole
    perspective here is warped by the fact that this body is so
    disproportionately unrepresentative of the American people's
    experience. It is absolutely Congress's job to spend the
    American people's money. And if we can't spend it to help the
    next generation of American workers, I don't know what the hell
    we're doing here. I yield back.
        Dr. Burke. Can I respond quickly to that?
        Representative Beyer. No thank you, Dr. Burke.
        Dr. Burke. All right.
        Representative Beyer. We appreciate it, but I want to
    acknowledge that Senator Hassan is here and had to go to
    another meeting. I'd like to thank all of you for joining this
    conversation about the benefits and the controversies of
    investing in early childhood education.
        Investing in early childhood education, we believe, has
    lasting benefits for children, teachers, businesses, and
    society as a whole. And ensuring quality early childhood
    education, while supporting workers in the sector, has never
    been more vital for families and the economy. I'm proud of the
    progress Senator Heinrich, I know is, in New Mexico. Yet,
    there's still a lot of work that needs to be done by all of us,
    including the federal government, to ensure that everyone has
    access to quality early childhood education. So, I would like
    to thank each of our panelists for their contribution to this
    ongoing discussion. Thank you to my colleague, Ms. Porter, for
    being part of this important discussion.
        Questions for the record may be submitted after the hearing
    and the record will remain open for three business days. And
    with that, this hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 4:40 p.m., Wednesday, April 10, 2024, the
    hearing was adjourned.]

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