Full Citation

Title: Why Interstate Child Care Scholarship Policy Choices Matter in the Upper Valley: "You can only charge the families so much"

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2023

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI:

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID:

Abstract: The Upper Valley of New Hampshire (Grafton and Sullivan Counties) and Vermont (Orange and Windsor Counties) is a cohesive region in many ways: for instance, workers flow across state borders and the demographic makeup of the area is similar across states. Yet the early childhood context of the Upper Valley has some sharp distinctions across state borders, many of which are tied to state policy decisions over time. This brief explores how state-level decisions manifest in the child care sector, contextualizing findings within the specific context of the Upper Valley as an interstate region. Perhaps the most immediately visible difference between New Hampshire and Vermont’s early childhood landscape is the existence of public pre-kindergarten. New Hampshire remains one of only six states that does not have a state pre-kindergarten program, whereas Vermont enacted public pre-kindergarten effective July 2015. In 2021, the National Institute for Early Education Research ranked Vermont fifth in the nation for access to pre-kindergarten for four-year-olds—one of only seven states nationwide to enroll at least half of four-year-olds in state pre-kindergarten. Beyond just pre-kindergarten, however, New Hampshire and Vermont consistently make different choices within their early childhood serving systems from different staff-to-child ratios for certain age groups to different requirements for teacher qualifications.

Url: https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1458&context=carsey

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Boege, Sarah; Carson, Jess

Series Title: Carsey Research

Publication Number: 167

Institution: University of New Hampshire

Pages: 1-10

Publisher Location:

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education

Countries: