ECTT Overview
In December of 2019, the Governor appointed the Commission on Early Childhood Education and Care Funding to study and make recommendations to establish funding goals and funding mechanisms to provide equitable access to high-quality early childhood education and care services for all children birth to age five. The Commission is also advising the governor in planning and implementing these recommendations in order to bring greater equity to the system.
The report uncovered what families and providers already know to be true: the system is too complex, inequitable and unstable to adequately meet the needs of children, of families and the providers who care and educate our state’s youngest learners. Programs serving children ages birth-to-five are funded through multiple sources, administered through three separate state agencies, and the programs are governed by a complex and sometimes contradictory set of regulatory and legal standards. Access, quality and affordability are inconsistent and local needs rarely match local capacity to meet those needs. The result is that nearly half of low-income families in Illinois don’t get the services they need to thrive, and only one in four Illinois children arrives at kindergarten prepared to succeed.
