Universal Early Learning and Care Guarantee

Daycare, Pre-K, and Family Caregiver Support in Every Community

In the United States, we treat early childhood care like a private luxury instead of what it actually is: essential infrastructure for families and the economy. Parents are forced to choose between paying more than their rent for daycare, working fewer hours, or dropping out of the workforce entirely. At the same time, we know that high-quality early learning from birth to age five sets children up for life.

I support a Universal Early Learning and Care Guarantee: every family, in every community in the United States, should have access to affordable, high-quality daycare and universal Pre-K—and families who choose to care for their young children at home should receive meaningful financial support for that caregiving.

Core Principles

This policy is built on a few clear commitments:

Universal access. Every child from birth to kindergarten entry should have a guaranteed place in a licensed, high-quality early learning program—center-based, school-based, or home-based—according to family choice.
Affordability. No family should be forced to pay unaffordable sums for care. Early learning costs should be capped as a small share of household income, with care fully subsidized for low-income families.
High quality and developmentally appropriate. Early learning must be safe, nurturing, and play-based, with strong standards that support children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development—not just test prep for kindergarten.
Respect for caregivers as professionals. Early childhood educators should earn wages and benefits comparable to K–12 teachers with similar credentials and experience.
Family choice and flexibility. Families—not the government—choose the setting, language, culture, and schedule that works for them. Public funding follows the child.
Respect for all caregiving choices. Families who prefer licensed centers, school-based programs, home-based providers, or care by parents and grandparents should all be supported, as long as children are safe and receiving developmentally appropriate early learning.
Equity and inclusion. Programs must be fully inclusive of children with disabilities, multilingual learners, and children from all racial, cultural, and family backgrounds.

What the Policy Does

1. Universal, Free Pre-K for All 3- and 4-Year-Olds

Guarantees free, voluntary Pre-K for all 4-year-olds nationwide, with a planned phase-in to include 3-year-olds.
Pre-K can be delivered in public schools, community-based organizations, Head Start programs, tribal programs, and licensed nonprofit or for-profit providers that meet high quality standards.
Programs are full-school-day and full-school-year by default, with options for extended hours for working families.

2. Affordable Daycare for Infants and Toddlers (0–3)

Creates a sliding-scale system so that daycare for children under three is free for families with low incomes and becomes progressively capped as income rises, ensuring middle-class families never pay a crushing share of their income for care.
Public funding can be used at a range of settings—licensed centers, licensed home-based providers, and family childcare networks—so long as they meet strong health, safety, and quality standards.
Encourages employer partnerships so businesses can contribute to and benefit from expanded access, especially in high-cost and shortage areas.

3. A Mixed-Delivery System That Uses What Already Works

Builds on and expands Head Start, Early Head Start, and high-quality community programs, rather than replacing them.
Supports school districts that want to expand Pre-K, but does not require that all services be run by public schools.
In rural and small communities, invests in family childcare homes, shared-services networks, and regional hubs to ensure access even where population density is low.

Supporting Families Who Choose to Care for Children at Home

Universal Early Learning and Care must not force families into one model of childcare. Some parents and grandparents want to provide care themselves—often for cultural, financial, or trust reasons—but they are effectively penalized when public support only flows to institutional providers.

I support a Family Caregiver Early Learning Allowance so that stay-at-home parents, grandparents, or other kin caregivers who provide a structured, developmentally appropriate early learning environment at home can receive financial support parallel to what the public would invest if that child were enrolled in a community daycare or Pre-K program.

Under this approach:

Care at home is recognized as real early learning. Families who choose to keep their young children at home or in kin-based care can opt into the public system by agreeing to basic health, safety, and early-learning guidelines.
Payments follow the child, not just the provider. A portion of the public funding that would have gone to a center, school, or nonprofit provider instead goes directly to the eligible caregiver—typically the parent or grandparent—through a monthly Early Learning Caregiver Payment.
Light-touch quality standards, strong respect for family autonomy. To qualify, caregivers commit to providing age-appropriate early learning activities (reading, play-based learning, social-emotional routines), maintaining safe conditions, and participating in periodic check-ins or optional workshops—not to replicating a formal classroom.
Access to materials and support. Families receiving the allowance are also eligible for free or low-cost early learning kits (books, toys, art supplies), developmental screenings, parent coaching, and connections to health and nutrition programs such as WIC and SNAP.
Cultural and linguistic relevance. This model explicitly supports families who want to nurture their child in their home language and cultural traditions, while still giving children access to high-quality early learning experiences.

To protect equity and prevent abuse:

Income-sensitive design. The Family Caregiver Early Learning Allowance is most generous for low- and middle-income families, ensuring that staying home with young children is a real, not merely theoretical, option.
Clear guardrails. Funds are for children’s care and early learning—not a general income replacement program. States administer and audit the program to prevent fraud and ensure children are safe.
No penalty for later enrolling. If a family later chooses to move their child into center-based care or public Pre-K, they can do so without losing eligibility for other supports.

Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce

Universal access cannot exist without a respected, stable workforce.

Pay parity and benefits. Establishes a federal floor and matching funds to ensure early childhood educators are paid on par with K–12 teachers when they have similar credentials and responsibilities, with access to health care, retirement benefits, and paid leave.
Training and credential pathways. Funds scholarships, apprenticeships, and “grow-your-own” programs so current caregivers can earn credentials without going into debt, and new educators can enter the field through multiple accessible routes.
Workforce stabilization grants. Provides immediate funding to raise wages and improve working conditions during the transition period so programs can retain staff and avoid closures.

Quality and Accountability

National quality standards, local flexibility. Sets clear federal benchmarks for group sizes, staff-to-child ratios, staff qualifications, safety, and curriculum frameworks, while allowing states and local providers flexibility in how they meet them.
Screenings and supports. Ensures early identification and support for children with developmental delays or disabilities, including partnerships with early intervention services and special education.
Family engagement. Requires programs to build real partnerships with parents—offering regular communication, family conferences, culturally and linguistically appropriate materials, and connections to health and social services.
Data transparency. States report on access, quality, workforce conditions, use of the Family Caregiver Allowance, and child outcomes (in age-appropriate, non-high-stakes ways) so families and policymakers can see where progress is being made and where gaps remain.

Funding and Federal–State Partnership

Federal guarantee with state partnership. The federal government sets the guarantee and provides substantial, stable funding. States administer programs, set specific implementation plans, and contribute their share through maintenance-of-effort and matching funds.
Prioritizing communities with the greatest need. Early funding focuses on childcare deserts, low-income neighborhoods, rural communities, tribal communities, and places where women have been pushed out of the workforce because of lack of care.
Simplified access for families. Families apply through a single, streamlined portal and can see all eligible programs in their area—public, private, nonprofit, home-based, and the option to enroll as a family caregiver—to minimize paperwork and confusion.

Why This Matters

Universal daycare and Pre-K is not just a “family policy” or a “women’s issue”—it is economic policy, education policy, and equality policy all at once:

It helps parents, especially mothers, stay in the workforce and pursue their careers if they choose.
It closes opportunity gaps before kindergarten, instead of trying to fix them years later.
It treats the people who care for and teach our youngest children—whether in centers, schools, or their own homes—as the skilled professionals they are.
It ensures that where a child is born, or whether their parent stays home or works, does not determine whether they have a safe place to learn, play, and grow.

A Universal Early Learning and Care Guarantee, including a Family Caregiver Early Learning Allowance, makes one crucial promise: in the United States, raising young children is not something families are left to struggle with alone—it’s a shared commitment we make to one another, and to the next generation.