Introduction

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) researchers and policy makers have used the metaphor of the ‘childcare triangle’ – reflecting the connection, and tension, between the goals of advancing access, quality and affordability. The tension between these competing goals has never been so acute as it is today. The high share of children with working mothers makes increasing access an imperative for social policy (Fox et al, 2012). But at the same time, we know more than ever before about the crucial importance of the quality of care for child wellbeing (Shonkoff and Phillips, 2000), suggesting that simply expanding access without attention to quality may be inefficient or even counterproductive. Yet expanding access and improving quality are both costly at a time when budgets are exceptionally tight at both the state and federal level in the wake of the recent economic downturn.

It is within this context that this chapter asks how effectively, and through what mechanisms, the US attempts to ensure access to high-quality ECEC for children of all backgrounds. The chapter focuses on three types of policy – regulation, subsidy and direct public provision – and explores to what extent these mechanisms operate (and interact) to ensure that ECEC is both high quality and accessible to all, with particular attention to access, quality and cost of care for children from low-income families.

Terminology: in line with current US practice, we sometimes use the term ‘childcare’ as shorthand for the array of programmes and arrangements that make up the ECEC sector. We sometimes use the term ‘preschool’ to refer to school-or centre-based arrangements that serve three-and four-year-old children (in the year or two before school entry).

The challenge

In the US, most mothers are back at work before their child's first birthday (Han et al, 2008), and children do not start school until about age five. So that leaves a substantial amount of time that preschool age children need care if their parents are working, a situation that is made even more complicated given that many parents (and particularly those who are low-income) work non-standard or irregular hours.