Large proportions of the nation’s most vulnerable children lack access to high-quality child care. Instead of pushing a big government expansion of child care, that is the emergency we should urgently be aiming to address.

New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) recently concluded that “prekindergarten remains a cost-effective way to improve student outcomes.” But the data they present cites does not support that conclusion.

States increasingly recognize childcare’s critical impact on children’s early learning and development. Yet to support growing state efforts to provide low-income working families with adequate access to high-quality care, we must fix dysfunctional and fragmented federal funding streams.

We must find new ways to promote and leverage growing state commitment to early childhood, to incentivize state innovation, and to highlight strategies and activities of currently leading states.