We now understand that the early years prior to normal school age are vitally important to the development of children, and that appropriate care and nurturing can be provided both in the family and in regulated child care facilities. Even if one believes in the effectiveness of two- parent families in raising children, it is clear that family dissolution and the resulting low incomes of single parents place some significant numbers of our children at risk. Funding for high quality child care would then seem to be a natural extension of the reasoning that led originally to funding for public schools. We will discuss the considerable evidence about the effectiveness of early education and care for children and of the payoffs to this kind of investment. But it is useful at this time to consider the arguments that have been made for funding public schools, since these same arguments apply to child care.
Significant benefits accrue to the individual child from education.
Those with better educations earn higher incomes, and this presumably provides a significant incentive for families to invest in the education of their children. However, several kinds of market failure make us unwilling to leave education to the whims of individual families. Second, we believe that families differ in their ability to provide education to their children, but that equal opportunity for children is a vital social value that transcends individual interests. Third, parents may differ in their willingness to provide extra resources to their children. There is a social interest in assuring that children have access to quality education whatever the tastes of their parents.