Subscribe to Lemonada Premium for Bonus Content

Does universal Pre-K guarantee school readiness? To answer that question the podcast is headed to Wisconsin! Land of freezing winters, dairy cows, and universal Pre-K. Back in the 1980s, Wisconsin made publicly funded preschool almost ubiquitous throughout the state. But they’re still suffering from a massive underinvestment in childcare and early education, as well as one of the worst racial achievement gaps in the country. Gloria talks to Angela Harris, elementary school teacher and chairwoman of the Milwaukee Black Educators’ Caucus, about the importance of early education in preparing kids for kindergarten. Then Gloria talks to Brooke Legler, a childcare center owner and activist, about the post-pandemic childcare funding crisis in Wisconsin and how we can make sure every kid in Wisconsin has a chance at success.

Special thanks to our partners who have made this season possible!

This series is produced with Neighborhood Villages. Neighborhood Villages is a Massachusetts-based systems change nonprofit. It envisions a transformed, equitable early childhood education system that lifts up educators and sets every child and family up to thrive. In pursuit of this vision, Neighborhood Villages designs, evaluates, and scales innovative solutions to the biggest challenges faced by early childhood education providers and the children and families who rely on them, and drives policy reform through advocacy, education, and research. Visit www.neighborhoodvillages.org to learn more.

This season was made possible with generous support from Imaginable Futures, a global philanthropic investment firm working with partners to build more healthy and equitable systems, so that everyone has the opportunity to learn and realize the future they imagine. Learn more at www.imaginablefutures.com.

 This series is presented by The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation.

This series is presented by the Bainum Family Foundation. Through their WeVision EarlyEd initiative, they are elevating the voices of families and early childhood professionals, their “proximity experts,” to generate equitable and practical solutions to make the ideal vision of child care in America real. You can learn more at wevisionearlyed.org.

This season is presented by The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, an organization working to improve the lives of individuals living in poverty and experiencing disadvantage throughout the world. Learn more at hiltonfoundation.org.

The childcare crisis in the United States dramatically worsened during the pandemic.  However, there are glimmers of hope in unlikely places. One of those is in impact investing. Small but growing, Care Access Real Estate (CARE) is a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). Today, home-based providers often struggle with landlords and Homeowner Associations (HOAs) who put roadblocks in the way of obtaining a license to operate. CARE seeks to “unlock the full potential and aspirations of center and home-based providers”. CARE does this as a childcare friendly landlord aiming to expand supply where demand is acute in under-resourced areas. Ultimately, CARE seeks to build the wealth of childcare providers by putting them on a path of one day owning their own home.

Mission Driven Finance invests in homes as childcare infrastructure. One by one, real dreams of working in this space are coming true. Childcare is infrastructure: it is the pathway to success for parents, caregivers, early educators, and most importantly the children themselves. If No One Is Coming to Save US, we must save ourselves.

You can find more on CARE and Mission Driven Finance here:

https://www.missiondrivenfinance.com/invest/real-estate/care/

Follow No One is Coming to Save Us wherever you get your podcasts, or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime Membership. You can also get premium content and behind the scenes material by subscribing to Lemonada Premium on Apple Podcasts.

Laugh, cry, be outraged, and hear solutions! Join our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/nooneiscomingtosaveus.

Stay up to date with us on X, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.

Want to become a Lemonada superfan? Join us at joinsubtext.com/lemonadasuperfan.

Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and all other Lemonada series: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.

To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Angela Harris, Brooke, News, Gloria Riviera

News  01:40

Matter of days a pandemic era, child care funding program is set to expire nationwide. Around 40% of child care centers in western Wisconsin alone say they may have to shut down if help does not come soon, Milwaukee Public Schools has reached a tipping point, and we’re not alone. The district announcing Friday they’re facing a $200 million budget shortfall. Governor Tony Evers called a special session Wednesday in hopes of continuing funding the program, but the Republican controlled legislature ended the session immediately.

 

Gloria Riviera  03:02

Welcome folks to the last episode of No One Is Coming To Save Us season four. This week, we thought we’d try something different. So far this season, we’ve been examining these big issues, poverty, homelessness, mental health and climate change. Today we’re talking about the connection between child care and school readiness, how it happens from zero to five can have a lasting impact on a kid’s school experience. Sending students to kindergarten backed by just a few years of high quality early ed would transform K through 12 education. It could reduce grade repetitions increase reading levels and set the stage for a lifetime of higher earning and choosing not to invest in this early ed could set students behind for the rest of their lives. To see this impact in action, we’re going to explore one case study. We’re doing a deep dive into one particular place, a place where, in the past, they almost got it all right with free preschool for all four year olds, but in the present, they’re getting it very, very wrong. I’m sure you caught it from the opening but I’m talking about Wisconsin, part of the Midwest perennial swing state and undisputed cheese curd capital of the world. I’m Gloria Rivera, and this is no one is coming to save us a show about America’s child care crisis. We’re looking at Wisconsin this week because it is the perfect example of how our children are being failed by our politicians. But that said, Wisconsin is far from the only state with this problem. The National Institute for early education research finds that average state spending on preschool is about the same as it was 21 years ago. For a brief moment, Wisconsin was on the right track. Back in 1984 Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to pass a bill giving almost every four year old access to free preschool, universal pre K, like a child learning to walk. It’s an important step towards improving early education in America. But of course, it’s just the beginning. Despite the promise of pre K to almost every kid in the state, Wisconsin’s education system is deeply, deeply flawed. A lot of students, especially black and brown kids, have not been able to access this resource so they’re not ready for school by the time they start kindergarten. So with such a groundbreaking pre K program on the books since the 80s, how did we end up here? Well, mostly it comes down to one simple thing, money the state legislature continually refuses to invest enough in early education and the K 12 system, and that has serious impacts on families across the state. Nowhere is this more evident than in Wisconsin’s largest city, Milwaukee. If you’ve never been to Milwaukee, it is so beautiful. It sits on the shores of Lake Michigan. It’s cold in the winter and hot in the summer. They have one of the best art museums in the country, but it’s also a city with a lot of problems. Milwaukee is one of the most racially segregated cities in the country. A deep history of redlining, de industrialization and white flight has had an enormous impact on Milwaukee’s black community and the school district, funded mostly by local property taxes, is constantly dealing with massive deficits. This year, they’re facing down a $60 million budget shortfall. The effects of all this on education cannot be overstated. Milwaukee is the city with the worst black white achievement gap in the country. Wisconsin is the state with the worst black white achievement gap in the country, and no one knows this better than Angela Harris. She’s a second grade teacher in Milwaukee and the president of the Milwaukee black educators union.

 

Angela Harris  07:25

Wisconsin went way too long without addressing some of the racial issues that exist here in our state. Milwaukee didn’t become the most segregated city in the United States of America for no reason.

 

Gloria Riviera  07:40

Angela understands exactly how important early education is to helping kids succeed in the public school system. Before she was an elementary school teacher, she worked in child care centers for over a decade.

 

Angela Harris  07:53

And as I worked in the field, I just saw how important it was for children to have access to early childhood education and how much it taught them. There’s so much social and emotional learning that happens in those formative years that they wouldn’t necessarily get if they were just at home by themselves.

 

Gloria Riviera  08:12

Now, right about now, you might be thinking, wait, but Wisconsin does have access to early education, so why does a state that offers universal preschool have such serious problems with its educational system? Well, for starters, Wisconsin’s preschool program starts at four years old. They call it 4k offering this resource starting at that age is way too late in the zero to five development window. That’s four years of quality education that kids are still missing out on. Another key caveat, the 4k program isn’t actually universal. Public school districts can choose whether or not to offer it, and it has to be free. Most do. 99% of the districts have a 4k program. The real problems come when you start looking at quality. The National Institute for Early Education Research evaluates the quality of state early education systems based on 10 criteria. These include things like bachelor’s degrees for teachers, class sizes and how well they assess students with special needs. So the best early education system would meet all 10 of their benchmarks. But guess how many Wisconsin meets two, two out of 10. So yeah, families can’t afford private childcare. Their kids get free 4k but what that means, in practice, is that families get one year of half day preschool that’s underfunded, doesn’t meet national quality standards and doesn’t meet parents where they’re at not exactly a preschool utopia, and Angela can see the difference in her classroom. Between kids who have gotten Quality Early Education and those who haven’t. It’s plain as day.

 

Angela Harris  10:07

It is very clear what children have had access to some sort of learning environment prior to school, whether it be a in home daycare or a childcare center, you can tell that they understand like classrooms have structure, right? There are rules that needed to be followed. They also understand how to socialize and interact with one another in a way where children who do not go to daycare or who have not had those types of experiences do not and so that means that there is an increased learning curve for them, right? Because not only now do they have to focus on this academic work, which is honestly so heavy in first and second grade, not only do you have to focus on that academic work, but now they also have to focus on the social and emotional learning part as well. And so some students really struggle with that.

 

Gloria Riviera  10:59

The thought that came to mind was that you had to play, and you probably do still have to play at some points, early educator to those kids who are the same age as everyone else in the classroom, as well as the grade that you’re teaching, so you have to wear many hats. And my daughter’s in public school, we talked about this all the time, because they’re different levels. Kids are at different places, and that must be, that must be a challenge. I’ll use a polite word, that must be a challenge. I mean, what I was gonna say is that must be hard.

 

Angela Harris  11:33

I think hard difficult, like exhausting. There’s so many words that I could use to describe it, because, I mean, I have children in my classroom who, at the beginning of the year couldn’t recognize any letters or letter sounds, and I’m supposed to prepare these children to read by third grade like they should be reading when they leave my class. Wow, going into third grade reading fluently. And so how do I balance that there’s a lot of considerations we have to think about, like these children we’re learning how to read through a pandemic, and there are lots of other moving parts in terms of that, but it can just be really exhausting. I when I say I have 27 individual independent learners in my classroom? I have 27 independent individual learners in my classroom.

 

Gloria Riviera  12:27

Yeah. I mean,I hear what you’re saying, and fair to say, you feel that pressure in your own classroom. Yeah, you’re shaking your head.

 

Angela Harris  12:37

I think for me, the motto was always growth, right? I always want to see my students grow. It may not necessarily be, you know, you don’t recognize your letters and now you’re a fluent reader, but it may be, you didn’t recognize your letters and your letter sounds, and now you can recognize 40 sight words, right, without any help from the teacher. You can say them by yourself, you can read them, you can write them fluently. That is growth, and so that is always what I’m looking for.

 

Gloria Riviera  13:14

All of this is solvable. We already know what works to help kids be prepared to thrive in kindergarten, instead of giving kids one year of by the numbers, preschool, give them five years of high quality instruction, and then give elementary school teachers like Angela the resources they need small class sizes and plenty of support to help students with special needs or those who are falling behind when we come back, we’ll take a closer look at why that’s not happening.

 

Gloria Riviera  13:51

Welcome back so in Wisconsin, as in many states, school districts are funded by a combination of state funding and local property taxes. Milwaukee is in a tough spot. There are high rates of poverty, so local property taxes are low, and the Wisconsin State Legislature isn’t willing to invest the money it would take to fully fund the district. So whether it’s 4k or K 12, there just isn’t enough money to go around. Here’s Angela again.

 

Angela Harris  17:29

Children who have k3 and k4 have improved academic outcomes. And if we are a district that is struggling with academic outcomes and academic disparities, specifically, and we know access to this thing is going to help improve this, that’s value.

 

Gloria Riviera  17:46

Yeah. I mean, I’m like, we know what works, right? We have the answer. And yet, there’s this resistance, unfortunately, from people who are in decision making or decision influencing positions. That’s stopping the school district from getting to where it needs to be. I just, I don’t get it, and it makes me angry, and that’s maybe another reason I shouldn’t be a teacher. Because I just, I struggle to understand how we struggle to solve a problem we know how to solve.

 

Angela Harris  18:20

I also have that same struggle so you are not even as a teacher, I have that exact same struggle.

 

Gloria Riviera  18:29

When you hear Angela talk about the lack of funding for the school district, it’s easy to assume that things are like this because the state just doesn’t have the money to help the district out. But here’s what’s wild. Wisconsin has a historic budget surplus right now to the tune of $3 billion for context, that’s close to twice the yearly budget for Milwaukee Public Schools, and there are people who want to spend a lot of that money on education. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers has been a huge proponent of increasing education spending, but he’s boxed in by a legislature that wants to spend all of that money on tax cuts. Angela and her colleagues are doing incredible work every day in the classroom, but they keep being forced to do more with less. Milwaukee Public Schools is cutting 288 staff positions this year despite the state’s budget surplus. Imagine if the legislature invested in them, and they could actually add some sorely needed staff. Imagine if they decided to pass another groundbreaking bill, like they did in 1984 not just making their 4k program universal, but making it the best one in the country. Imagine if they went even further, adding universal 3k 2k 1k, 0k, and then trusted experts like Angela to build those programs out that is the future I want to live in.

 

Angela Harris  20:14

I am always going to reference Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right? If we meet those basic needs, then we can get to those higher levels on that pyramid. And that means not waiting until they’re in first grade or second grade or third grade or middle school. That means starting when they are ready to enter into that educational experience. So I would say, for me, in a perfect world, school would look like six weeks to 18 years old, and we have a fully immersive educational system for our youngest learners all the way up into our our oldest learners. For me, that’s what education should look like.

 

Gloria Riviera  20:57

I those kids in your classroom, Angela, they won the teacher lottery. They really did. I mean, I appreciate you and what you’re bringing to all those kids.

 

Angela Harris  21:09

Thank you so much, Gloria. It’s so funny. I just had my last group of tools that I worked with just graduated from high school, and one of my parents was sharing a story, because I was just like, Oh, my God, I can’t believe this time has moved so fast. And one of my parents was sharing a story about how her daughter still remembers a song that I sang to her when she was in my two year old class. So yes, I in your two year old class, yes. So it was a little song that we would do in class, and it goes like this, open, shut them. Open, shut them. Give a little, clap, Open, shut them. Lay them in your lap. Creep them right up to your chin. Open wide your little mouth, but do not let them in. Yay.

 

Gloria Riviera  24:12

First of all, Brooke, thank you so much for joining us.

 

Brooke  25:18

Thank you for having me.

 

Gloria Riviera  25:19

Brooke Legler runs the growing tree a child care center in New Glarus, Wisconsin, population 2266 now if you live anywhere between Cleveland and Missoula, you probably already know New Glarus makes the best beer in the Midwest. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of their childcare system.

 

Brooke  25:43

When I moved back to my hometown, I struggled finding childcare for my two young daughters at that time, so looking around, I checked to see the feasibility of, you know, starting a program then, so that my daughters had a place that I felt I would be comfortable with and have access to.

 

Gloria Riviera  26:03

10 years ago, when Brooke realized the right child care program for her family didn’t exist, she decided to start one with her brother, but as she worked to get it off the ground, it became clear why New Glarus had such limited options for child care. Banks knew that running a childcare center meant operating with very thin margins and little profit. So they didn’t want to give Brooke and her brother alone. They had to put up the brother’s house as collateral to get the money.

 

Brooke  26:33

Then once we got into it, I was like, oh, I see these teachers need to make more. Like this isn’t working. These children need more and trying to access those resources for these children, I just hit a wall every time. You know, I went into it very naive thinking we had programs in place for children, especially children with disabilities or additional needs, and we absolutely do not.

 

Gloria Riviera  26:59

There is a long wait list at the growing tree, Brooke can’t even find enough teachers to fill all of her classrooms. It sounds immensely frustrating, but Brooke just can’t afford to pay people enough to attract the right candidates.

 

Brooke  27:14

Who wants to work in an environment where you are not getting paid what you deserve to be paid? We’re at the bottom 2% of income earners, and we lack benefits. So it’s, not a place where you can work and support yourself, let alone a family. So it’s difficult to find teachers, and it is a high stress position. I mean, these are children. These are these are high emotions that we have. We feel for these children. We want the best for them, and it’s a fast burnout. All my teachers, with the exception of one, have children in our program too, which is how I get teachers, basically is because they get childcare then, and I anticipate, I fully expect, them to leave once their children are of age, because they can go anyplace else and make more.

 

Gloria Riviera  28:11

Even with limited resources. Though, Brooke is running a full service childcare center, not only do they take care of kids too young for 4k they also handle before and after school care for school aged children, and they have resources for kids with special needs.

 

Brooke  28:28

I have several children in our program with disabilities, and we’re kind of a unique program where we offer behavioral support in house from an outside agency that comes in, which is kind of unheard of. So we have access to that, and I have children that utilize that full time.

 

Gloria Riviera  28:49

Things have been hard since Brooke and her brother started the growing tree, but they got even more difficult during the pandemic. A program called Child Care counts, funded by the American rescue plan, help the center stay open, but the legislature is refusing to make those subsidies permanent, and the last of the money is set to dry up next June.

 

Brooke  29:10

That program had basically stopped the bleeding, because we’ve been declining as an industry for decades, And when childcare counts it, we stabilized for once in like 20 years, we weren’t losing childcare providers. They weren’t closing their door.

 

29:29

And we let me just hop in there for a second. When childcare counts, when you got the information about what funds would be coming in, was that number, you know, a number that you said, Oh my gosh, this will solve everything. Was it that high?

 

Brooke  29:42

No, it’s a stabilization. It was to keep our doors open, and that’s it. It. I mean, before Child Care counts, the average teacher wage in Wisconsin was $11 we’re up to $13 an hour. That still is, you know, pitiful. That still is not what those teachers need. Need for the jobs that they do.

 

Gloria Riviera  30:02

Brooke isn’t taking this crisis lying down during the pandemic, Brooke and her friend Corinne Hendrickson started an organization called we can. We can is an acronym. It stands for Wisconsin early childhood action needed. They’re a grassroots network of teachers and child care workers pushing for more funding at the state legislature.

 

Brooke  30:23

And we both would meet at the park, and we both had children with disabilities that we were struggling. Like, okay, I need support. Like, where are you trying? What are you like? Is that working? Are you getting anywhere? And we just kind of forged together trying to access resources for children with those additional needs when they’re in child care, because we have really nothing available to us. Once a child is three, they are turned over, then to your local school district, and that’s where the IEP, the individual education plan, is created. And again, childcare does not need to be involved. There is no requirement like, Oh, if this child is spending, you know, 50 hours a week with this program, you should probably like include them at the table. We are often not at the table. We are not asked. We are not included. And that’s a detriment, because a lot of districts, a lot of schools, often take on, in my experience, the mindset, let’s wait till they get in the building. It’s like, no, then you’re missing early intervention. This child, like is non verbal, let’s work on that. Why do you want to wait a couple years and see how they do? And then it’s harder for that child and more costly for you, but that’s what we do. And again, I believe this goes back to the schools not having the funding again, and people need to see that and call it you know for what it is.

 

Gloria Riviera  31:52

Brooke spends a lot of time at the state capitol organizing to try and get early child care providers the resources they need. And that’s on top of being a mother and a child care center owner herself. I honestly don’t know how she finds the time, but she cares so deeply about the kids in her care that she feels like she has to fight for them.

 

Brooke  32:15

I don’t know if the general public understands like, how invested we can be in these children. We do love these children. I mean, a lot of them, I’ve had since they were infants, and I’ve watched them grow, and they are so important, and I fight because I don’t think that I could go to work not feeling like I am fighting for them, and I don’t think I could face them if I didn’t feel like I was at least trying.

 

Gloria Riviera  32:48

If the legislature doesn’t pass a serious funding package before next June, the growing tree and other child care providers are going to be in an even deeper crisis. Some of them will likely have to close, which means that more kids won’t be ready for 4k and kindergarten, and that elementary school teachers like Angela will have an even harder job. Wisconsin seized on a major opportunity back in 1984 when they created their public preschool program, it was the first state in the country to say, you know, our kids deserve better than they’re getting, and we’re willing to invest in them. But since then, decades of indifference and inaction have resulted in Wisconsin becoming one of the most challenging places in the country to raise a family, Brooke and we can, are going to fight as long as they can, as hard as they can, to make things right.

 

Brooke  33:53

I couldn’t imagine, like, 10 years ago, like, calling out a senator and being like, Hey, why are you lying? Like, why are you doing this? That’s not okay. You’re offensive to me right now, stop. I couldn’t imagine doing that, but I’m doing it now, and others have started to do it too in my field. And that’s empowering as well, and that helps keep me going, knowing that others are starting to speak out. They’re starting to understand, you know, we’ll send clips of their representatives in their areas, and be like, does this align with your values? Did you know that they’re saying that? And they’re like, No, I but I voted for them. I’m like, Well, do you are you going to vote next time around? Nope, you know, so reconsidering bringing that awareness, because I think so many people don’t realize their vote actually matters. Their voice does matter, and speak out is what we have to do.

 

Gloria Riviera  34:44

We do need to speak out hell. We need to do much more than that, scream, cry, protest, fight. We need to do whatever it takes for our little ones. I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact. For them this season, it looks different everywhere you go. It’s Jorge, The Economist, showing us that quality child care doesn’t cost us. It’s an investment in our future. It’s Grace, the child care center director who sees the kids in her care and knows how to get them the help they need. It’s Caitlin who fought her way out of homelessness while pregnant so that her little girl can grow up with a chance at a better life. It’s Dr Lisa teaching us that climate change directly impacts a child’s school day and their chance at a breath of fresh air. It’s you, it’s me, it’s all of us. We are the fight in 100,000 different ways, in 100,000 different communities. What I want to tell you now is what I continue to tell myself, it doesn’t have to be this way. No one is coming to save us, but working together, we can save ourselves.

 

CREDITS  36:20

There’s more No one Is Coming To Save Us with Lemonada premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content, like unheard clips from our interviews. Subscribe now on Apple podcasts. No One Is Coming To Save us is a Lemonada, original produced with Neighborhood Villages. I’m your host, Gloria Riviera. Crystal Genesis is our senior producer, Tony Williams and Tiffany Bui are our producers. Tony Williams, Johnny Vince Evans and Bobby Woody are our audio engineers. Our music is by Hannis Brown. Jackie Danziger is our VP of narrative content. Executive producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer, along with me Gloria Riviera. The series is presented by Imaginable Futures, the J Willard and Alice S Marriott Foundation, The Banhum Family Foundation and The Conrad N Hilton foundation. If you like the show and you believe what we’re doing is important, please help others find us by leaving us a rating and writing a review, and most importantly, tell your friends follow No One Is Coming To Save Us wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership, thanks for listening. Hang in there, you can do this.