Mayor’s Office for Child Care and Early Childhood Education

Infrastructure to Support Early Childhood Systems

Administrative + Governance Models

In 2023, New York City established the Mayor’s Office for Child Care and Early Childhood Education, which aims to provide equitable, high-quality, and affordable early education and care for the city’s families. The office is expected to coordinate strategy and planning across city agencies, encourage innovation through partnerships with various stakeholders, and focus on effective communication, policy advocacy, and public engagement, as part of the city’s Blueprint for Child Care and Early Childhood Education, a plan from 2022 that outlines ways to improve the accessibility, equitability, and quality of care in New York City’s early childhood system.

Learn more: Mayor’s Office for Child Care and Early Childhood Education

Sources:

Amin, R. (2023, February 10). Adams creates new City Hall office for child care, early childhood education. Chalkbeat New York.

Office of the Mayor, New York City. (2023, February 10). Mayor Adams Announces Creation of First-ever Mayor’s Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education [Press release].

Connections to Key Early Learning Study at Harvard (ELS@H) Findings:

Strong infrastructure and systems – including governance structures and data systems – are key aspects of high-quality early education and care. And research suggests there is a need for more accessible, affordable, and high-quality early education within a mixed-delivery system; strengthening infrastructure and systems is one important way states and cities can take action to address these needs and accomplish these goals.

Findings from the Early Learning Study at Harvard (ELS@H) that connect to the need for more robust infrastructure and systems, including data systems:

Families rely on a range of formal (e.g., Head Start, center-based care, public pre-K) and more informal (e.g., home-based, relative care) early education settings; when choosing a setting for their child, families balance many logistical constraints and personal preferences.
But for many families – and especially low- and middle-income families – early education choices remain tightly constrained due to issues of affordability and supply.
No one early education setting type is inherently of higher quality than another; children develop and learn well in every setting type, and in the study, all setting types showed room to grow in quality.
We have learned a great deal from this groundbreaking, large-scale study. Nevertheless, there is still much to learn about what children, families, and educators need, and about what “works” – for whom and under what circumstances – across all the diverse settings where young children learn and grow.