Education Commons^™

Space To Learn And Grow: Assessing The Capacity Of A Regional Early Care And Education System, Robert L. Fischer, Kristen Mikelbank, Claudia J. Coulton

Faculty Scholarship

As communities across the United States work to meet the early care and education needs of young children, more research is needed to inform decision making at many levels. One key dimension of this is having clarity about the relative availability of care in light of demographic trends and geographic dispersion. The present study demonstrates a method to examine the capacity of early care programs to serve the children in a large urban county. The study takes stock of the existing early care system by comparing where the child care slots are and where the demand is—all at the neighborhood …