Dismantling the systemic barriers to provider participation in Texas’ QRIS and increasing access to high-quality ECE for children and families of color.
Media Contact: Rashena Flagg, 713.301.4577
On Thursday, May 12, CHILDREN AT RISK and the Texas Racial Equity Collaborative (TREC) hosted the sixth in a series of monthly roundtables centered on racial equities experienced by Texas children and their families. Each month, speakers discuss pervasive issues and trends impacting historically marginalized communities, such as how African American and Hispanic communities suffered higher rates of COVID-19 infections and COVID-19 related deaths causing community wide trauma, or how African American and Hispanic children have been the hardest hit by pandemic learning loss.
This month’s Racial Equity Rapid Roundtable will focus on CHILDREN AT RISK’s recently released, Quest for Equity and Quality report. In this report, C@R examined the experiences of early childhood education providers with Texas Rising Star, our state’s quality rating and improvement system, through a race equity lens. The report highlights the experiences of child care providers of color to understand potential race equity barriers preventing child care providers of color from being certified with Texas Rising Star. The authors, researchers, and practitioners from the field will discuss findings from the study and innovative policy recommendations to address the systemic barriers that currently exist for the early childhood education workforce and high-quality early childhood education access.
Kim Kofron, Director of Early Childhood Education for Children at Risk stated, “With a loss of the number of child care providers in Texas, the time is now to truly understand what the barriers are for providers to not only participate in Texas Rising Star but to be in business. We have to fix this not only for those providers and educators but for families with young children so our entire economy can thrive.”
Watch the roundtable recording below, or on Facebook at https://fb.me/e/3mQhd3Mak.
Key Facts:
- In 2021, 14% of eligible children under six in Texas received child care subsidies
- Only 40% of Texas child care providers accept child care subsidies
- Only 34% percent of subsidy providers are Texas Rising Star certified, as of September 2021
- As of September 2021, 21 % of Texas child care providers closed, however only 3% of these programs were Texas Rising Star certified
Roundtable Participants:
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Tamitha Blackmon, Director/Owner of Nehemiah Christian School
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Katina Thomas, Assistant Professor of Literacy Education, Prairie View A & M University
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Kim Kofron, Director of Early Childhood Education, CHILDREN AT RISK
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Makia Thomas, Associate Director of Early Childhood Education, CHILDREN AT RISK
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