Leading Virginia business organizations, including the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, have made early childhood learning a priority. This is because the business community knows that today’s children are the workforce of tomorrow. Employers recognize that quality early learning has a profound impact on developing employees with strong intellectual, social and emotional abilities.
The Chamber’s Blueprint for Virginia includes a number of key policy recommendations targeting early childhood education, including:
- Improve access to affordable, high-quality early childhood education for Virginia’s working families.
- Encourage employer policies and strategies that support access to high-quality early learning for families.
- Protect the early education workforce by ensuring access to affordable, competency-building credentials and exploring strategies that value and retain this talent pool.
- Expand public-private partnerships and mixed delivery of the Virginia Preschool Initiative.
- Establish an integrated early childhood data system to inform financing and policymaking decisions and promote accountability.
- Create an integrated public-private financing model that promotes innovative, flexible, and collaborative approaches to high-quality early childhood services for at-risk children.
- Explore performance-based financing policies that incentivize and sustain high-quality early childhood services as part of Virginia’s quality improvement framework.