Groundwork Ohio Submits Federal Public Comments Supporting Ohio’s Early Childhood Workforce
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According to Groundwork Ohio's Early Childhood Data Dashboard, 60% of rural Ohioans live in a child care desert, meaning many families already do not have enough access to licensed child care to meet their needs.
Early childhood education is a high-skill and high-demand, but low-wage profession that already faces significant workforce shortages across Ohio.
Now, the United States Department of Education is considering a new higher education accountability provision through its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM),“Accountability in Higher Education and Access Through Demand-Driven Workforce Pell: Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS) and Earnings Accountability,” that could deepen this crisis by denying the quality of higher education programs to earnings-based accountability measures.
This approach risks penalizing programs that prepare individuals for essential workforce roles simply because those professions are structurally underpaid.
If early childhood education and related programs lose access to federal student aid eligibility, programs may reduce enrollment, scale back offerings, or close entirely, further shrinking Ohio’s pipeline of qualified early educators.
Early educators are the workforce behind the workforce, making it possible for parents to work while supporting children during the most critical years of brain development.
Groundwork Ohio submitted public comments urging the Department of Education to protect essential professions like early childhood education from wage-based accountability measures that fail to reflect the true value of this work.