What Are Ways to Improve Services for Hispanics through Child Care and Other Early Childhood Programs?
This section addresses possible actions that might be taken to improve early care and education services for Latinos. The basic facts are now known about the current status and future trends affecting child care and the early education of Latino children. The numbers of Hispanics from birth to age 5 are large and growing rapidly, particularly in states and localities with high concentrations of Hispanics. Over the next half century, Latino children will be the spearhead of net population increase and the dominant component of the future labor force in the nation. Despite impressive growth in the numbers of Hispanic children in early care and education programs-especially Head Start and prekindergarten-over the past decade, Hispanics remain the largest underserved group, with serious questions regarding the quality of services provided. This service and outcome gap highlights issues of equity and equal access to educational opportunity. In addition, opportunity costs are levied on child
