Social Justice for Black Children Within Early Childhood Education

Most early childhood education programs were originally designed to help close the school readiness gap between children from more affluent backgrounds and those from low-income and economically marginalized backgrounds. Early childhood education is a program that serves young children between 3-5 years old. Targeting children’s most critical learning years may assist in advancing later academic and social-emotional skills. Unfortunately, high-quality early childhood education in the U.S. is minimally accessible for Black children, when accessible more than half of those preschools only offer part-day schooling while less than 50% offer full day and less than 20% offer both. Sixteen percent of preschools serve children from marginalized backgrounds and another 25% align their services with low-income families. Access to early childhood education programs is impacted by racial disparities in out-of-school discipline that start in the very early stages and trickle throughout the formal years of education. For example, Black children in the preschool system, only make up 18% of enrollment yet represent 48% of preschools who are suspended multiple times. Eleven percent of Black students are suspended 3 times more than their white counterparts yet they make up less of preschool enrollment and Black girls are suspended at higher rates than any of their other racial counterparts. Data states that students who are in the juvenile justice system more than likely have been suspended or expelled and students who experience out-of-school suspension and expulsion are up to 10 times more likely to drop out of high school than their counterparts.