Ready for K AllianceEarly Childhood Data Tool

Ready for K Data Platform Takeaways

• Neighborhood-level resources are essential to early childhood development. Families need access to regulated child care that is close to their home or work.
  • There are 11 neighborhoods in Jefferson County that have no regulated child care within their neighborhood boundaries.
  • There are an additional 21 neighborhoods that have fewer than 1 child care space for every 2 children who want one in their Local Child Care Market.*
• Concentrated economic hardship and lack of opportunity within communities compound barriers to early childhood development, including making it harder to access child care, health care, and educational opportunities. For a family of four, 200% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is $66,000. If that family has two young children, child care costs alone could easily exceed 40% of that income.
  • There are 19 neighborhoods in Jefferson County where more than 90% of children under five live in households with incomes below 200% of FPL. There are a total of 32 neighborhoods with more than 75% of children under five, and a total of 54 neighborhoods with more than 50% of children under five, living in households below 200% FPL.
• Birthing parents need access to high-quality prenatal care throughout pregnancy. Although it can occur in healthy pregnancies, low birthweight is one potential indicator of a difficult pregnancy. When the rate of low birthweight births climbs above the average rate, it suggests that a community is underserved by the prenatal healthcare system.
  • In Jefferson County, an average of 887 infants, or 9.4% of births, are born with low birthweights each year. In 14 neighborhoods, more than 15% of infants are born with low birthweights.
• On average, children who are in a formal setting during the year before they enter kindergarten are more likely to score highly on kindergarten readiness measures. Formal settings include regulated child cares and pre-schools.
  • Over the past three years, roughly half of JCPS kindergarteners were not in a formal setting in the year prior to kindergarten.
  • On average, a 10 percentage point increase in the share of children in a neighborhood in a formal setting corresponds with an 8.9 percentage point increase in the share ready for kindergarten.

*A neighborhood’s Local Child Care Market is defined as the neighborhood and every other neighborhood that touches it. The Local Child Care Market is different for each neighborhood. The child care capacity is defined as the estimated total number of child care spaces at all regulated providers within the Local Child Care Market, and the demand for child care is defined as the estimated total number of children younger than 5 within the Local Child Care Market whose families are likely to want regulated child care.