A group of 3- and 4-year-old students play with sand and water at a sensory table in the outdoor learning area of the Child Care Studio at Rise in Fort Worth’s Las Vegas Trail neighborhood on May 7, 2026.
Lina Ruiz
lruiz@star-telegram.com
Texas’ childcare landscape is fragmented with several agencies overseeing it — and state officials need to create better coordination and accountability systems to ensure the success of the children it serves, including in Dallas-Fort Worth, according to a new report.
Texas 2036, a nonpartisan public policy think tank, recently released a 67-page report breaking down the state of childcare in Texas with references to Fort Worth and Tarrant County. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is among the major metros where the state’s population of 2.4 million children under age 6 are concentrated. About one in six children in this age group are reached by a state or federally funded early childhood program that each operate in different silos with their own rules. According to the report, this structure has led to confusion about differing rules and regulations with a lack of sufficient data tracking outcomes for children in this system.
“Texas already spends billions on early childhood programs, but no one is responsible for the system as a whole. That’s not a criticism of any one agency. It’s the result of a structure that split responsibility several ways without assigning accountability for the outcome,” said Charles Miller, director of health and economic mobility for Texas 2036.
Texas’ system includes subsidized childcare, public pre-K and pre-K funded by the new, voucher-like Texas Education Freedom Accounts. Head Start, a federal childcare program that serves low-income families, also operates in Texas.
The Governor’s Task Force on Early Childhood Education and Care and the Quad Agency Child Care Initiative were created last year by lawmakers to start addressing the gaps and fractures in the state’s childcare system. Texas 2036 is also calling for action during next year’s legislative session that begins in January.
Among the highlights of the report include:
Almost 57% of surveyed Texas parents say the cost of childcare has affected their decisions on whether to have more children.At least 95,000 children were on the state’s childcare subsidy waitlist, as of late 2024.Providers report only about 65% of licensed childcare seats are being used, even as childcare center owners say they’ve forgone their salaries and drawn down savings to stay in business.11% of working parents left a job over childcare and 62% missed at least one workday.Texas employers are losing out on $7.9 billion per year due to childcare-related turnover and absenteeism.Childcare insights in Fort Worth, Tarrant County
The report included insights from focus groups and interviews with providers and parents. A Fort Worth provider said the fractured governance of the childcare landscape shows up, for example, in the licensing regulations that childcare centers are required to follow compared to the regulations for charter schools that are serving the same age groups of children.
“Charter schools serving our same age groups face less licensing regulation than we do,” a Fort Worth childcare provider said in a focus group.
Another Fort Worth provider weighed in on the ongoing tension between public schools and community childcare providers that are competing to enroll 4-year-old pre-K students. According to the report, about 52% of Texas’ 4-year-olds are enrolled in public pre-K, while the other 48% are in other settings, including private childcare centers. This age group is the most profitable for childcare providers, as the larger class sizes of pre-K children subsidize the cost of caring for infants and toddlers.
“Free [public] pre-K drained our 4-year-old enrollment. Without that age group, we can’t make the math work for infants,” a Fort Worth provider said.
The report notes a Tarrant County pilot program that infused American Rescue Plan funding into private childcare centers to raise wages for childcare workers to $18 an hour. The $15 million program also offset operational costs and expanded access to infant and toddler care.
“Staff retention rose 17% and enrollment 14% — evidence that the wage constraint is real. The gains held only with the external funding: current parent-pay ceilings and subsidy reimbursement rates could not sustain $18 an hour on their own. Higher pay will usually lead to staff retention, but the economic circumstances discussed in this section suggest that this model would not be sustainable in Texas under current market conditions,” the report notes.
Texas 2036 recommends lawmakers look to create “earn while you learn” pathways for childcare workers to transition to traditional elementary school teachers while they obtain degrees and certifications. The policy nonprofit notes that this would help stabilize the childcare staffing in classrooms.
Leadership with Child Care Associates, a child development nonprofit based in Fort Worth that operated the Tarrant County pilot program, said Texas is unable to have a quality early learning system without quality early educators. CEO and President Kara Waddell reiterated the success in retention with paying workers a few more dollars per hour.
“For those educators already working in child care, the PRIME pilot dropped turnover to just 4% (with national norms typically between 35-40% annually),” Waddell said. “And while the PRIME pilot concluded in October 2025, many Texas communities have opted to continue with wage supplements.”
She pointed to Texas local workforce development boards, which disperse childcare subsidies throughout different regions of Texas, investing about 25% of federal funding toward educator wage supplements and incentives in the 2025 fiscal year.
“For example, the North Central Texas Workforce Board area invested an average of $1.50-$2.00 more per hour per eligible child care educator and saw turnover drop to just 15%. If early educators had a higher credential, they earned even more,” Waddell said. “We also believe the legislature has an opportunity to look at existing 0-5 resources to ensure we’re making targeted investments like this for early childhood educators.”
Catherine Davis, director of policy for Child Care Associates, said the nonprofit was grateful to Texas 2036 for raising awareness to the obstacles young Texas families face.
“We stand aligned with the report’s primary recommendations, and yet childcare providers today are especially determined to see pathways for their broader participation in state-funded prekindergarten,” Davis said.
Davis also noted only about 2% of state-funded pre-K seats are in community-based childcare settings.
“Expanding community-based pre-K is essential for two critical reasons: childcare programs cannot economically sustain quality infant and toddler care without preschool students, and many Texas families strongly prefer the option of pre-K in a community program that offers the longer hours working families need,” Davis said.
“As Texas continues to examine how we design a better system for families, we believe the legislature also has an opportunity to ensure a more balanced pre-K delivery across schools and child care programs,” Davis added.
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Lina Ruiz covers early childhood education in Tarrant County and North Texas for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. A University of Florida graduate, she previously wrote about local government in South Florida for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers.