Quality Support Infrastructure in Early Childhood: Still (Mostly) Missing (Report‪)‬

Introduction In 2000, Early Childhood Research & Practice published an article by James Gallagher and Richard Clifford of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, titled "The Missing Support Infrastructure in Early Childhood." The authors outlined the full range of functions that support high-quality care and education for young children and noted that states and communities lacked adequate structures to ensure that these activities are carried out effectively. They called for a deliberate, focused effort to create the necessary infrastructure to support the functions that ensure and sustain quality. The issues outlined in Gallagher and Clifford's article were identified as "critical" by the journal's editors and sparked a great deal of dialogue in the early care and education field.