by Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle
February 24, 2026
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek is bringing together a group of early learning experts to create a plan to provide “affordable, universal preschool access for 3- and 4-year-olds” in every Oregon county.
Kotek announced the Early Childhood Care and Learning System Roundtable in a news release Tuesday. In it, she emphasized the costs to the state’s economy and Oregon families due to a lack of affordable child care and pre-K options.
“This is a conversation we need to have in the state,” Kotek said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. “How do we support our working families? How do we support our economy by making sure parents have affordable early learning care so they can go to work and support their kids? And, at the end of day, also, what’s best for our children is when they have high quality care.”
The average cost of child care for an infant in the state is about $18,000 per year, according to the Washington-D.C. based First Five Years Fund. Oregon parents forced to choose between working and paying for child care or forgoing careers altogether will lose more than $3 billion in wages during the next decade, according to an analysis from the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Buffet Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska. The tax loss impact to the state is projected to be roughly $1 billion.
Despite millions of dollars in investment in early learning programs through the Student Success Act since 2019, meant to help subsidize the cost of care for low-income families, Oregon still suffers from child care deserts, including six counties that are considered “severe” deserts where there are no publicly-funded child care options.
Kotek in the news release did not share details about how many people would be on the roundtable but said it will be made up of state and national early learning leaders. Kali Thorne Ladd, CEO of the Portland-based nonprofit Children’s Institute, and Sara Mickelson, a former leader of the state’s Early Learning Division and most recently a leader at the New Mexico Early Childhood Education & Care Department, will chair it.
In New Mexico, Mickelson helped manage the rollout of an expanded Pre-K program between early 2023 and early 2025, according to her LinkedIn profile. She quit to open a consultancy shortly before the state in November became the first in the nation to guarantee no-cost, universal child care.
“Scaling an early learning system that truly works for every family, regardless of where they live in the state, is a critical undertaking,” she said in a statement. “This starts with getting the plan right, creating a roadmap that is not just ambitious but sustainable and grounded in the reality of what Oregon parents need.”
Thorne Ladd has been a member of the state’s Early Learning Council for eight years, tasked with trying to create cohesive statewide pre-K standards and programs, and served as the Education Strategies Director in the Portland Mayor’s Office from 2008 to 2012. Prior to that, she worked as a policy analyst at the Oregon Department of Education, according to her LinkedIn profile.
In the news release, Kotek indicated that she also formed the roundtable in response to federal funding freezes to child care and early education programs under President Donald Trump and his administration.
The announcement also comes on the coatheels of the governor’s criticisms of Multnomah County’s Preschool for All program for not reaching more kids despite taking in far more revenue than expected from a marginal tax on individuals earning more than $125,000 and households earning above $200,000.
Since 2022, child care providers taking advantage of the program have been able to increase capacity and enroll 700 new toddlers, a number that is growing each year, program officials have said. But county officials say to meet demand and reach a 2030 promise of free, universal preschool, the program will need to offer closer to 11,000 new openings for toddlers and kids.
The early childhood learning group will start by “assessing current state-funded early learning programs to identify gaps and recommend improvements, strengthen alignment,” according to the news release.
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