Child Care and Early Education at CLASP

Policy choices that support providers in immigrant communities

As the young child population is rapidly growing in diversity, the early childhood field is facing a critical shortage of bilingual and bicultural providers. To most appropriately serve young children from immigrant families, the early childhood workforce must be more representative of the children it serves. Additionally, providers of all languages and cultures need training in cultural competency and second language acquisition strategies.

One way to increase the supply of qualified, bilingual and culturally competent early care and education providers is to assist providers from immigrant communities to gain the skills to become licensed child care providers, as well as to provide supports to immigrant providers in order to retain them in the early childhood field and to encourage further professionalization and credentialing. Targeted outreach and supports can help providers access professional development and higher education, which is essential to increase and sustain the diversity of the early childhood workforce.

A variety of policies are necessary to support immigrant providers with a wide range of educational backgrounds and levels of English proficiency. While some individuals need access to ESL classes and basic GED education, others have extensive training, education, and experience working in early childhood education in their home countries and just need their credentials to be recognized and validated in the US.

CLASP has created a checklist of selected policies that support immigrant providers, particularly those with limited English proficiency. Read more.

Getting the facts on state child care policies

Data collection and analysis is a critical component of understanding whether early childhood systems are effectively meeting the needs of young children and their families.  For policymakers and advocates, it is important to understand the full range of child care policies in a state, including data on child care participation and expenditures, family income eligibility criteria, and provider reimbursement rates, to gain a better understanding of a state’s child care assistance program.

This week the National Women's Law Center (NWLC) released its annual report on state child care subsidy policies, State Child Care Assistance Policies 2007: Some Steps Forward, More Progress Needed. This report compiles essential data on key state child care assistance policies. NWLC finds that while states have made some progress in the last year, most states currently have policies in place that make fewer families eligible for help paying for child care than in 2001. Read more.

Pennsylvania demonstrates comprehensive approach benefits school readiness

A special report from the Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children (PPC) documents the benefits of investments in young children. According to the report, "Pennsylvania children are reaping the rewards of great gains achieved this past year in the expansion of health coverage and early learning programs such as pre-K. These public policy accomplishments help assure that more children than ever before are entering school ready to learn and prepared to succeed.”

Using analysis of annual data on a number of indicators, PPC found that young children in the state are better off. Yet there are also critical gaps, particularly in access to child care assistance: while the report notes that the number of child care subsidy slots for infants, toddlers, and preschool children increased by nearly 5,500 from the previous year, there are currently more than 8,000 children birth to 12 on the waiting list. The report also highlights the limited availability of high quality care, defined as the number of centers or family child providers who are accredited by a national body.

PPC’s use of data to encourage investments in comprehensive supports for young children as part of a school readiness agenda is part of a national movement to identify indicators of success and help states develop the policies needed to better support children and families. Earlier this year, the National Center for Children in Poverty released 50 state data on a number of policies that support children’s healthy development from birth to five.

Every state should be undertaking an effort like that in Pennsylvania to collect and analyze data in order to better understand the impact the full range of state policies have on young children.  To start, we recommend that states look at their expenditures and participation within their state child care subsidy program and data on Head Start programs in their state. Without powerful advocacy tools like this new report, states will fail to make the investments necessary to ensure that every child has the supports they need to enter school ready to learn.

The progress, problems, and promise of early childhood comprehensive systems

In an analysis of state Maternal and Child Health Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS), the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) found that much progress has been made in creating comprehensive systems of early childhood services but challenges remain.  NCCP examined state strategies to promote systems integration as well as governance and structural mechanisms or governing bodies to support and sustain systems integration.  The investigation, State of the States' ECCS Initiatives, revealed that all 48 states that received ECCS grants had a birth to five focus and 45 states formally established cross-sector stakeholder groups that included health, mental health, early care and education, parent education, and family support services.  Nearly half (24) of these states included private sector partners in their stakeholder groups.  Professional Associations, advocacy groups and parent organizations were among the most common private partners while national initiatives and philanthropy groups were among the least.  Despite the development of cross-sector stakeholder groups by the vast majority of states only 22 had strong approaches to integrating separate programs, systems, and funding streams, and only 33 engaged parent leaders.  Challenges to creating more effective ECCS initiatives highlighted by the study include:

• States must give more equal emphasis to all components of the system
• New interagency agreements, staff configurations, and fiscal arrangements must be developed.

In maintaining their focus on state ECCS initiatives, NCCP also published Reducing Disparities Beginning in Early Childhood to highlight how ECCS initiatives could be used to reduce many of the risk factors experienced in early childhood that disparately affect low-income and minority children.   These risk factors include mental health and developmental problems, exposure to family violence, unequal treatment and access to services and low levels of school readiness.  The paper cites that these and other risk factors can negatively impact the overall health, education, and economic status of young children and lead to long-term negative life outcomes.  The authors assert that ECCS initiatives can be used to help address many of these issues by employing strategies that promote an understanding of the issues, use data and monitoring to guide planning, improve child and family services, and improve community supports.  Specific recommendations include:

• Link early childhood systems development efforts to programs aimed at undoing racism and eliminating poverty.
• Integrate cross-cultural and cultural/linguistic competency training into early childhood education and health workforce training.

Make way for babies: Oklahoma rapidly expanding investment in birth to three early care and education

A state that has received kudos for its universal 4-year-old pre-kindergarten program is rapidly expanding a pilot program that increased the number of children birth to three in low-income families experiencing care meeting high quality program standards. The initiative is designed to expand access to Early Head Start programs and to improve the quality of other community-based child care programs that serve infants and toddlers.  The George Kaiser Family Foundation helped start the pilot in 2006 by offering a 2 to 1 match of private donations if the state put up $5 million in general revenue.  Another recent increase brings the total public dollar investment to $10 million and the total to $25 million. The first year of the pilot reached 888 children, and allowed federal Early Head Start grantees to add additional children, extend the day of Early Head Start services they provide, and enhance quality. Some community-based child care programs also received funding and technical assistance to meet federal Early Head Start Program Performance Standards and additional state requirements.  State requirements for programs include: having a B.A. teacher for every two classrooms with a salary equivalent to the public school system, staff training specific to infant and toddler care, and working toward NAEYC accreditation. The state Department of Education awarded a contract to the Community Action Project of Tulsa County (CAP) to administer the pilot, and CAP has subcontracted with Smart Start Oklahoma to assist with monitoring and tracking pilot implementation.

A visual tool for state early childhood system building developed jointly by national organizations

To improve the lives of all children vulnerable to the effects of poverty and other risk factors, state early childhood systems can’t just focus on any one aspect of development, but need to address the full range of child development needs. But to do this, states need help identifying the pieces that should be put into place.  An ad-hoc group of national organizations and individuals who provide technical assistance to state leaders, including CLASP, has worked together to develop a tool that can help state leaders in this work. 

The tool defines the four major systems that need to be coordinated: health; mental health, and nutrition; early intervention; family support; and early learning.

It also describes the structures these systems need to have in place to be effective: governance, standards, research and development, finance, communications, monitoring, and provider and practitioner support.

For each area, numerous technical assistance materials for state and local policymakers are being developed by the partner organizations.

Click here for a presentation on Early Childhood Development Systems.

TANF funds used for child care continue to fall

Federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds used for child care declined slightly in fiscal year 2006, marking the sixth consecutive year of decline since the beginning of the decade. Nationally, states directed a total of $3.1 billion in TANF funds to child care in FY 2006, approximately $100 million less than in the previous year, according to FY 2006 TANF Financial Data posted by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) last week. ACF does not report on the number of children receiving TANF-funded child care assistance.

States choose whether to use TANF funds to provide child care assistance to families. States may spend TANF funds directly on child care, usually in the form of vouchers given to parents; they may also choose to transfer up to 30 percent of their annual TANF block grant to the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) or to a combination of CCDBG and the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG). TANF funds may also be used to support early education programs.

According to the new data, TANF transfers to CCDBG totaled $1.9 billion and TANF funds spent directly on child care totaled $1.2 billion in 2006. This compares to $1.9 billion in TANF transfer and $1.3 billion in TANF direct in FY 2005. In FY 2006, 11 states transferred the maximum amount of 30 percent of TANF funds: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Washington. Only Kentucky transferred all 30 percent of its funds to CCDBG alone. An additional 10 states transferred between 25 to 29 percent of TANF funds to a combination of CCDBG and SSBG.

States are required to meet a maintenance-of-effort (MOE) requirement in the TANF program. In an upward shift, states spent $2.3 billion in state MOE funds on child care. This was an increase of $386 million compared to 2005.

The Administration for Children and Families has not yet released FY 2006 expenditure data for CCDBG. When that data is available, CLASP will produce additional analysis on national child care spending trends as in prior years, as well as updated state-by-state child care spending pages.

How states are building on the promise of Early Head Start

The federal Early Head Start program was created to help minimize the disparities caused by poverty by supporting the healthy development of low-income infants and toddlers in the context of their families and communities.  Research has shown that Early Head Start positively impacts children and their families in areas associated with children’s success in school, family self-sufficiency, and parental support of child development. Unfortunately, less than three percent of all eligible children are currently served with federal funds.

To build on these successes, some states have taken action to expand and enhance Early Head Start services for more infants, toddlers and their families.  CLASP and ZERO TO THREE are in the midst of the first extensive study of state efforts, and have found four diverse approaches being used by state policymakers: 

1. Extend the day or year of existing EHS services. The most common approach (10 states) is to help extend the day or year of EHS services through policies or access to additional funding (often from the child care subsidy system).



2. Expand the capacity of existing EHS programs to increase the number of children and pregnant women served. Nine states expand the capacity of existing federal Head Start or Early Head Start grantees to serve more infants and toddlers by providing grants to programs receiving federal Early Head Start funds for this purpose or by expanding the allowable uses of state supplemental funding for Head Start programs to include EHS slots.



3. Support partnerships between EHS and center-based and family child care providers to improve the quality of care. Four states provide funding for EHS-child care partnerships, but use very different approaches. One creates partnerships between EHS and family child care and family, friend, and neighbor care settings, and requires that EHS programs implement the home-based model with children in those settings. Others use EHS – child care partnerships to actually deliver EHS in child care settings that do not receive federal EHS funds, or to leverage federal expertise and resources to improve quality of child care partners.



4. Provide resources to child care providers to help them attain EHS standards. Two new state initiatives will leverage new funds and supports to transform child care providers to meet most EHS standards.

Adding pieces of the puzzle: Comprehensive services for young children

Comprehensive services are essential components of high quality early care and education, especially for at-risk children. Young children’s ability to grow and learn is hampered if they are hungry or sick, if they have an undiagnosed developmental delay or special need, or if their parents and families lack the resources, supports, and skills to care for them. Investing in early education without also funding comprehensive services is like trying to put together the puzzle of what children need without all the pieces.

What are states doing to provide comprehensive services? Forty-eight states plus the District of Columbia have been awarded State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) grants from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau. By integrating children’s education into a larger system of supports, states can move towards serving children in a way that addresses families’ needs, which interlock and overlap traditional public service “silos." The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) helps states share ideas and policies through Project THRIVE, focusing on how to improve early childhood systems for at-risk children. Also, the Early Childhood Systems Working Group has developed a policy tool to illustrate how states can integrate service systems that impact child development.

When exploring how to build and foster these systems, remember the tips on puzzle building your mother taught you: assemble the frame first, every piece on the table has a place, and don’t forget to look at the big picture on the box so you remember where you’re going.

Reauthorization of NCLB is moving forward

During this Congress, the nation’s federal education bill, known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), will be renewed.  There are many issues being addressed through this process including early childhood issues. An initial draft of the new legislation from the House Committee on Education and Labor has some focus and will include more as the process moves forward.

Many school districts have used Title I of NCLB for early childhood programs including one of the nation’s premier early childhood programs, the Chicago Child-Parent Centers. While nationally only about 3% of children served by Title I are younger than kindergarten age, studies suggest there are a number of high-quality early childhood programs that use Title I funds to provide direct services, salaries for degreed teachers, comprehensive supports, and other services.

As reauthorization NCLB moves forward, it appears that it will include some new provisions around early childhood. CLASP has made a number of recommendations in this area and we hope that any language included in the final bill will maintain the ability of school districts to use Title I, or other NCLB funds, to support children birth through the age of school entry and will expand funding so that school districts and states do not have to choose between funding early childhood programs and funding other priorities for school improvement.