Child Care and Early Education at CLASP

Strong child care systems help working families and the economy

The Mississippi Economic Policy Center (MEPC) has released a new report titled Broadening the Base: Strengthening Mississippi's Working Families, Businesses and Economy through Strong Child Care Systems. MEPC highlights the importance of child care to the state's economy and to working families, yet investments in child care are insufficent. In Mississippi:

• The cost of infant child care for 9 months is more than a year of tuition at a state four-year college.
• More than 80,000 eligible children under age 13 receive no child care assistance.
• Child care providers who accept subsidized certificates receive 68% of the market rate for infant care - the most expensive care to provide.

As parents fight to keep their subsidies and providers struggle with low payment rates, MEPC makes several recommendations for strengthening child care to provide this critical work support to low-income working families.  Mississippi could increase its Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) dollars spent on child care; help child care workers increase their skills through the Workforce Investment Act; reward increases in skills, education, and quality through their Quality Step System; and increase the reimbursement rate, use Community Development Block Grant funds to help support investments in child care and make investments in child care facilities that serve low-income families.

The MEPC report makes clear that Mississippi has many opportunities to leverage funds to invest in child care and help support low-income working families.  Now the state has to find the will to fulfill this potential.

Summary of TANF final rules

Earlier this month, the final rules implementing changes to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, made by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, were published in the Federal Register. These new rules will be effective October 1, 2008. CLASP has written a document summarizing the final rules and changes to the TANF program. The summary details changes in the areas of:

• Counting education and training toward participation rates, including rules around counting post-secondary education, basic education, and ESL classes;
• Serving individuals with disabilities and other barriers to participation, including the definition of a work-eligible individual; and
• Job search and job readiness, including counting of weeks towards statutory limits and other counting issues.

The final rules also detail allowable expenditures and other spending issues.

We can't wait a decade

Every day researchers, policymakers, providers and parents look for the policies and practices that will finally level the playing field, close the achievement gap, and improve the odds for at-risk children.  Progress is being made. Yet, there is still a ways to go, particularly when looking at differences in child well-being by race, ethnicity and income.  Fortunately, we have many of the solutions; we just need the will to invest in the right policies now.

The Foundation for Child Development's Child Well-Being Index (CWI) measures 28 quality of life indicators in the areas of health, educational attainment, economic well-being, safety and behavioral concerns, social relationships, community connectedness, and emotional-spiritual well-being.  Recent analysis of the CWI found that racial and ethnic differences in child well-being decreased between 1985 and 2004. Read more.

Utah increases quality infant and toddler child care

Using funds from the quality set-aside within the federal child care subsidy (CCDBG) program, Utah’s Office of Child Care (OCC) within the Department of Workforce Services is offering an Infant/Toddler Start-Up and Expansion Grant for Center-based Infant/Toddler Child Care Services. Centers may apply for grants up to $9,999 to create new quality infant/toddler rooms and to support staff development. OCC developed this grant project after its annual child care needs assessment identified infant/toddler child care as a critical, unmet need throughout Utah. Grantees must meet criteria on staff training and classroom environment, be evaluated using the ITERS-R rating system, and participate in Utah's ongoing quality improvement program for infant/toddler classes (the Baby Steps project). With this grant, Utah is demonstrating the importance of establishing state policies to both increase the availability of infant/toddler care and ensure that it meets high quality criteria at the same time.

State reported activities to support immigrant and LEP families in child care programs

For CLASP’s new policy brief, CCDBG State Plan Reported Activities to Support Limited English Proficient (LEP) and Immigrant Communities, CLASP reviewed FY 2006-2007 Child Care and Development (CCDBG) state plans for references to initiatives that could support immigrant families and/or providers, LEP families and/or providers, and English Language Learners (ELLs).  The state plans set out the policies and initiatives the state expects to implement over a two-year period using the direct service and quality set-aside funds in the Child Care and Development Block Grant.

Some examples of state-reported activities include:

• Utah assembled an early learning guidelines’ development team that represented diverse cultural groups. The team included Centro de la Familia, a nonprofit organization that works to meet the needs of the Latino population in the state;
• Arizona’s and South Dakota’s guidelines contain specific information or strategies addressing their use with ELLs.
• North Carolina’s Division of Child Development web site is available in Spanish
  New York’s application for child care assistance is available in six languages—Haitian-Creole, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and English.

CLASP found that state reported activities to support diverse families and providers were often vague.  Few states reported a comprehensive approach by planning for multiple strategies.   

To better serve the child care and early education needs of LEP and immigrant families, CLASP recommends that states  develop comprehensive strategies that are clear in their intent to meet the needs of LEP and immigrant families and providers and specific in their plans for implementation.  Some examples of recommended policies include:

• provide materials on child care services to language minority communities, including information about eligibility for child care subsidies;
• ensure that child care subsidy intake procedures and materials are linguistically appropriate, culturally sensitive, and accessible for those living in immigrant communities; and
• use contracts and grants to expand access to high quality child care programs for children in immigrant families, and support partnerships with immigrant serving organizations to provide information and direct services.

President’s budget: Young children don’t count

February 4 began a new budget process, the last of President Bush’s presidency. Every Administration uses the budget to send a signal about its priorities for the coming year.  In this period of economic downturn, when our most vulnerable children and families need access to comprehensive supports, the message of this budget is simple and stark: children in low-income working families don’t matter.  The President proposes flat funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant that will cause 200,000 children to lose access to child care assistance by 2009.  This loss is in addition to thousands of children who may already have lost services due to years of flat funding.

The Administration also acknowledges that fewer children will be served in Head Start under their proposal.  While the budget provides for a small increase, the amount is barely enough to cover inflation, let alone the costs needed to implement changes in the program required by the recent Head Start reauthorization, including provisions to expand access to Head Start, strengthen and expand Early Head Start, and important quality improvements.

For an analysis of the President’s budget proposal’s impact on child care and early education programs, see President’s Budget Disregards Sound Investments for Young Children.