Child Care and Early Education at CLASP

States increase child care and early education appropriations

State appropriations for child care and early education programs increased over $1 billion from FY 2007 to 2008, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures’ first-ever survey of state child care and early education state appropriations. The survey asked state fiscal staff to report state appropriations in the areas of child care, pre-kindergarten, parent education/home visiting, and other early learning strategies.  The survey found increases in all four areas:

• Child care appropriations increased by over $672 million ($400 million of which was reported in California) with a total of 47 states reporting increased funding. NCSL notes that the increases in child care appropriations in actuality may not have outpaced the funding challenges that have daunted states for years. 
• Pre-kindergarten appropriations increased by nearly $510 million with a total of 30 reporting increased funding.
• Parent education appropriations increased by over $20 million with a total of 17 states reporting increased funding.
• Appropriations for other early learning, including Head Start/Early Head Start, infant and toddler initiatives, and early childhood mental health programs, increased by $26 million with a total of 19 states reporting increased funding.

Eight states—Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Washington—reported increased funding in all four areas.

While state pre-kindergarten programs have been increasingly popular in recent years, growing in popularity, size and funding, this survey shows that states are funding a wide range of early education programs vital for young children from birth to school entry and their families. In particular, increasing state appropriations for child care is ever important with stagnant federal funding in recent years.  CLASP's analysis shows that state child care spending (including federal and state funds) decreased in 2004 and in 2005, the most recent years data are available.  States can't do it alone; and federal funding should also demonstrate a recognition of the vital importance of early childhood programs that help families work and help children prepare for school and life.

National League of Cities surveys local anti-poverty initiatives

Combating Poverty: Emerging Strategies From The Nation’s Cities is a new report from the National League of Cities that examines poverty reduction initiatives in 29 cities. Overall, the most common anti-poverty approaches were community and volunteer supported outreach campaigns to connect low-income residents to federal and state entitlement programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, and health insurance. The report highlights four common themes in city anti-poverty initiatives:

• Working to create a coordinating entity to monitor and sustain progress over time, which entails assigning planning, coordinating, and in some cases oversight of anti-poverty programs to a single group or agency in order to improve efficiency and accountability.
• Selecting specific targets for community-wide action or concentrating anti-poverty efforts on a single or small set of issues to enable officials to devote resources in a more manageable fashion and generate more measurable progress in tackling poverty.
• Targeting vulnerable populations or neighborhoods for immediate attention.
• Redefining the issues and addressing often overlooked burdens confronting impoverished individuals and families. Including efforts such as  placing grocery stores in high poverty neighborhoods to reduce transportation needs, working with life insurance companies to provide free life insurance, and enhancing low-income residents’ access to mainstream financial institutions and services. 

For some local efforts, child care is a critical component of fighting poverty.  For instance, New York City includes a proposed tax credit to help low-income residents pay for child care. The Providence, Rhode Island, Poverty Work and Opportunity Task Force recommended that city officials engage in efforts to help residents receive adequate child care subsidies and other social service benefits.

New language access resource for states

All agencies that receive federal funds are required to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964  to take reasonable steps to provide limited English proficient (LEP) individuals with meaningful access to their programs, activities, and services. This includes most agencies that administer child care and early education programs, including school districts, state government agencies, and Head Start programs. Yet, inadequate language access remains a significant barrier to accessing programs for many families with young children.

Ensuring language access may include the use of competent interpreters, hiring of bilingual staff, translation of materials, and the use of telephone language line services. Agencies may conduct assessments to review their language access policies and to create plans for improving service delivery to LEP individuals.

The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) has created a language access portal, which is a digital library of hundreds of resources for state and local social service agencies. The portal includes federal and state laws and guidelines, service models, and related research on language access and LEP populations. It also includes information on policies such as bilingual pay differentials, contracting for translation services, and best practices for interpreters. Finally, the portal includes a searchable database of state and local documents that can be used to find examples of translated materials and applications, policy guidance, and other resources. The database is searchable by state, service area, and languages.

Who's minding the kids?

The U.S. Census Bureau released detailed data tables on the child care participation of children under age 15 with working mothers. Data from the 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) panel, show that in the spring of 2005, 72 percent of children under age 5 had a primary non-parental care arrangement. Relative care was the primary child care arrangement for 27 percent of young children. A quarter of all young children attended a center-based child care program, including a preschool or Head Start program, as their primary care arrangement. Eleven percent of children of working mothers had no regular child care arrangement. The data are broken down by age, income, race, and other variables. Key data points include:

• Young children in poor and low-income households are more likely to be in relative care.
• Young children whose mothers worked traditional daytime hours were more than twice as likely to be in family child care or center-based care compared to young children whose mothers worked non-daytime hours.
• The use of center-based child care is highest in the South where 30 percent of young children with working mothers attend centers.
• One-third (33 percent) of infants under a year old are in relative care compared to 28 percent of 1-2 year olds and 25 percent of 3-4 year olds.
• Over half (51 percent) of families with young children make child care payments. Poor families on average pay 29 percent of their household income on child care compared to 15 percent for low-income families (100-199 percent of poverty) and 6 percent for upper-income families.
• Half (50 percent) of children age 5 to 14 had no regular care arrangement outside of school or self-care.