Child Care and Early Education at CLASP

CLASP and NWLC to host audio conference recovery update

Would you like know more about how states are using their economic recovery funds to help boost support for child care?

To strategize about how to best utilize the economic recovery funds, the National Women's Law Center and CLASP are hosting a conference call.

Listen to a recording of the May 21 call.

More details about the key provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are available at www.nwlc.org/economicrecovery and http://childcareandearlyed.clasp.org/reinvestinginchildcare.html.

The call will be moderated by Helen Blank of the National Women's Law Center and Danielle Ewen of CLASP. Presenters will discuss highlights of their states' plans and include:

• Bruce Liggett, Executive Director, Arizona Child Care Association
• Sessy Nyman, Vice President of Public Policy & Government Affairs, Illinois Action for Children 
• Sheila Hansen, Policy Director, Child and Family Policy Center
• Patty Siegel, Executive Director, California Child Care Resource & Referral Network
• Clare S. Richie, Senior Policy Analyst, Georgia Budget and Policy Institute

We are grateful for the support of the Birth to Five Policy Alliance for sponsoring this call. 

President releases additional budget details

Yesterday, the Obama Administration released additional details on their FY 2010 budget proposal. The 2010 budget reflects both the President’s interest in expanding high quality early childhood settings and a recognition that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), passed in February, made significant investments in Head Start, Early Head Start, and CCDBG, which will be spent through FY 2010.

As states and local communities continue to feel the impact of the economic downturn, more families are in need of help to find and afford high quality child care. Increases in federal funding this year and into the future will be critical to help these families and to support state efforts to expand access to high quality early childhood settings for children from birth to five and for school-age children.

The budget document is a first step in the FY 2010 appropriations process; Congress now has an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to early education through increased funding for child care and Head Start. Additionally, new programs proposed by the President must be authorized by Congress.  

The budget proposal for FY 2010 includes:

• flat funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), although the FY 2009 appropriation is $7 billion with $2 billion in ARRA funds.
• a $122 million increase for Head Start, adding to the FY 2009 ARRA investment of $2.1 billion in new funds.
• new $500 million matching Title I Early Childhood Grants for local educational agencies that choose to invest ARRA Title I funds in preschool programs.
• a new $300 million Early Learning Challenge Fund. According to budget documents, the fund would:

"provide competitive grants to State educational agencies, or the agency in a State that administers early childhood programs, for the development of a statewide infrastructure of integrated early learning supports and services for children, from birth through age 5. This infrastructure would provide a pathway to a high standard of quality across all publicly funded early learning programs in the State. Grants would enable States to raise their standards, build systems that promote quality and ensure the effectiveness of their early learning programs, and monitor all publicly funded early childhood programs' performance against the State's standards. This program, a central component of the President's early education agenda, complements existing and proposed Federal investments in Head Start and Early Head Start, home visitation, the Child Care Development Fund, Title I preschool, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

"States receiving an Early Learning Challenge Fund award would be required to develop and establish a system of research-based metrics and measures for addressing essential aspects of program quality, such as child health and safety, the effectiveness of the early learning environment, the qualifications of early education staff, research- based curricula, and program effectiveness, including child outcomes. Through the implementation of their grants, States would establish a pathway to high quality, beginning with a basic level of standards for licensing, and support the enhancement of programs as they progress to higher levels of quality over time.

"This request would be the first of several years of investment. The Administration will propose authorizing language for this program and, assuming that States demonstrate promising results in ensuring the quality of their early childhood programs, will request additional funds in future years so that States can extend quality early childhood education to more children."

• elimination of the Even Start Family Literacy program.
• flat funding for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers after-school program.
• a new evidence-based home visitation program for low-income parents with newborns. The budget proposes mandatory funding of $8.5 billion over 10 years.
• a new $10 million Promise Neighborhoods initiative to support competitive planning grants to nonprofit community organizations for comprehensive neighborhood programs to support children from preschool through college.

Improving access to nutritious meals in child care settings

One major agenda item for Congress this year is reauthorization of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act. This law provides support for federal child nutrition programs, which include the National School Lunch Program, WIC, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). CACFP provides healthy meals and snacks to millions of children each year and is a vital support for both children and child care providers, including centers, family child care homes, and Head Start programs. CACFP helps providers achieve high-quality care, which includes access to nutritious foods, while maintaining affordability for low-income families. Through CACFP, providers are reimbursed for serving up to two meals and a snack daily for low-income children. They also receive training on child nutrition and onsite technical assistance to meet CACFP’s high nutritional standards. Research has found that CACFP-participating providers serve meals that are of higher nutritional quality than providers not in the program and that CACFP participation is linked with higher quality care.

According to the Food Research and Action Center, almost 3.2 million children in child care settings benefit from CACFP. Nearly 50,000 child care centers, and over 140,000 family child care providers participate in the program. Since 1996, the number of participating child care centers has increased by nearly 50 percent, while the number of participating family child care homes has fallen by 27 percent. Stringent eligibility guidelines and complex reimbursement structures have contributed to the reduction in participating family child care providers and effectively prevented many low-income children from receiving the nutritious meals they need.

Changes to the food programs should improve access and the nutritional quality of available foods, particularly as more low-income families are struggling to meet basic needs in this economy. CACFP eligibility for low-income children and family child care providers should be streamlined to ease participation. Meal reimbursements should be enhanced to cover increased food costs and offer an option of a third meal for children in care for long hours. With these and other changes, the child nutrition bill will continue to provide the most basic support, regular and healthy meals, to more of our nation’s children.

Economic need in immigrant families

A new research brief from Child Trends and the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis shows child poverty rates disproportionally higher among immigrant families. It is widely agreed that the official U.S. poverty measure is too low and an inaccurate reflection of economic hardship. The Economic Policy Institute has created estimates of the family budget needed across the country to  pay for housing, food, health care, and other basic expenses. Building on this basic budget poverty measure, researchers calculated poverty rates among children in immigrant families and children in U.S.-born citizen families across the states.

Using a budget poverty measure that includes the costs of child care and early education, they find that children in immigrant families have a national estimated budget poverty rate of 47 percent, compared to their official poverty rate of 21 percent. Children of U.S.-born citizens have a national estimated budget poverty rate of 28 percent, compared to their official poverty rate of 13 percent.

While poverty rates vary from state to state, children in immigrant families experience higher rates of poverty in all but nine states, with gaps in rates for immigrant and native families as large as 27 percent in Arizona and Minnesota and 25 percent in Texas.

A range of supports targeted to immigrant families, including access to child care and early education, could help alleviate this disparity in children experiencing poverty. This new data should encourage policymakers to think about using new Economic Recovery Act funds to further support for immigrant families in their states.

CCDBG Guidance for ARRA funds available

The Department of Health and Human Services has released guidance for the $2 billion in supplemental funds for the Child Care and Development Block Grant made available through the ARRA.  The guidance reminds states that the funds are discretionary, and not subject to a federal match, and also notes that funds will be allocated as part of the FY 2009 grants to states, with a two year obligation period. The guidance also lays out the following for the effective date for the supplement not supplant provision:

“A State will be considered to have satisfied the “supplement not supplant” requirement if the State has not made administrative or legislative changes to reduce the amount of general revenue funds for child care assistance to low-income families below the amount the State would have spent under State law and policies in place on the date of enactment of the ARRA. If State general revenue funds for child care assistance fall below this amount it will be presumed to constitute supplantation unless the State can demonstrate that the reduction was not due to the availability of additional Federal funds included in the ARRA and does not violate the non-supplantation requirement. (States that made legislative or policy changes prior to the enactment of the ARRA but implemented these changes after the date of enactment are not considered to have violated the non-supplantation requirement.) States wishing to propose an alternative rationale demonstrating compliance with the non-supplantation requirement should submit a detailed justification in writing to the ACF Child Care Bureau.”

The guidance reminds states that the CCDBG funds are to be used to meet the goals of the ARRA; CLASP and NWLC have published a list of policy choices states may wish to adopt to meet these goals.  HHS will publish information on state expenditures of the funds on its recovery page.

TANF child care in 2007: New data released

Federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds used for child care increased slightly in FY 2007, reversing a six-year trend of decline. Nationally, states directed approximately $3.2 billion in TANF funds to child care in 2007, approximately $64 million more than in the previous year, or a 2 percent increase, according to FY 2007 TANF Financial Data posted by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). 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).

According to the new data, TANF transfers to CCDBG increased to $2.0 billion in 2007, from $1.9 billion in 2006. States spent nearly $1.2 billion in TANF directly on child care assistance in 2007, a decline of about $74 million from 2006. Ten states transferred the maximum amount of 30 percent of TANF funds: Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island. Only Kentucky transferred all 30 percent of its funds to CCDBG alone. An additional 11 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. States spent $2.5 billion in state MOE funds on child care. This was an increase of $245 million compared to 2006. It may be that all, or a portion, of the increase in state MOE spending reflects accounting issues, rather than a real change in spending, however it is not possible to determine through available national data. A portion of TANF MOE funds spent on child care may also be directed toward states’ CCDBG MOE requirement.

The Administration for Children and Families has not yet released FY 2007 expenditure data for CCDBG, so it is not possible to determine total child care spending (CCDBG and TANF combined) for 2007. 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. CLASP will also be updating state-by-state tables analyzing TANF and MOE spending in the coming weeks.

Reinvesting in Child Care: Access for Immigrant Families

Ten Policies to Improve Access to Quality Child Care for Children in Immigrant Families is the latest paper in CLASP's "Reinvesting in Child Care" series. It provides policy options states can implement to simultaneously improve their economies and access to quality child care and child care assistance for immigrant families. Children with foreign-born parents are the largest growing segment of the child population; yet, these children are less likely to access child care and early education settings.  

CLASP's Reinvesting in Child Care website page is dedicated to economic recovery and includes general information on the Economic Recovery Act, including implementation guidance and fact sheets for policymakers and advocates. We will be updating this page with additional resources as they become available.

CLASP testimony on the importance of Head Start

Today, the Labor, Health, and Education Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee held a hearing on issues that fall under their jurisdiction in the federal budget appropriations process. Danielle Ewen of CLASP testified as a public witness about the importance of growing federal investments in Head Start and Early Head Start, in order to support our most vulnerable infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and their families. Read the testimony here.

Last month, President Obama released a budget blueprint outlining his priorities for the federal budget, which include expansions in early childhood education. The House and Senate budget committees are crafting the Congressional Budget Resolution that will establish the overall spending limits for discretionary programs, including Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), that are funded through the annual appropriations process.

CLASP releases "Reinvesting in Child Care" series

CLASP is launching a series of publications and a new website page focusing on the economic recovery law and implementation. To date, our publications provide policy recommendations for spending Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) funds to help more families and improve state economies:

• Making Use of Economic Recovery Funds, written jointly with the National Women's Law Center, offers state policymakers and advocates a set of policy options for effectively spending CCDBG economic recovery funds to create new jobs, serve more families, and improve the quality of child care.
• Benefitting Babies presents ten policy ideas for state policymakers to support quality programs and enhancement strategies that will improve early care and learning for infants and toddlers. A related set of eight fact sheets provide quick reads on policy recommendations and state examples for using economic recovery funds to improve the quality of infant/toddler care.
• CCDBG: What's in the law? lays out exactly what the CCDBG law requires of states.

The "Reinvesting in Child Care" web page includes general information on the economic recovery act, including implementation guidance from the Office of Management and Budget, state by state breakdowns of CCDBG economic recovery funds, and a recording of CLASP's audio conference on the act as it relates to early childhood. We will be updating this page with additional resources as they become available.

Two new research briefs: Babies in Child Care project

CLASP has published two new research briefs as part of its ongoing Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care project.

• Comprehensive Services presents research on factors that put babies and toddlers at risk for unhealthy development and the benefits of comprehensive health, mental health, and family support services. It supports the project recommendation to: Link necessary services for vulnerable babies and toddlers to child care settings.

• Providing Information on Infant/Toddler Child Care presents research on parents’ access to information on quality child care and subsidies, as well as barriers faced by low-income, immigrant, and limited English proficient (LEP) families. It supports the project recommendation to: Provide culturally and linguistically appropriate information on choosing infant and toddler child care.

Both briefs also examine how state policies can improve care for babies, offer specific policy ideas, and link to online resources for state policymakers. Similar resources are available on several other infant/toddler child care topics through the project page.