Child Care and Early Education at CLASP

Models for using Title I ARRA funds for early education

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) included $13 billion in funding for Title I of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which provides resources for disadvantaged students. Title I is a flexible funding source that may be used to support components of high-quality early education programs. Spending on early childhood programs for children from birth through the age of school entry has always been a permitted use of Title I funds.

A new addition to our Reinvesting in Child Care economic recovery series provides illustrative examples of school districts that have used Title I funds to invest in services from infant/toddler programs to pre-kindergarten classes to Head Start collaborations. The Title I and Early Education page includes information on:

• How Title I can be used for early education,
• The benefits of using Title I,
• Models of Title I-funded early education programs, and
• Links to additional CLASP resources.

Read about Title I here or see all of our economic recovery resources.

Help for homeless children to access early childhood education

Children make up approximately half of the U.S. homeless population. An estimated 650,000 children under age 6 are homeless, representing nearly half (42 percent) of all homeless children. Homeless families face immense challenges sustaining children’s routines, including daily school attendance. Moreover, children without housing or who are in temporary housing situations face severe barriers to physical and mental wellness. Consistent child care and early education arrangements can provide a secure environment for young children experiencing homelessness. Yet, less than 16 percent of eligible homeless children are enrolled in early education programs.

The Department of Education has announced the release of $70 million to states for the McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and Youth program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The McKinney-Vento Act requires states and local educational agencies (LEAs) to ensure equal access for homeless children to public education, including public preschool education, and provides funds for activities to carry out that mission. For young children, this includes access to Head Start, Even Start, and referrals to health, mental health, dental, and other appropriate services. Guidance clarifies that these ARRA funds may be used for any allowable activities under the McKinney-Vento Act, including the provision of early education programs for young homeless children.

These funds provide an opportunity to identify and refer more homeless preschoolers for needed health, social, and early intervention services and to enroll more homeless children in early education programs. Moreover, this funding can complement other federal efforts to prioritize the needs of young homeless children. The 2007 reauthorization of Head Start ensured that homeless children are categorically eligible for Head Start services and are prioritized for services. Children who are homeless are also automatically eligible for Title I funded early education programs. The Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires that the “Child Find” early identification process include all homeless preschool children and that homeless children with known disabilities be located, identified, and evaluated.

States and LEAs should be thinking now about what steps they can put in place to ensure that McKinney-Vento funds are used to reach this vulnerable population and get services to our youngest children.

Program standards in state preschool initiatives

The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) today released their annual yearbook: The State of Preschool 2008. When early care and education programs provide comprehensive services (like those that the Head Start and Early Head Start standards require), they support high-quality early care and education for both preschoolers and infants and toddlers.

NIEER provides information on program standards and other items like eligibility and resources for each preschool initiative in an online appendix. Standards and services available vary greatly by initiative. NIEER surveyed 50 preschool initiatives in 38 states (some states have multiple initiatives) on eight types of services and found that:

• 40 required parent involvement activities.
• 36 required transition to kindergarten activities.
• 31 required parent support or training.
• 30 required referral for social services.
• 30 required child health services.
• 21 required nutrition information.
• 16 required parent education or job training.
• 7 required parent health services.
• 8 no longer require one or more of the above services in 2008, compared to 2007
• 3 have added one or more of the above services in 2008, compared to 2007
• In some initiatives, specific services are determined locally.
• Some initiatives reported other support services, for example developmental, social/emotional, mental health, and ESL support.

Initiatives with program standards that address these eight comprehensive services operate in Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Wisconsin. In Minnesota and Wisconsin, supplemental state funding is awarded to federal Head Start grantees to serve more children. States can review and strengthen their program standards for early childhood initiatives, for example through the use of economic recovery funds.

Final recovery package is good news for children

In addition to significant investments in education, workforce development, safety net programs and other important areas, the final American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes substantial funding to support young children.

The final agreement that came out of conference between the House and Senate includes: 

• $2 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant(CCDBG). These are federal funds that do not require a state match. The conference adopted the Senate language, which targets $255 million of these funds for quality improvement, of which $93.6 million are targeted for activities to improve the quality of care for infants and toddlers. In addition the CCDBG requirement to spend a minimum of 4 percent of funds on quality improvement activities also applies. (See a state-by-state breakdown of the new funds.)
• $2.1 billion for Head Start, to be split as $1 billion for Head Start and $1.1 billion for Early Head Start. 
• $500 million for the IDEA infant and toddler program (Part C)
• $400 million for the IDEA preschool program (Part B)
• $13 billion for Title I of No Child Left Behind for disadvantaged students, of which spending on early childhood programs for children from birth through the age of school entry is a permitted use of funds. The Senate language that would have required local educational agencies to spend 15 percent of their funds on early childhood programs was not adopted.

The House and Senate are expected to pass the bill in the next few days. Policymakers and advocates will want to begin work immediately to plan to get these funds out the door quickly in ways that best meet the needs of families who have been hurt by the economic crisis.

For additional details on early childhood funding in the bill, see this table from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAYEC).

A closer look at Title I-funded early education

In the Senate, deliberations on their version of an economic recovery bill continue. The bill that passed in the House last week included $13 billion in funding for Title I of No Child Left Behind. The current version of the Senate bill includes language that requires local educational agencies (LEAs) to spend approximately 15 percent of their share of $13 billion in Title I funding on early education for children who are below the age of school entry.

It is not widely known that LEAs have always been permitted to use Title I to support activities for children who are younger than the age of school entry--as early as birth! In fact, the renowned Chicago-Child Parent Centers were funded with Title I funds beginning in 1967. Currently, only a small amount (approximately 2-3 percent) of Title I funds nationally are spent on early education, but a large expansion would grow this figure substantially.

Title I funds are flexible and can be used for a range of services that support quality early education, including comprehensive services for at-risk families and professional development for early childhood providers. Title I funds, though allocated to LEAs, can be used in community-based settings including child care and Head Start.

CLASP has studied Title I investments in early education programs in local communities extensively. We have identified more than 100 schools and districts with some history of using Title I for young children. We interviewed Title I directors, district superintendents, and others across the country to look closer at these investments to understand the barriers and flexibility in the law.

Our research shows that Title I funding presents unique opportunities to build on existing resources and provide community-wide services for at-risk children and their families. Districts have used Title I to fund full-day 4-year-old preschool programs, home visiting programs for infants and toddlers, transition to kindergarten activities, as well as diagnostic screening and assessment. 

When a final economic recovery package passes the House and Senate, regardless of the final language that it includes, any increase in Title I funding will present an opportunity to expand birth to five investments in local communities. Early childhood advocates should begin to identify strategies now to work with LEAs and local Title I directors to take advantage of the flexibility of Title I funds to use them to support both early education and broad educational goals. 

 

New state-by-state policy data

CLASP has released new state-by-state data pages analyzing child care spending from the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds used for child care in federal fiscal year 2006 and in previous years, as well as CCDBG participation by state for 2007. This analysis is based on the most recently available data from the Administration for Children and Families.

In addition to new child care profiles, we have revised our state-by-state data pages making them more interactive and user-friendly. You can search for data profiles by topic or by state. Please check out our Child Care and Early Education Data Map for state profiles on:

• Child Care Assistance
• Community-based Pre-kindergarten
• Head Start Program Data
• Infant/toddler Initiatives
• State Early Head Start Initiatives

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.  We encourage policymakers and advocates to use these profiles to understand child care and early education funding, participation, and policy initiatives in their states and to inform their work and advocacy efforts. 

Minnesota drafts plan for eliminating poverty

In 2006, the Minnesota Legislature established an ambitious commission, the Legislative Commission to End Poverty in Minnesota by 2020, composed of members from both the state Senate and House of Representatives. This month, the commission released its draft plan on how to support low-income Minnesotan families move towards economic self-sufficiency. The plan identifies a set of major challenges that low-income families face and provides a set of recommendations to address those areas. One of the clearly identified challenges is access to affordable, high-quality child care for working families:

“We see that a significant barrier to employment for all families is access to affordable, high-quality child care and that many families have to make the difficult choice on whether or not to work, based on the availability of child care. Meeting families’ needs for affordable, high quality child care will benefit all families and have a major impact on reducing poverty in Minnesota.”

The plan stresses the need for increased investment in child care and early education as part of an anti-poverty strategy.  Among its recommendations, the plan echoes the Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty and calls for guaranteed access to child care for all low-income Minnesotan families. In addition, the plan recommends that children from low-income families have guaranteed access to high-quality preschool programs and programs with positive track records, such as Head Start and Way to Grow. The plan observes that early childhood education is crucial to providing children with a strong start towards life-long learning.

Choosing quality in Massachusetts

Two years ago, the Massachusetts Department of Early Childhood Education and Care decided to invest funds in a Universal Pre-Kindergarten pilot program offering competitive, discretionary grants to pre-kindergarten providers serving at-risk children. A report by Abt Associates examines how the 126 participating pre-kindergarten providers, including public and private child care centers, Head Start programs, public school programs, and family child care homes, invested their pilot grants. Their resounding choice: improving quality.

In Fiscal Year 2008, participating programs spent about half (48 percent) of their grants on their staff, including professional development opportunities and compensation. For example, some grantees offered bonuses to teachers with Bachelor’s degrees. Grantees reported that compensation initiatives like bonuses decreased turnover and encouraged other staff members to pursue additional education credentials. Professional development activities included training in assessment systems, curricula, child development, classroom management, and serving special needs children. Participating programs spent 28 percent of their grants on education/instruction, on items including curricula and assessment. Seventeen percent of the grants were spent on program operations, including the provision of comprehensive services and full day/full-year services.

Research has indeed shown that high-quality early care and education can provide long-term benefits for young children, especially at-risk children. But those gains are only realized if the early settings are indeed high-quality. In a recent news article, the department’s acting commissioner Amy Kershaw states that, "The early approach for pre-K is to ensure children already enrolled in preschool are receiving the highest quality of education. But the governor's long-term vision will eventually have us expand access."

Some districts gain Title I funds

As the 2008-2009 school year began, more schools and districts across the country received increases in their Title I funds than in recent years. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is the largest source of federal funding for low-income students. In FY 2008, Congress appropriated an 8 percent increase in Title I grants to states, the first significant increase in three years. The distribution of Title I funding to states is based on a complex formula that includes an annual updating of the number of low-income children in each state, based on estimates by the U.S. Census. According to the Center on Education Policy, every state (with the exception of Wisconsin) received an increase in Title I funding in 2008. Vermont, North Carolina, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Maine received the largest percent gains. Still, due to shifts in low-income populations, some school districts received fewer funds this year. Among those were Chicago Public Schools and Gwinnett County, Georgia, school districts that in recent years have used Title I to support early childhood programs.

CLASP's research shows that schools and districts across the country use Title I to support high-quality early education for children from birth to the age of school entry. While previous funding cuts and the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind law have in some cases constrained the ability of schools and districts to use Title I for early education, the availability of new dollars in some districts may create opportunities for expansion. Moreover, Title I funds are flexible and can be layered with other funding sources and be used in community-based settings. That means that early childhood champions will want to make the case now for quality investments and work with school districts and others in their community to incorporate Title I funds into their long-term strategies for funding early childhood programs.

Family child care and state pre-kindergarten programs

As states create and expand their pre-kindergarten programs, a key question is who can be a provider of the program. While some states limit the program to public schools, most include some community-based providers in an effort to expand access to the program for working families and to build the quality of these programs.

However, states are still struggling with ways to include family child care providers into their programs. While data shows that many children are served in these settings, especially children from low-income families, pre-kindergarten programs are often set up to require a traditional classroom model and exclude family child care.

Several successful models have emerged that include the children in family child care programs in state pre-kindergarten programs. Illinois Action for Children has published a new report that summarizes the success of one promising model, known as the Community Connections Preschool Model. In this program, children in regulated and unregulated home-based child care and their providers are included in the state pre-kindergarten program.

State-Funded Preschool and Home-Based Child Care: The Community Connections Model describes the model, in which preschool aged children in home-based care settings are transported to a half-day center-based preschool program. The home-based providers receive supports through project coordinators, who provide monitoring and technical assistance to the centers and to the home-based providers.

Several features have been critical to the success of the model, including an agreement with the state child care subsidy office to continue to provide a full-day subsidy to providers when children are in the state pre-kindergarten program. The project has shown significant benefits, for children and for providers, and other states may wish to replicate its successes as they move ahead with state pre-kindergarten implementation.