Child Care and Early Education at CLASP

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.

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.

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.

No country for young children

On Sunday, January 27, The Washington Post featured a story on the economic opportunities and struggles of retirees and the aging baby boomers. The article focused on the need for new careers, additional education and training, and help in making transitions to second or third careers for this population.  Government policies that support adults as they age are an important component of our country’s social safety net, but, what about the children? While an agenda that looks at the career prospects for our oldest citizens is interesting—and gets a prime position in the Washington Post—it does raise the question of whether our youngest citizens are being supported with opportunities that ensure their future success.  Is this really a country for young children? Multiple indicators of child well-being suggest that it’s not.

Many children living in low-income households are at risk despite their parents’ best efforts to work and support their families. Over half of young children in low-income households have a parent who works full-time throughout the year and an additional 27 percent have a parent who works either part-time or for part of the year. We need public policies that help these families so that that their children have all that they need to thrive—help with health insurance, food security, quality early care and education and other supports. Read more.

Preschool expulsions speak to need for comprehensive services

Why are 3- and 4-year old children expelled from state pre-kindergarten programs at extremely high rates—more than three times the rates of expulsion for children in grades K-12? A report released last week, Implementing Policies to Reduce the Likelihood of Preschool Expulsion identified several classroom characteristics associated with preschool expulsion—large class sizes and high teacher-child ratios, long hours of operation, and high levels of teacher job stress—that indicate that our children and our teachers need more support than is currently available.

Children with severe behavioral problems are most likely to be expelled from preschools, yet they are the very children who most need high-quality early learning experiences that can support their positive, healthy development and prepare them for school and for life. The report makes a series of recommendations that support teachers and positive teacher-child relationships, including ensuring the presence of early childhood mental health consultants in preschool classrooms to assist teachers in managing challenging behavior and to support children and their families. Early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) can improve children's behavior and decrease hyperactivity. Yet, fewer than a quarter of state pre-kindergarten teachers report access to this key support.

States can support mental health in all early childhood settings. An example, the Michigan Child Care Expulsion Prevention Program provides mental health consultants to child care centers, serving children birth to five, in 31 counties in the state. Funded through the infant/toddler set-aside in the Child Care and Development Block Grant, the program provides child- and family-centered interventions, which include linking families to community resources as needed, and provider training on working with children with mental health needs.

High-quality child care and early education can help young children with behavioral and other mental health needs but only if interventions provide comprehensive services and supports for them and their families. High rates of preschool expulsion confirm that we need to continue to pay attention to the socio-emotional needs of children to effectively prepare them for school and beyond. 

California’s working parents struggle to find licensed child care

The California Child Care Resource and Referral Network has published its biennial analysis of the supply of licensed child care in the state.  The results underscore the lack of investments in child care: there are only enough licensed child care slots for one-quarter of children with working parents.  For families with babies, the results are more distressing—only five percent of all licensed slots in child care centers are for children under age two. The lack of licensed child care choices means many parents may have to place their children in unlicensed settings, which may or may not be what they would otherwise choose. 

The report also notes that even families who can find licensed care cannot afford it.  The report looked at the cost of care by county, and found that the average annual cost for full time care for an infant in a licensed center is $10,745, consuming 69% of earnings for a single parent making minimum wage. In 34 counties, the combined cost of infant care and housing exceeds the income of a minimum wage earner.

Licensing matters for babies. For example, provisions in state child care licensing, such as the child-to-staff ratio and group size, affect the amount of time a child care provider can spend with children, and thus the likelihood that an infant or toddler receives the nurturing, responsive care essential to forming a secure attachment with their caregiver. Licensing standards are also important to the health and safety of infants and toddlers, who require additional care that older children do not, such as diapering, feeding, holding, bathing, and sleeping on their backs to prevent SIDS. The training, technical assistance, and monitoring embedded in state licensing systems assist licensed child care providers in providing quality care.

California is not the only state facing these shortages in licensed care.  Recent reports from NACCRRA highlight the high cost of care across the country and identified failings in state licensing systems.  The California report provides an important policy and advocacy tool for understanding the need for substantial new state and federal investments in the child care system—both to help low-income working families afford the care they need to work and to improve and expand the supply of licensed care, particularly for babies.

Learning from state experiences with building comprehensive prenatal-to-five early childhood systems

From the first day of life through entry into school, young children are developing foundations – built into the architecture of the brain - which will have an impact on their development and success later in life.  Although children develop holistically from the pre-natal period to age five, the federal, state and local government agencies and programs that exist to help them and their families along the way are often spread across multiple state agencies, with different funding streams, and rules.

A new report coauthored by ZERO TO THREE and Pre[k]Now examines five states’ efforts to build cohesive, comprehensive early childhood systems, suggests a set of cross-cutting components necessary for success, profiles the five states’ experiences (California, Illinois, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania), and makes recommendations for state policymakers. The two groups, whose work focuses on different age groups of the prenatal-to-five spectrum, together call for a time when this nation “supports the healthy development of all children within their states and communities by providing comprehensive, coordinated, well-funded systems of high-quality, prenatal-to-five services that foster success in school and life.”  Model state early childhood systems should address physical and mental health, family support, and early care and education needs of young children and their families.

Now is an important time to take heed of the call for a birth to five approach. The newly signed Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007 requires states to have State Advisory Councils on Early Education and Care in order to determine needs across programs serving children birth to age of school entry and to develop recommendations for coordination and collaboration between early childhood programs at the state and local level, and other tasks. If funding becomes available, the bill authorizes new federal incentive grants to promote the development and expansion of state early education systems. This provision may act as a catalyst for new and existing efforts of state policymakers to improve their early childhood systems. The new report joins other resources that can be helpful to move this important work forward.

Head Start children more likely to receive recommended immunizations

Child Trends Data Bank has released new 2006 estimates on child immunizations, noting that, "The proportion of children ages 19 to 35 months receiving the combined series (4:3:1:3) vaccines increased from 69 percent to 83 percent between 1994 and 2004. Since this time, however, progress towards full immunization of all children ages 19 to 35 months has stalled, standing at 82 percent in 2006." 

The 2006 data did not show significant differences by race and ethnicity, but did show significant differences by poverty status, with 78 percent of children living below the poverty level having their recommended vaccinations, compared to 84 percent for children not living in poverty.

Yet not all poor children are falling behind: in 2006, 93 percent of young children enrolled in Early Head Start had received all immunizations appropriate or possible by the end of the program year.  Working with families to ensure access to medical services, including immunizations, is a legal requirement of all Head Start programs. This comprehensive focus on all aspects of child development makes a difference, yet only about 3 percent of eligible infants and toddlers, and about half of eligible preschool age children, get access to Head Start. 

Children living in poverty face many risk factors to healthy development.  Staying on schedule for immunizations helps to prevent illness and potential delays to development.  Head Start and Early Head Start help these children stay on schedule, and provide other needed supports, such as identifying disabilities, linking families with a medical home, and finding dental services.  Yet current funding levels limit the reach of these important programs; without substantial increases in funding for Head Start and Early Head Start, the data will continue to show that poor children are falling behind.

Report documents local need, barriers to accessing child care subsidies

Fewer parents in Monroe County, New York are accessing the child care they need to work and support their families. The Center for Governmental Research, in Rochester, NY, recently released a report documenting a nearly 40 percent decline in children receiving subsidies since 2001--from 13,575 children served in an average month in 2001 to 8,400 children on average during the first four months of 2007. According to the report, over 12,000 children in Monroe County are living in families that are potentially eligible for child care assistance and are not receiving it.

The report drew on multiple sources including Census data, State and County data, and focus groups and interviews with parents, providers, Department of Human  Services staff, and child care advocates. Several policy changes at the county and state levels have contributed to the decline in children receiving assistance:

• Since 2002, income eligibility for child care subsidies in Monroe County has fallen from 200 percent of poverty to 165 percent.
• While fewer families are income-eligible for assistance, more parents seeking child care subsidies are being denied. The rate of applicant denial increased from 11 percent in 2001 to 50 percent in 2006. A contributing factor to this increase in denials was failure of applicants to comply with a 2004 New York State law that requires applicants to seek child support payment as a condition of receiving child care assistance. (Federal law does not require parents to seek child support from a non-custodial parent in order to obtain a child care subsidy although several states have this requirement.)
• Finally, the county has decreased spending on child care in recent years, contributing to an accumulation of approximately $5 million in unspent child care funds.

Interestingly, the report found that the overall decline in children receiving assistance occurred both among low-income working families and families receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) assistance—even while the number of families receiving TANF increased slightly. The report was unable to conclude why a large number of TANF child care cases were of a short duration or why few families transitioned to the income-eligible child care assistance program.

States and localities can benefit greatly from conducting local assessments such as this one that map the need for child care assistance and determine where there is a need for child care subsidies, whether it matches the location of licensed providers, as well as what challenges parents and providers face in navigating the child care subsidy system. Interviews in Monroe County revealed that in addition to demographic and policy changes, perceptions of a burdensome and unfriendly application process also contributed to fewer families seeking and retaining. Information, such as that included in the CGR report, can help determine what policies could be put in place to better support families and their access to child care subsidies.

Questioning the candidates for the kids

Do you have questions for the presidential candidates about their positions on children's issues, but don't have the opportunity to ask them because you don't live in New Hampshire, Iowa, or South Carolina? A coalition of 20 Iowa organizations has leveraged their location in one of the key states in the presidential race to ask them for you.

A new website, www.itsaboutourkids.org, has posted the results of this effort to survey all the Republican and Democratic candidates on a set of questions on child care, preschool, afterschool, health care, services for children with disabilities, child abuse and neglect, family economic security and success, immigration policy, and ensuring equal economic opportunity.  No Republican candidates have responded thus far, but all the Democratic candidates have submitted their answers. The website also contains links to all the candidates’ websites, guides to finding child and family policy positions on the websites, and tools for citizens on how to find out more information about the candidates.

No matter the candidate, child care and early education policies should receive serious attention during this election season.   Working families need child care, and children need high quality, nurturing early learning experiences. Three-quarters of children under age five with employed mothers experience non-parental child care regularly, often full time. Babies and toddlers under age three are not excluded from this trend, and there is evidence the care they experience is more likely to be of low quality. But quality is expensive, and the average cost of full time care for an infant in a child care center is as high as $14,647 depending on the state. Stagnant federal funding for child care and early education programs has meant fewer children get access to the assistance that helps their parents pay for child care. A federal commitment to helping more low-income families choose the best care for their children – that would get our vote.