Federal Early Care and Education Issues

NECTAC ConferenceDecember 3, 2007

Helen BlankNational Women’s Law Center

Key Programs

• Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG)

• Head Start• Higher Education Act• No Child Left Behind• Food Stamps• Part B and Part C

CCDBG

• Will not be reauthorized this Congress

• Coalition effort to develop a shared vision for a revised CCDBG

Head Start

• Conference Report passed.• Bill:

– Halts the high stakes assessment of Head Start children.

– Provides more flexibility to meet families’ needs.– Targets funding and attention to special populations.– Increases teacher education and training

requirements.– Enhances quality and coordination.– Creates a process for competition for Head Start

grantees.– Makes changes to governance and monitoring.– Does not increase funding substantially for FY 2008,

FY 2009 or FY 2010.

Higher Education Act

• Advocates are seeking new provisions for:– Grants to states to design,

coordinate, and implement a comprehensive early childhood workforce career system.

– Grants to states to expand assistance for higher education and retention for early childhood professionals.

– Loan forgiveness.

No Child Left Behind• A federal prekindergarten initiative could be included.• Advocates are also seeking new provisions for:

– Joint professional development for teachers of young children in schools, child care, state-funded prekindergarten, Early Head Start, and Head Start.

– Early Education professional development for school principals, district superintendents, other district administrators, and central office staff.

– Early Childhood Education Teams• For local educational agencies.• For Title I elementary schools.

– Effective alignment of standards, curricula, and assessments for scaffolding learning achievement.

– Transition from prekindergarten to kindergarten.– Encouraging state educational agencies to promote early childhood

programs at the local level.– Continuing to ensure that local districts have flexibility to use Title I funds

for early education.

Food Stamps

• The child care deduction has been unchanged since 1986.

• Deduction is $200 for children under age two, and $175 for all other children.

• Both Senate and House Farm Bills eliminates the cap on child care expenses.

Budget• Money is tight. Major

children’s focus was on SCHIP – no progress.

• Appropriations bills set individual program amounts.

• CCDBG discretionary funds frozen for six years.– Conference included a $32.5

million increase.

• Head Start bill: high expectations and limited resources.– Conference included a $154

million increase.

• Part C – $6.5 million increase• President vetoed Labor – HHS

appropriations bill.