Federal%20Early%20Care%20and%20Education%20Issues

1
Federal Early Care and Education Issues

• NECTAC Conference
• December 3, 2007
• Helen Blank
• National Womens Law Center

2
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

3
CCDBG

• Will not be reauthorized this Congress
• Coalition effort to develop a shared vision for a
  revised CCDBG

4
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.

5
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.

6
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.

7
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.

8
Budget

• Money is tight. Major childrens 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.