On March 25, the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education held a hearing, “The Foundation for Success: Strengthening the Child Care and Development Block Grant Program.” On March 13, the Senate approved a bill to reauthorize the CCDBG program (see The Source, 3/14/14).
A primary concern of policymakers as they consider the reauthorization of the CCDBG program has been the states’ ability to provide parents with information regarding the health and safety of CCDBG-funded facilities. Paula Koos, executive director, Oklahoma Child Care Resource & Referral Association, Inc., explained that “[P]arents have very clear expectations about what they want from their child care provider and what they expect from the government when it comes to protecting their children in child care. Parents think that a child care license is some type of gold standard, in short, the state’s seal of approval in order to offer child care. Parents assume a license means that adults providing child care have had a background check and training specific to child care. Parents believe there are required health and safety protections for their children, and some expert does inspections to ensure compliance with laws and policies for child care. Parents also assume that all child care settings are monitored when, in many states, large numbers of providers are legally exempt from oversight. The reality is that there is a large gap between parent expectations and state policies.”
The following witnesses also testified:
