On June 9, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families held a hearing, “Getting the Most Bang for the Buck: Quality Early Education and Care.”
In establishing the context for the hearing, Chair Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) said, “What we will hear from the witnesses today is that providing our nation’s youngest children with high-quality early childhood development programs is the best way to improve their individual futures and our collective economic future. We all know the moral arguments behind investing in children, but we must also examine the economic and academic benefits of quality early childhood education and care. Programs such as Head Start and Early Head Start have proven long-term economic payoffs, such as higher income and higher tax revenues, less crime, decreased referrals for special education, better health, reductions in welfare use, less child abuse, increased worker productivity, and a larger, more qualified workforce. Studies have shown that for every $1 we invest in high-quality early childhood development programs, our society sees a return on investment of $16 – predominantly because of lower crime costs.”
Dr. Joan Lombardi, deputy assistant secretary and inter-departmental liaison for Early Childhood Development, Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the Department of Health and Human Services, discussed some of ACF’s efforts to improve child care. Dr. Lombardi said, “Our focus in the child care program is on raising the quality of care across the country. A large body of research has linked the quality of child care and early education programs to children’s developmental outcomes, especially for children from low-income households and with multiple risk factors…Despite the importance of quality, the research and data available indicate that the quality of our nation’s child care, on average, is inadequate to support children’s learning and development to help them succeed in school and in life, and in the worst cases is harmful to children’s basic health and safety. Too often state-established standards are not high enough to ensure the health and safety of children; they do not apply to many settings in which young children are cared for; and monitoring to ensure compliance with standards is not adequate.”
She continued, “We are addressing this inadequacy by improving the child care program in the following ways: First, the Child Care and Development Block Grant [CCDBG (P.L. 101-508)] is long overdue for reauthorization and the administration has put forward principles to reform the program and promote quality as envisioned in the following core principles: Improving Quality – Reauthorization should establish a foundation that will assure health and safety in child care and a systemic framework through which states can improve the quality of child care by increasing the share of dollars dedicated to quality improvement. Increased quality funding will support stronger state health and safety standards, the implementation of Quality Rating Improvement Systems that set standards of excellence and help programs meet higher standards, and professional development systems to improve the qualifications of child care teachers. Expanding Access – Increased funding will support services to 1.7 million children, approximately 220,000 more than could be served without additional funds. Promoting Continuity of Care – Our reforms would establish longer eligibility periods for families receiving child care to minimize disruptions for children and to support parent employment and reemployment. Ensuring Program Integrity – We propose to invest in regional and state capacity to improve program integrity and provide technical assistance to states on reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. Streamlining Resources for Early Childhood Development Programs – We will facilitate coordination of funding streams at the state and local level and remove barriers to collaboration so that states and communities can better address the comprehensive needs of children from zero to five.”
Citing the Military Child Care Act (MCCA) (P.L. 101-189) as a model, Linda Smith, executive director of the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA), compared the MCCA with CCDBG, saying, “At the core of the Military Child Care Act are some key provisions that help set a framework for a system of quality care. First, there are comprehensive background checks, including fingerprint checks against state and federal records. Child abuse records are checked for substantiated claims. The intent is that children should be safe in child care. Convicted felons, sex offenders, and those with a history of child abuse should not receive DOD [Department of Defense] money to care for children. This was a congressional mandate in 1990. In contrast CCDBG has no background check requirement. As a result, state laws vary greatly. Only ten states require a comprehensive background check for those working child care centers. Only eight states require a comprehensive background check for family child care home providers. Between the two, only five states require a comprehensive check for both centers and family child care homes. Second, the MCCA requires the secretary of Defense to establish a uniform training program for child care providers. The act requires, at a minimum, that training shall cover early childhood development, activities and disciplinary techniques appropriate to children of different ages, child abuse prevention and detection, [and] CPR and other emergency medical procedures…In contrast, the CCDBG has no minimum training requirement. State requirements vary greatly. Only thirteen states require child care providers in centers to have initial training in child development. While state requirements are improving on health and safety requirements, only 34 states require all ten basic health and safety practices that experts recommend (such as requiring babies to be placed on their backs to sleep as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics)…Third, the MCCA requires at least quarterly inspections for child care programs. Regular inspections are a means of ensuring that children are cared for in settings that meet minimum health and safety requirements…In contrast, the CCDBG has no inspection requirement.” Ms. Smith added, “While I have mentioned several of the shortcomings of CCDBG, it is not all doom and gloom on the CCDBG front. There are many outstanding programs in this country and many people working hard to the do the best they can for children. CCDBG has played an important role in helping low-income families better afford access to child care.”
Dennis Hillian, family service coordinator, Charles County Judy Center in Maryland; Arthur Rolnick, senior fellow and co-director, Human Capital Research Collaborative, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota; Eva Tansky Blum, senior vice president and director, Community Affairs, PNC Bank; and Charlie Mills, III, founder and chief executive officer, Salera Capital Management in Virginia, also testified.
