Special Commission on Early Education and CareFinal Recommendations

January 6, 2013

www.pcghumanservices.com

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AgendaI. Legislative BackgroundII. Commission MembershipIII. Meeting Schedule and ApproachIV. Final Recommendations V. Special Commission Website

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Legislative BackgroundSpecial Commission Mandate established by Section 166 of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s FY14 budget:

Study the cost of administering early education and care services in the commonwealth and make recommendations to enhance said services. Specifically:

Collect and examine data on need for:• greater access to affordable, quality early education and care • timely placement of children in early education and care programs• funding and programming necessary to enhance early education and care

services

Examine methods for: • maximizing cost-savings through public-private partnerships to bolster timely

placement of children • addressing the high cost of child care• expanding the availability of affordable child care services for families receiving

transitional assistance• determining initial and continuing eligibility for such services• Improvements to financing, budgeting, assessing and administering early education

and care based on best practices from other states and jurisdictions

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Commission MembershipMember Affiliation

Senator Michael Barrett Senate Chair, Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities

Molly Bench Designee of Glen Shor, Secretary of Administration and Finance

Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz Senate Chair, Joint Committee on Education

Mary Jane Crotty Designee of Mitchell Chester, Commissioner, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

Representative Marjorie Decker Member, Massachusetts House of Representatives

Senator Sal DiDomenico Member, Massachusetts SenateBill Eddy Massachusetts Association of Early Education and CareJudge Gail Garinger The Child Advocate

Edward Goddard, Esq. Designee of Senator Richard Ross, Ranking Minority Senate Member, Joint Committee on Education

Clare Higgins Community Action of the Franklin, Hampshire, and North Quabbin regions

Amy Kershaw Designee of Olga Roche, Commissioner, Department of Children and Families

Representative Kay Khan House Chair, Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities

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Commission MembershipMember Affiliation

Pam Kuechler Massachusetts Head Start AssociationMadeleine Leger AFT-MA

Anne O'Sullivan Designee of Stacey Monahan, Commissioner, Department of Transitional Assistance

Representative Alice Peisch House Chair, Joint Committee on Education

Andy Pond Justice Resource InstituteTim Sullivan Massachusetts Teachers Association

Donna Traynham Designee of Mitchell Chester, Commissioner, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

Representative David Vieira

Designee of Representative Kimberly Ferguson, Ranking Minority House Member, Joint Committee on Education

Thomas Weber, Chairman Commissioner, Department of Early Education and CareAbby Weiss Manager of the Child and Youth Readiness Cabinet Consultant to the Commission Public Consulting Group, Inc. (Nathan Grossman, Tina Chen-Xu, & Hannah Sacchini)

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• Meeting 1, September 18th: Introduction• Meeting 2, October 2nd: Review Approach• Meeting 3, October 16th: Topic 1 Health & Safety

• Licensing & monitoring• Background record checks• Health & safety infrastructure

• Meeting 4, November 6th: Topic 2 Financing/Child Care Rates• EEC financing• EEC child care rates• Financing/Child care rates infrastructure

• Meeting 5, November 25th: Topic 3 Quality & Workforce• QRIS

• EEC Quality Initiatives

• EEC’s workforce initiatives

• Meeting 6, December 11th: Review draft recommendations• Meeting 7, December 18th: Review draft report

Meeting Schedule & Approach

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Health & SafetyTopic Description Commission Mandate

Licensing & monitoring

• Licensing ratios are higher than national recommended standards• Potential efficiency can be gained through differential monitoring• EEC’s child care licensing regulations are equivalent to Level 1 in the QRIS; Health & Safety is baseline for addressing quality

166. (b) The commission shall collect and examine data relative to the need for greater access to affordable, quality early education and care.

Background checks

• Background checks of early education and care providers, including finger printing and cross checks with sex offender registry

Health & safety infrastructure

• New requirements for background checks require increased staff resources• Efficiencies can be gained through improvements to IT infrastructure

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Topic Description Commission Mandate

True cost of care

• Cost gap with EEC rates• Return on Investment: quantify benefits to the state and community due to child care placements

166. (b) The commission shall collect and examine data relative to the need for greater access to affordable, quality early education and care and the timely placement of children in early education and care programs… The commission shall also examine methods for addressing the high cost of child care and expanding the availability of affordable child care services.

Waitlist/Access

• Waitlist reduction access to place more children on EEC vouchers or in slots • True value of waitlist reduction funding • Capacity of CCR&Rs to assist families with placement

166. (b) The commission shall collect and examine data relative to the need for greater access to affordable, quality early education and care and the timely placement of children in early education and care programs.

Financing/Child Care Rates

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Financing/Child Care RatesTopic Description Commission Mandate

Access for families receiving transitional assistance

• Methods for expanding the availability of affordable child care services for families receiving transitional assistance

166. (b) The commission shall also examine methods for addressing the high cost of child care and expanding the availability of affordable child care services for families receiving transitional assistance, including an examination of methods for determining initial and continuing eligibility for such services.

Alternative financing strategies

• Potential innovative policies and practices to finance early education and care through alternate funding streams

166. (c) The commission, in formulating its recommendations, shall take into account the best policies and practices related to financing and administering early education and care in other states and jurisdictions, including but not limited to, those relating to budgeting and assessment strategies.

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Quality & Workforce

Topic Description Commission Mandate

Definition of quality & QRIS

• Early childhood educator education/training requirements and relationship with child outcomes • QRIS quality measures and relationship with child outcomes

166. (b) The commission shall collect and examine data relative to the need for greater access to affordable, quality early education and care.

Funding and programming necessary to enhance early ed care and services

Workforce • Measure of retention by region or type of care

• EEC workforce retention strategies

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Final Recommendations • Health and Safety• Access and Quality• Rates and Workforce • Supporting Recommendations• Near-Term Considerations*

*Near-term considerations indicated with a blue asterisks

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Health and Safety Recommendations#1: The Commonwealth should appropriate resources to meet the state’s high standard of monitoring licensed programs in order to meet the nationally recognized recommended program-to-licensor caseload ratios.*

#2: The Commonwealth should appropriate resources to support the EEC program investigation units in determining if programs subject to licensure or approval are operating in compliance with the law and rules and regulations established by the Board of Early Education and Care.*

#3: The Commonwealth should support the Department in the development and implementation of a system of identifying and more closely monitoring early education and care programs at risk of being out of compliance with licensing and regulation standards.*

 *near-term consideration

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Health and Safety Recommendations#4: The Commonwealth should appropriate resources to maintain the Background Records Checks (BRC) unit of the Department to ensure the sustainability of the state’s high standards for background records checks.*

#5: The Commonwealth should make statutory changes to allow the sharing of data between the Sex Offender Registry Board (SORB) and EEC to improve the efficiency of the background record checks process.

#6: The Commonwealth should support the Department in conducting an independent feasibility study to increase transparency to parents selecting care by making licensing records of early education and care programs available to the public online. The feasibility study should determine a recommended scope of work, schedule, and financial plan.

*near-term consideration

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Health and Safety Recommendations#7: The Commonwealth should support the Department in conducting a study to thoroughly review transportation services funded by the Department. The study should include an analysis of the Department's transportation rate structure, transportation rate structures at other state agencies in the Commonwealth, the true cost of transportation, and national best practices for providing early education and care transportation.

#8: The Commonwealth should appropriate funding necessary for early education and care program transportation services.*

*near-term consideration

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Access and Quality Recommendations #9: The Commonwealth should appropriate resources to open access to early education and care in the state by reducing the waitlist for Income Eligible early education and care.*

#10: The Commonwealth should provide adequate resources to EEC and DCF to manage and provide access to high-quality Supportive early education and care services for children involved in the child welfare system to support their safety as well as their cognitive physical, and social/emotional development.*

#11: The Commonwealth should appropriate resources to the Department to allow continued progress on its programs and initiatives to increase the quality of early education and care across the state. EEC’s current initiatives take into consideration the strong relationship between quality and early education and care rates, as they aim to simultaneously enhance program quality by targeting both QRIS development and rate structure improvement.*

[*near-term consideration]

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Rates and Workforce Recommendations #12: The Commonwealth should support funding progress toward the federal child care provider rate benchmark and appropriate resources necessary for the Department to conduct in-depth analysis and develop recommendations for a child care provider rate structure that better reflects the true cost of care.*

#13: The Commonwealth should appropriate resources to the Department to assess different options for structuring early educators’ compensation and other incentives to better reflect and support quality initiatives. The Department should work collaboratively with early education and care programs in the assessment process and discussions of alternative options.

#14: The Commonwealth should support changes to the Child Care Quality Fund to allow all early education and care programs access to the grant funding to improve the quality programs through educator training and development and/or the purchase of educational materials.

[*near-term consideration]

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Rates and Workforce Recommendations #15: The Commonwealth should support EEC in the establishment of educational standards for staff working in Residential programs having unsupervised contact with children. In FY14, EEC licenses over 400 Residential programs. Residential programs provide 24-hour care and services to the neediest and most at-risk children in the Commonwealth. There are 356 licensed group care programs and 68 shelter care programs.

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Supporting Recommendations#16: The Commonwealth should appropriate resources to allow EEC to develop methods to efficiently share program information among EEC’s currently disparate data systems: EEC’s investigations, background record checks, compliance, and monitoring systems; as well as the Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS) and Professional Qualifications Registry (PQR). There should also be a process for seamless data exchanges with other state agencies’ systems, such as with the Elementary and Secondary Education’s Educator Licensing and Recruitment (ELAR) and the Massachusetts Education Personnel ID (MEPID) and with systems at DCF and DTA to support efficient child care subsidy referral and management.

#17: The Commonwealth should appropriate resources to allow EEC to develop applications and compatibilities so that EEC staff can access the Department’s data systems remotely from mobile devices.

#18: The EEC Advisory Council should comprehensively monitor the progress implementation of the Special Commission recommendations, and update and revise if necessary.

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Special Commission Website• http://eeccommission.publicconsultinggroup.com/• Login: EEC, password: brainbuilding• Includes the cover letter and final report, schedule of meetings, agendas and minutes,

research, contacts, and background on the Commission and its mandate