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.
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