One Small Step for Children: Senate Moves Ahead on Early Childhood Funding

This week, we had a small piece of good news about federal investments in child care and early education. On June 12, the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee approved a fiscal year 2013 appropriations bill that included increased funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), Head Start, and early intervention services and provided new funding for Race to the Top, with a portion set aside for the Early Learning Challenge.

The bill would increase Child Care and Development Block Grant discretionary funding by $160 million, to $2.438 billion. (Discretionary funding is set each year; there is also $2.917 billion in mandatory CCDBG funding.) The increase includes $90 million to support training, education, and other professional development opportunities for the early care and education workforce, which is key to improving the overall quality of early care and education, and $70 million to help more families pay for care and raise reimbursement rates for child care providers. By providing funding to expand the availability of child care assistance as well as to enhance the quality of the workforce, the Senate Subcommittee is signaling that it recognizes investments in both areas are essential in giving families access to higher-quality child care options.

The bill would also increase funding for Head Start by $70 million, to $8.039 billion. This additional funding will be used to implement the re-designation process, which requires Head Start grantees that are not meeting quality measures to compete to continue receiving funding, and minimize disruptions for children during this process. The additional funding will also be used to help cover grantees’ rising costs.

The bill includes $600 million for the Race to the Top education reform program, a $51 million increase. A significant portion of fiscal year 2013 funds would be used for the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge, which provides competitive grants to states for strengthening their early care and education systems.

In addition, the bill would increase funding for early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families (under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) by $20 million, to $463 million.

There are still many, many steps left in the process before any of these increases are enacted, with many, many hurdles along the way—and the process is unlikely to be completed in time for the start of the new fiscal year in October. The full Senate Appropriations Committee, and then the full Senate, must vote on the appropriations measure. Next, the Senate will have to negotiate a final appropriations measure with the House, which has placed tighter limits on discretionary funding. Still, it’s encouraging that the Senate is giving an early sign of its support for important early childhood investments.

UPDATE: On June 14, the full Senate Appropriations committee approved the fiscal year 2013 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill by a vote of 16-14.  The funding increases for early childhood programs were maintained, except for the additional funding for Race to the Top.  That $51 million increase was instead used to restore funding for a program to improve math and science teaching skills.  So Race to the Top would be level-funded at $550 million, but the bill still includes language recommending that a significant portion of the funding be used for early learning.