Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced a bill that includes a range of strategies to help middle-class families, including expanding families’ access to the high-quality, affordable child care that they need to reach or remain in the middle class. The core child care improvements are included in Title II of the bill, but there are also provisions specific to early care and education in the sections on facilities and teacher stabilization in Title I. The bill addresses other issues that are important to women and their families as well. The bill takes a balanced approach to raising the revenues necessary to cover the costs of the various provisions.
Click here to read about other provisions of the Rebuild America Act.
Creating Financial Stability and a Better Future for Middle Class Families: Child Care Provisions (Title II)
- The bill establishes a new program – CCDBG Plus – administered by the Department of Health and Human Service that allows for five-year grants to states to create more high-quality child care options for families and to strengthen the quality of care.
- $5 billion a year for FY 2013 through FY 2022 is authorized for CCDBG Plus.
- Children under age 13 in families with income less than or equal to state median income are eligible.
- Priority is given to children in low-income families (families with incomes that are less than or equal to 200 percent of the federal poverty level).
- States must use at least 10 percent of the funds inspection and monitoring. All regulated child care providers must be inspected at least two times each year, starting no later than 3 years after the date of receipt of the grant. At a minimum, one of the visits must address health and safety, one visit must address child care quality, and one visit must be unannounced.
- States must reserve 10 percent of funds for activities to enhance the skills, knowledge, credentials, and compensation of the child care workforce, including ways that support career advancement through career ladders, and other activities to enhance child care quality and support child care providers, including family child care providers, in meeting the program’s standards.
- States must designate the remaining funds to award grants and contracts for high-quality early childhood care and education programs. Two-thirds of these funds are targeted for infants and toddlers, and one-third for children under the age of 13.
- Eligible providers must be a child care center, Head Start or Early Head Start program, or a family child care home or system that offers full-day, full-year care or before- or after-school care. The providers must also meet Head Start program performance standards, or standards established for the top tier of a state’s quality rating and improvement system, as appropriate, or be accredited by a national early childhood body with demonstrated valid and reliable program standards of high quality.
- 10 percent of the funds designated for grants and contracts must be reserved for non-traditional hours care. The Secretary of HHS may adjust the requirement that providers receiving grants or contracts meet certain standards as necessary to address the need for non-traditional hour care.
- 15 percent of the funds designated for grants and contracts are reserved for supporting high-quality care for children with disabilities.
- States must establish a sliding fee scale that provides for cost sharing by families and periodically revise the scale.
- States must describe how they are coordinating CCDBG Plus with CCDBG, Head Start and Early Head Start, the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, and the Part B Section 619 Preschool Grants program and Part C Grants for Infants and Families program under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and as applicable activities funded under the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge program.
- States must develop their applications in consultation with the State Advisory Council on Early Education and Care.
- Investments made to increase access to high-quality early care and education programs must give first priority to local areas that have high concentrations of poverty and unemployment and that lack these programs.
- States must describe the strategies that they will employ to promote parents’ and families’ understanding of the state’s early childhood care and education system and the importance of high-quality early learning opportunities.
- States’ success will be measured primarily by the extent to which they increase the number and percentage of low-income children in high-quality programs, using indicators defined by the Secretary.
- Allotments to states will be based on the formula for CCDBG discretionary funds, with 2 percent of funds reserved for Indian tribes or tribal organizations and 0.5 percent of funds reserved for Guam, America Samoa, the Virgin Islands of the United States, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
Investing in Infrastructure (Title I: Subtitle A)
- Authorizes $2 billion for each of fiscal years 2013 through 2022 for the repair, renovation, and modernization of educational facilities, including early learning facilities – child care centers, family child care homes, group homes and Head Start centers.
- Requires that after reserving 1.5 percent of funds for other purposes, states spend 10 percent of their grant to award sub grants for the modernization, renovation, or repair early learning facilities.
- Requires states to ask eligible entities to match funds; the amount of the match may be established by using a sliding scale that takes into account the relative poverty of the population served by the eligible entity.
- Requires states making sub grants to early learning facilities to include a description of how the state will:
- Coordinate, to the extent feasible, with state early childhood advisory councils.
- Encourage eligible entities to coordinate with organizations that have demonstrated experience in providing technical or financial assistance for the modernization, renovation, or repair of child care facilities.
- Requires states to described how they will give priority to:
- Eligible entities that serve the highest percentage of low-income individuals.
- Eligible entities that use certain green practices.
- Requires states to describe the steps that they will take to ensure that eligible entities receiving sub grants adequately maintain any facilities that are modernized, renovated, or repaired with sub grant funds.
Teacher Stabilization-Early Childhood (Title I: Subtitle E, Part I)
- Authorizes $30 billion for FY 2013, $20 billion for FY 2014, and $10 billion for FY 2015 for funds to states and local education agencies to prevent teacher layoffs in public schools and support the creation of additional jobs in public early childhood education and care programs and public elementary and secondary education.
- States may reserve not more than 10 percent of their grant funds to award sub grants to state-funded early childhood and education programs for compensation and benefits and other expenses, such as support services necessary to retain existing employees, recall, or rehire former employees or hire new employees to provide high-quality early childhood education and care.
- Remaining funds are reserved for state grants to local education agencies, which may use these funds for early childhood teachers in state or locally funded high-quality early care and education programs.
- State- or local-funded early childhood programs are defined as programs that provide educational services to children from birth through kindergarten entry and receive funding from a state or local government.