Karen Schulman, Senior Policy Analyst

Yesterday, as President Obama visited an early learning center in Decatur, Georgia, the White House released a fact sheet with more details about the early education proposal the President announced in his State of the Union address. Under the President’s comprehensive plan, the federal government and states would work together to increase access high-quality early learning opportunities for children from birth to age five through expansion of voluntary home visiting programs, prekindergarten, Early Head Start, child care, and full-day kindergarten.

The President proposes to provide funding to states to help them make prekindergarten available to all four-year-olds in families with incomes below 200 percent of poverty ($39,060 a year for a family of three). The federal government would offer incentives for states to provide prekindergarten to middle-income families as well. Prekindergarten programs would have to meet a set of quality standards, including having qualified teachers paid comparably to K-12 teachers, small class sizes and low child-teacher ratios, and comprehensive health and other support services. The programs could be provided in a range of settings, from schools to child care centers to other community-based programs, as is currently the case for many state-funded prekindergarten programs.

The National Women's Law Center's annual report on state child care assistance policies, Downward Slide: State Child Care Assistance Policies Report 2012, examined policies that are critical in determining families' access to child care assistance and the extent of help they receive from that assistance — income eligibility limits, waiting lists, parents copayments, provider reimbursement rates, and eligibility for parents searching for a job. The report found that families in 27 states were worse off in February 2012 than in February 2011 under one or more of these child care assistance policies, and families in 17 states were better off under one or more of these policies. Yet this tells only part of the story. Many other policies affect whether families can get help affording high-quality child care. These policies are particularly important to highlight since a number of states have recently made changes to them — some positive, some negative. The Center's new fact sheet, On the Edges: Child Care Assistance Policies that Affect Parents, Providers, and Children, describes some of these policies and provides a few examples of recent state policy changes.

Some states have adopted changes to their eligibility policies that make it more difficult for families to receive child care assistance. For example, Kansas began requiring that most adults receiving child care assistance be employed a minimum of 20 hours per week (unless they meet criteria for exemption). Nevada no longer provides child care assistance for parents in education or training programs (except for minor parents working toward their high school diploma or GED). These policy changes can create barriers for parents who are just starting a job and only have limited hours or parents who are trying to get the education they need for better-paying, more stable employment — parents who are trying to gain more secure financial footing, but who can only do that if they have child care that allows them to work.