Talking Points on Early Childhood Funding

Ask your networks to commit to making three calls to members of Congress between now and April 8 (when the last continuing resolution they passed expires) to talk about the importance of investments in early childhood. In partnership with the First Five Years Fund, we have developed talking points to assist you in your efforts.

Please make sure to refer to the state by state chart on the total number of children at risk for losing child care slots and also the factsheet on low-income children to tailor the talking points for your state.

Talking Points

Investments in early education help us build a smarter, healthier, and stronger America.  Deficit reduction will only come from wiser investment of public dollars and data consistently shows that starting early is such a wise choice. 
 
Early education ultimately lowers costs and reduces deficits by increasing academic performance, improving health outcomes, decreasing reliance on social programs, and building economic productivity.  Head Start/Early Head Start and the Child Care Development Block Grant are our key federal early learning investments.  These programs make a real difference for the millions of families and children they serve, yet millions more families and children are unable to participate: Due to insufficient funding, only one in six eligible children receive child care assistance.  Only four percent of eligible infants and toddlers can participate in Early Head Start and less than half of eligible preschool-age children can access Head Start. 
 
Given these gaps, and the importance of early learning to our country’s current and future economy, the economic recovery package included a prudent and essential expansion for these programs.  If these funds are not continued, over 300,000 at-risk young children will lose crucial early learning supports.  
 
So far, the additional funds necessary to avoid this tremendous loss have not been provided.  In our state, we would be losing up to XX children from these programs —and keep in mind that we have XX children who are at-risk in total. (or something about your state’s current gaps)  We are not reaching enough children as it stands, and even fewer children will be able to benefit from early learning programs if these funds are not provided.
 
We would like to work with you for responsible policies and investments.  You can make sure that these more than 300,000 children don't lose out by sustaining an additional $681 million for child care and an additional $840 million for Head Start in a long-term FY 2011 appropriations measure.