Child Care

Gail Collins' column "Power to the Preschoolers", published last Thursday, emphasized the importance of investing in prekindergarten while noting the challenges that the President's Early Learning Initiative may face moving forward. Collins alluded to the previous day's "Tweetchat" generating support for prekindergarten, which was organized by National Women's Law Center. She was not the only one following the Tweetchat — it successfully placed "#PreKForAll" on the computer screens of 40 million Twitter users. The hashtag (#PreKForAll) trended nationally for almost an hour, garnering tweets from Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a number of members of Congress, and President Obama. 

Collins' column prompted an overwhelmingly supportive response among her readers on the issue of early education. The feedback in the Times comments section was largely positive, with commenters citing the benefits that early learning opportunities grant children and society. Commenters fondly recalled their own experiences with early education, suggested strategies to fund the investment, and struggled to make sense of the opposition’s concerns.  Read more »

Today is the Early Learning Day of Action! In April the President Obama proposed his early care and education initiative which would greatly increase access to high-quality pre-K for four-year-olds with a new investment of $75 billion to support state-federal partnerships, expand the availability of high-quality options for infants and toddlers through partnerships between Early Head Start and child care, and expand voluntary home visiting programs with a new investment of $15 billion.

After the jump, you’ll find links to blog posts from NWLC staff members and from our participants. Keep checking back here for the latest posts!

p.s. Are you on Twitter? Join us at 2:00 pm ET for a tweetchat on early learning. Our official chat hashtag is #PreKForAll, and we’ll be joined by U.S. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, and other special guests!

Have a blog you’d like to submit to the blog carnival? Leave a link in the comments section on this post or email it to djackson@nwlc.org. Read more »

Women are the sole or primary earners in two-fifths (40 percent) of households with children under age 18, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center. This group includes 5.1 million married mothers who earn more than their husbands and 8.6 million single mothers. Women out-earned their husbands in nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of married-couple families with children in 2011, an increase from just 4 percent in 1960.

With mothers' widespread participation in the workforce, and the essential contribution they make to their families' income, child care is more important than ever. Parents need reliable, high-quality child care so they can get and keep a job and work productively knowing that their children are in a safe, nurturing environment. 

Yet child care is hard to find and difficult to afford for families across the country. The average cost of full-time child care [PDF] ranges from about $3,900 to nearly $15,000 a year, depending on where a family lives and the type of care. Read more »

Congress recently acted with uncharacteristic speed to undo the cuts to air traffic controllers implemented as part of the “sequester” (the across-the-board federal budget cuts), before flying home to their districts for a weeklong break. While making sure that the cuts did not cause them delays at the airport, they ignored the cuts that are affecting vulnerable women and children across the country. These include cuts to a range of crucial supports for families such as child care assistance and Head Start.

The National’s Women’s Law Center’s new fact sheet describes the importance of child care assistance in helping parents afford the care they need to work and support their families, and ensure their children are in safe, reliable care that fosters their learning and growth. Congress should be investing more in child care assistance, not chipping away at the help there is through arbitrary budget cuts. Read more »

Arlington, Virginia has turned back a proposal to eliminate the county’s important child care health and safety standards, thanks to strong advocacy efforts and recognition by County Board members of the importance of protecting our youngest children. The county manager, as part of an effort to address a budget shortfall, had proposed to save $250,000 by eliminating the local Office of Child Care Licensing. But letters and phone calls from the public and research from early childhood experts convinced the County Board that the short-term savings were far outweighed by the benefits of safeguarding children’s well-being.

Arlington County’s child care standards are crucial for ensuring the health and safety of children because Virginia does not set adequate standards of its own. For example, Virginia does not regulate providers caring for fewer than six unrelated children, while Arlington regulates any providers caring for more than three children. Read more »

Everyone’s ears perked up when President Obama announced his new early childhood education plan at the State of the Union last month. And many noticed when Jon Stewart started talked prekindergarten and the President’s plan on the Daily Show. But the focus on early care and education isn't just happening at the national level: 27 governors across the country — from left, right, and center — signaled that early childhood was a priority for them in their State of the State addresses.

Like the President, these governors (and the Mayor of Washington, D.C.) recognize that investing in children in their earliest years is the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. Early care and education helps nurture young children and prepares them for future educational and career success, provides crucial support for parents, and strengthens our nation's economy.

A number of governors called for significant new investments in early care and education to expand access to high-quality early learning opportunities. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said he wanted to "ensure that every child in Massachusetts has access to high-quality early education." Read more »

This morning I visited a Head Start classroom with NWLC’s Director of Child Care and Early Learning, Helen Blank, and two recognizable guests.

Helen was part of a select group of early childhood advocates invited to join Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as they visited the Judy Center at Rolling Terrace Elementary School in Takoma Park, Maryland. Judy Centers are located in or affiliated with elementary school across Maryland and provide a comprehensive set of services for at-risk children birth through age five and their families.

Secretaries Duncan and Sebelius treated the children to a great rendition of “Green Eggs and Ham” and I got to play press photographer. The children seemed to thoroughly enjoy their new storytellers though they were a bit skeptical when Secretary Sebelius tried to use the story to encourage them to try new foods.

“Have you ever tried a food you thought you wouldn’t like and then you liked it?” she asked.

“No,” a little boy responded matter-of-factly. Read more »

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. Read more »

“So tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.”

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, the President called for making prekindergarten available to all children through a federal-state partnership. He made a compelling case for this investment in early education, noting the benefits for children, parents, and our nation’s economy. He explained how early education could help children succeed in school and in life. He talked about the importance of helping parents struggling with the high costs of preschool. And he discussed his proposal as a key part of building the strong workforce we need for our future economic prosperity.

The President demonstrated his commitment to early education not only by mentioning it in his State of the Union address, but also by inviting Susan Bumgarner, an early childhood educator from Oklahoma—a state that makes prekindergarten available to all four-year-olds—to be a guest of the First Lady during the address. Susan Bumgarner is one of the many early education teachers (most of whom are women) across our country who are helping our children grow and learn so they are ready for school.

We are excited about this proposal and about working to make it a reality for children and families. We look forward to hearing more details, as there are many questions about exactly what form it will take and how it will work. For example: What role will states play in making prekindergarten available? Read more »

Minnesota and Missouri have joined Massachusetts in proposing new state investments in early childhood education and care. However, just as we were cheering those states, Kentucky announced damaging cuts to its child care assistance program, reminding us yet again that these programs and the low-income women and children they support are in a fragile position.

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton has proposed to provide $20 million over the 2014-2015 biennium to increase rates for child care providers serving families receiving child care assistance. He has also proposed (PDF) to provide $44 million to expand scholarships to enable low-income families to purchase high-quality early care and education for their children. Read more »