Transcript Current Topics/ Public Policy

Current Topics/
Public Policy
EDU 262
Spring 2015
Public Policy
• an attempt by a government to address a public
issue by instituting laws, regulations, decisions, or
actions pertinent to the problem at hand.
• Numerous issues can be addressed by public policy
including
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crime,
education,
foreign policy,
health, and
social welfare.
2015 State of the Union: NAEYC Applauds
President's Child Care Proposal
• President Barack Obama delivered a groundbreaking State
of the Union address
• The President presented a major tax reform proposal that
demonstrates his commitment to young children and their
families
• The President's proposal would create a simpler, fairer tax
code allowing for greater investments to benefit middleand low-income families and grow the economy.
• The proposal would not only help streamline child care tax
benefits, but also increase the maximum child care credit
for middle class families with young children to $3,000 per
child – triple the current amount.
• This tax reform would benefit 5.1 million families, helping
them cover child care costs for millions of children.
2015 State of the Union
• The State of the Union highlighted the importance of
early learning, stressing that in order for parents to
work and feel secure in today's economy, affordable
high-quality child care is "a must-have."
• NAEYC congratulates the President for taking this firm
stance on the importance of child care and referring to
it as a "national economic priority."
• NAEYC looks forward to working with the
Administration and Congress to improve the quality of
child care settings and to ensure that all families have
access to the child care that best meets their needs.
President Announces Exciting
New Child Care Proposal
On January 21, 2015, President Obama outlined his plan
to make affordable, quality child care available to every
working and middle-class family with young children.
His plan includes:
• Making a landmark investment in the Child Care and
Development Fund that helps every eligible family with
young children afford high-quality child care.
• Tripling the maximum child care tax credit to $3,000
per young child.
• Creating a new innovation fund to help states design
programs that better serve families that face unique
challenges in finding quality care, such as those in rural
areas or working non-traditional hours.
NEW INVESTMENTS IN CHILD CARE
AFFORDABILITY, QUALITY, AND
AVAILABILITY
The President proposes unprecedented investments
in making quality child care affordable and available
for working families by:
• Expanding access to child care assistance for all
eligible families with children under four years of
age, within ten years.
• Cutting taxes for families paying child care with a
credit of up to $3,000 per child
• Eliminate complex child care flexible spending
accounts and reinvest the savings in the improved
CDCTC
Improving the quality of child care.
• Last year Congress acted on a bipartisan basis to pass
child care legislation that includes much-needed
reforms to improve the quality and safety in child care
settings, including requiring training for providers to
prevent sudden infant death syndrome, instituting
annual inspections of child care facilities, and
comprehensive background checks of all providers.
• This proposal would provide the resources to help
states implement those important reforms and support
the expansion of access to quality child care programs
staffed by early educators that can provide
developmentally appropriate services that promote the
healthy development and school readiness of young
children
Promoting Innovation in the Child
Care Subsidy System
• The President will also invest $100 million in new
competitive grants to states, territories, tribes and
communities to develop, implement and evaluate
models of providing child care to address the
unmet needs for families who face unique
challenges to securing child care.
• These pilots could be used to develop promising
practices for families in rural communities or have
children with disabilities, parents who work nontraditional hours, and other families who struggle
to find and use high-quality child care.
A COMPREHENSIVE EARLY
EDUCATION AGENDA
In addition to the historic investment in helping every low-income and
middle-class family afford child care, the President’s FY16 budget will
make critical investments to expand access to high-quality early
education, including:
• Providing Preschool for All:
• In his 2013 State of the Union, the Obama Administration announced a
proposal to provide high-quality preschool to every American child and the FY
2016 Budget will continue to support this historic public investment in early
education and in the future of America’s children.
• This $75 billion partnership with states would extend federal funds to expand
high-quality preschool to reach all low- and moderate-income four-year-olds
from families at or below 200% of poverty.
• The proposal, financed through an increase in tobacco taxes which will
discourage youth smoking and save lives, also encourages states to broaden
participation to reach additional middle-income families and to expand the
availability of full-day kindergarten.
• In December 2014, the President and Vice President hosted the White House
Summit on Early Childhood Education, highlighting over $1 billion in
investments dedicated to early childhood education and development,
including new efforts to expand preschool across 18 states and in over 200 highneed communities, reaching an additional 33,000 children.
A COMPREHENSIVE EARLY
EDUCATION AGENDA
• Supporting Infants and Toddlers through Early Head
Start-Child Care Partnerships:
• This Administration has more than doubled the number of
infants and toddlers in Early Head Start and, in 2014, created
the new Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships program –
an effort to provide quality care to tens of thousands of
additional infants and toddlers through a partnership
between Early Head Start and child care providers that meet
the highest standards of quality to serve children from birth
through age three.
• The Obama Administration has invested $500 million to
support communities and proposes additional funding as they
improve and expand comprehensive early care and education
through the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships
program, reaching over 30,000 infants and toddlers this year.
A COMPREHENSIVE EARLY
EDUCATION AGENDA
• Increasing the duration of Head Start to a full school
day and year.
• Head Start is a key element of the Administration’s efforts to
help all children meet their full potential.
• The Obama Administration has already taken dramatic steps
to raise the bar on Head Start quality, including requiring lowperforming programs to compete for continued funding, and
is revising performance standards to reflect the best available
science on early learning and development.
• The President’s Budget includes a new proposal to further
increase the impact of Head Start – while also helping the
working parents of Head Start children – by providing enough
resources to make sure all children in Head Start benefit from
a full school day and full school year (at least six hours a day,
170 days a year), which research shows leads to better
outcomes for young children.
Grant to help WAGES expand
• WAGES Community Action Agency is one of 240
organizations nationwide, nine in North Carolina,
awarded an Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership
grant, which will fund expansion of the local child care
program for infants and toddlers.
• WAGES, or Wayne Action Group for Economic Solvency
Inc., has operated Head Start in Wayne County since 1966
and Early Head Start since 1998.
• The recipients were named recently at the White House
Summit on Early Education in Washington, D.C.
• Earlier in the year, the federal funding opportunity was
announced, with “high-need communities” especially
encouraged to apply. The U.S. Department of Education
later reported that 35 states and Puerto Rico had
responded
WAGES Early Head Start
• The emphasis of the grant is on enhancing the quality of
child care for infants and toddlers, using the Early Head Start
model.
• Officials have called the Early Head Start program a quality
model because of its emphasis on family engagement,
teacher education, developmentally appropriate
environments and low child/staff ratios.
• In the WAGES Early Head Start program, there are currently
more children on the waiting list than there are in the
classroom.
WAGES Early Head Start
• There are challenges providing child care among the
youngest segment of the population, said Patricia Beier,
WAGES director of children and families division. “It’s
very costly to serve infants and toddlers,” she said.
“This (funding) means that more parents will be able to
work because they’ll have placement for their child. It’s
something that’s very, very, very needed, throughout
the country but particularly in Wayne County.”
• The lack of resources for infants and toddlers was likely
one reason Wayne County was chosen as a grant
recipient, she said. The agency is scheduled to receive
$1.1 million a year. “Right now I think it was for three
years but hopefully it will become part of our indefinite
funding,” she said. “It’s to serve 72 additional children.”
WAGES Early Head Start
• WAGES will partner will three child care centers to
implement the initiative — Antioch Missionary Baptist
Church Child Care Academy, Trinity Child Care Center
and Joyful Play Child Care.
• “WAGES staff will provide intensive support, coaching,
mentoring and monitoring to the centers to ensure that
the model fidelity for Early Child Start is maintained
and that children and families receive the highest
quality child and family development programming,”
she said.
• “Seventy-two additional children will be served as
these centers, bringing the total Early Head Start
enrollment in Wayne County to 260.
• “There are currently more than 250 children on the
wait list for Early Head Start in Wayne County.”
WAGES Early Head Start
• Twenty-four slots will be added at each of the child care
centers.
• The sites were chosen based on recommendations, plus
the fact that they serve infants and toddlers.
• The funding will also be used to hire staff to
accommodate the additional children and to meet the
program’s ratio, which is one adult for every four
children.
• Maintaining that ratio requires higher standards than
the typical child care licensing, she said, which equates
to additional training and technical assistance
resources. “I can imagine that the centers may be hiring
a total of about 12 to 15 new positions,” she said. “And
we’re going to hire six new people at WAGES.”
A COMPREHENSIVE EARLY
EDUCATION AGENDA
• Investing in Voluntary, Evidence-Based Home Visiting:
• Established in 2010, the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood
Home Visiting program builds on research showing that home
visits by a nurse, social worker, or other professional during
pregnancy and in the earliest years of life has benefits to
parents and to children.
• These programs have been shown to significantly improve
maternal and child health, development, and learning. These
effects have proven to be long-lasting, with one study
showing improved language and math abilities at age 12.
• Additionally, these programs have led to increases in parental
employment and reductions in child maltreatment.
• To date it has supported more than 1.4 million visits in over
700 communities. The President’s Budget would ensure the
program does not end when funding is scheduled to expire in
March 2015 and expand the program to reach additional
families and communities.
• This proposal is also supported by the increased tobacco tax.
FY 2016 Budget
The President’s budget recognizes that quality child care is expensive, but is a
necessary cost for most families.
• Increased investments in child care and Head Start, as well as expansion of child
care tax credits, preschool grants and home visiting will ensure that millions of
children and families have access to the early care and learning opportunities
they need, specifically:
• Investments in the Child Care and Development Block Grant to increase quality
($266 million increase), foster innovation ($100 million) and help more than a
million low-income working families pay for child care for their infants and
toddlers (nearly $3.7 billion increase in mandatory funding).
• Growth in Head Start and Early Head Start ($1.5 billion increase), including
expansion of the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships and promoting fullschool day and year programs.
• New investments in early intervention and identification programs ($115 million
increase) to help families access interventions as early as possible.
• Expansion of Preschool Development Grants ($500 million increase) to help
states provide new high quality preschool programs in areas with unmet needs.
• Expansion of home visiting programs.
• Begins investments in universal preschool for low and moderate income families
with four-year-olds through a $1.3 billion increase in the tobacco tax.