Tag Archives: Budget

Implications for PreK-12 Education in Trump’s New Budget

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By Aaron Loewenberg, Abbie Lieberman, Roxanne Garza, Abigail Swisher and Elena Silva
FEB. 12, 2018

On Monday afternoon, the Trump administration released its FY 2019 budget. While the budget proposal was quickly dismissed by some as “dead on arrival,” it is still an important indicator of the administration’s priorities for the upcoming year.

The proposal includes a 5.6 percent decrease in funding to the Department of Education. If enacted, this would amount to a total funding cut of $3.8 billion compared to what was enacted in the 2017 fiscal year. The administration originally sought a far larger cut of $7.1 billion to the department, but $3.3 billion were restored in an addendum that reflects the increased spending levels reached in last week’s congressional spending deal.

The proposal also includes a 21 percent decrease in funding to the Department of Health and Human Services, requesting a total of $68.4 billion for HHS. HHS is where many early care and education programs are housed, such as Head Start and grants to subsidize child care.

This post provides an overview of what the proposed budget means for public education.

Source: New America

Available at: https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/implications-prek-12-education-trumps-new-budget/

Fewer Children, Fewer Providers: Trends in CCDBG Participation

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January 2017

The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) is the major federal funding stream for states to help low-income families afford child care and increase the quality of child care for all. CCDBG gives states flexibility in setting many child care policies within federal parameters. Over the past decade, the CCDBG program has been shrinking due to insufficient federal and state investments. States also have discretion to use funds from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant/program to support child care for low-income families. In 2014, the latest year data are available, combined TANF and CCDBG spending on child care fell to $11.3 billion, the lowest level since 2002.1 As a result, fewer children are getting help. Most recently, in 2015, fewer than 1.4 million children received CCDBG-funded child care in an average month, the smallest number of children served in the program since 1998. From 2006 to 2015, over 373,000 children have lost assistance—a decline of 21 percent.2 Within this context of declining investments and shrinking access, this factsheet explores trends among the child care providers receiving CCDBG funds and implications for the families served by this program.

Source: CLASP

Available at: http://www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/publication-1/CCDBG-Provider-Factsheet-2006-2015.pdf 

The Obama Early Childhood Legacy

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12/15/2016

By Laura Bornfreund and David Loewenberg

In a matter of weeks, the portrait of President Obama that hangs in the lobby of the Department of Education will be taken down. What policies and programs come down with it remains to be seen, raising questions about what the Obama legacy in education will be: How will he be remembered? What indelible mark has his administration left on education in our country?  What policies, if any, will outlive his administration? Finally, however the recent election alters (or tarnishes) his legacy, will his administration’s mark on early childhood education withstand?

While early learning was arguably overshadowed by K-12 reforms during the Obama administration’s first term, over the course of the past eight years, great strides have been made to improve the quality—and increase the availability—of high-quality early education offerings across the country.Since 2009, federal investment in early childhood programs has increased by more than $6 billion. Thanks to that funding, thousands more children are being served in state pre-K programs, steps have been taken to improve the quality of childcare, and Head Start—the nation’s largest federally funded early education program—has been overhauled to make it a higher quality, more flexible program. Today, nearly all states provide some funding for pre-K, and state investment in pre-K continues to rise. What’s more, 40 states are measuring early childhood program quality—up from 17 at the beginning of Obama’s administration.

Through the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC), 20 states have received a combined total of more than $1 billion to improve children’s access to high-quality early learning programs. And for the first time ever, there is a dedicated Office of Early Learning in the Department of Education (ED) — a move that proved to be significant in both symbolic and practical terms. Since its creation in 2011, the office has worked to thread early learning across ED offices and has improved coordination between ED and the Department of Health and Human Services which administers Head Start and other early childhood programs.

Perhaps most importantly, though, the president has used his bully pulpit to lift early education into the national spotlight. This was never more evident than in 2013 when President Obama used his State of the Union address to highlight the promise of early learning. Speaking on perhaps the most prominent stage in politics, the president set the ambitious goal of making high-quality pre-K available to every single child in America. This historic shout-out for early education was followed by the rollout of his “Preschool for All” proposal. While the proposal never gained much legislative traction, for the first time in recent memory, early childhood education became a centerpiece in the national conversation around improving education.

So has the access and quality of early childhood education for children and families improved over the last eight years of the Obama administration? The answer is an unequivocal “yes.”

There is room for debate, however, when it comes to whether the actions and rhetoric of the Obama administration have ushered in the type of sustainable, large-scale improvements that are needed.

While state pre-K programs are serving thousands more children, and while nearly all states now fund pre-K, the percentage of children served has remained relatively flat. Just 41 percent of four-year-olds and 16 percent of three-year-olds were enrolled in publicly-funded pre-K programs in 2015 — an increase of a mere 3 percent from 2008 levels and a far cry from the president’s 2013 call for “Preschool for All” four-year-olds.

And while it is certainly true that more states are investing in their youngest, the state of early education in the U.S., as a whole, is one that remains plagued by significant issues when it comes to quality, cost, and the workforce. The quality of state pre-K programs and other early childhood programs remains extremely varied, the cost of good child care is still far out of reach for most families, particularly low-income families, and the early childhood workforce continues to be severely underpaid.

Further complicating the record of progress, kindergarten and the early grades are still largely ignored in much of federal and state policy and the notion of a birth-through-third grade system — even a pre-K-3rd grade system — as a whole, is still just that, an idea rather than common practice. And as skeptics of large-scale pre-K programs will point out, we still don’t fully understand how best to ensure that the academic benefits of pre-K endure over time.

In short, progress has been made but significant work remains if the U.S. hopes to arrive at a place where its youngest children receive the educational opportunities they need and deserve.

Undoubtedly the Obama Administration did more than those that came before to make children’s earliest years an important part of the national education conversation. By incentivizing state and local investments and creating a national platform for the issue, the Obama administration has unmistakably helped to strengthen the quality and availability of early learning across the country. Still, rather than fundamentally transforming the early education landscape, it may be more accurate to say that the Obama years have laid important groundwork necessary for large-scale efforts in the years to come — should there be future leaders who make doing so a priority.

Source: New America

Available at: https://www.newamerica.org/weekly/edition-146/obama-early-childhood-legacy/

Continuing Resolution is Signed, Keeps Federal Government Funded through April 2017

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12/12/2016

After last-minute action on Friday by the U.S. House and Senate, along with President Obama’s signature this morning, the federal government has a temporary spending bill that keeps the doors open for another 20 weeks, through April 28. The first “Continuing Resolution” (CR) for the federal Fiscal Year 2017 (FY17), which began October 1, 2016, expired on December 9. 

This temporary spending bill is the last action the current Congress took before adjourning for the year. The spending bill for the rest of FY17 (covering the period of April 29 to September 30), along with an FY18 bill, will be taken up by the newly elected Congress in the spring. Based on the proposals that Republican leaders in the House and Senate have made, those budgets could make deep cuts in core programs intended to address the needs of the 13.5 percent of Americans who live in poverty–woefully underfunding programs like Head Start, job training, and Pell grants that help low-income families, workers, and students. At the same time, Republicans will likely seek to sharply increase the budget for defense spending and reduce taxes for the richest Americans. As the new president and Congress act on the budget next spring, they must remember that investments in education, employment, young children, and anti-poverty strategies are crucial to America’s future. 

In the interim, CRs, which are used in the absence of an approved federal spending bill, typically continue the funding for discretionary programs at a rate or formula consistent with the previous fiscal year. This CR includes a 0.19 percent across-the-board cut, which is compounded by the fact that the FY16 budget was the lowest in a decade when adjusted for inflation—meaning that this latest CR represents a significant effective decrease. 

Specific examples of the consequences of temporary funding levels in the bill include the following:

  • Reducing current child care funding, which is already sharply inadequate, leaves states without the resources necessary to implement the critical improvements passed by Congress in 2014 to improve the health, safety, and quality of child care and to provide low-income working families with more stable child care assistance. Already, the number of children receiving child care funded through the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant program has fallen to a 16-year low, with just 1.4 million children being served in 2014, and more will surely lose access without new funding. 
  • Fewer workers will receive the skills training and postsecondary credentials they need to move toward better jobs, since this year’s funding level for adult education is more than 6 percent below the FY 2017 amounts authorized in 2014’s bipartisan reauthorization of the federal workforce development law. Moreover, current funding for key adult and youth employment and training is more than 3 percent lower than WIOA-authorized levels for next year. This would continue a decline in funding for these programs of more than 30 percent in real terms over the past 15 years.
  • Communities of color have been hit especially hard by federal disinvestment in key programs such as child care, workforce training, and Head Start. Youth of color, particularly out of school youth, simply don’t have the resources they need to succeed, and young children cannot get the start they need and deserve without help. With children of color soon to be half of all children—and already half of children under five—their success matters deeply to America’s future.

Our country can help offset the damaging prevalence of poverty and economic insecurity by making a strong commitment to addressing poverty. Such a commitment should start with the enactment next year of FY17 and FY18 spending bills that expand and invest in the crucial education, child care, safety net, and workforce development programs that help people get and keep a job, stabilize families, and promote success. In addition, policymakers must focus resources and attention on those who face the most barriers—children, youth, and families of color, immigrant families, and those whose opportunities are limited by pervasive poverty in their neighborhoods and communities. 

Unfortunately, the current statements of Congressional leaders suggest that the spring’s budget could reflect just the opposite priorities—tax cuts for the richest Americans and sharply eroded help for everyone else. CLASP intends to redouble efforts to ensure policymakers make the right decisions for those children, families, and individuals struggling to make ends meet. To that end, we are working closely with the Coalition on Human Needs on a variety of efforts, including this sign-on letter that the Coalition’s “Save for All” campaign will be sending in early January to the president and members of Congress. Hundreds of national, state, and local organizations have already taken the concrete step of signing on, and you may do so here. 

Source: CLASP

High quality child care is out of reach for working families 

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10/2015

In recent decades most Americans have endured stagnant hourly pay, despite significant economy-wide income growth (Bivens and Mishel 2015). In essence, only a fraction of overall economic growth is trickling down to typical households. There is no silver bullet for ensuring ordinary Americans share in the country’s prosperity; instead, it will take a range of policies. Some should give workers more leverage in the labor market, and some should expand social insurance and public investments to boost incomes. An obvious example of the latter is helping American families cope with the high cost of child care.

The high cost of child care has received attention from an array of policymakers. For example, in his 2015 State of the Union address, President Obama cited child care affordability as a key to helping middle-class families feel more secure in a world of constant change (White House 2015). New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recognized similar concerns and released an interagency implementation plan for free, high-quality, full-day universal prekindergarten (NYC 2014). High quality, dependable, and affordable child care for children of all ages is more important than ever, especially since having both parents in the workforce is an economic necessity for many families.

This paper uses a number of benchmarks to gauge the affordability of child care across the country. It begins by explaining how child care costs fit into EPI’s basic family budget thresholds, which measure the income families need in order to attain a modest yet adequate standard of living in 618 communities. The report then compares child care costs to state minimum wages and public college tuition. Finally, to determine how child care costs differ by location and family composition, the paper reconstructs budgets for two-parent, two-child families in 10 locations to include the higher cost of infant care, compares these families’ child care costs to those of families without infants, and compares costs for both family types with metro area median incomes.

Key findings include:

  • Child care costs account for a significant portion of family budgets.
    • EPI’s basic family budget threshold for a two-parent, two-child family ranges from $49,114 (Morristown, Tennessee) to $106,493 (Washington, D.C.). In the median family budget area for this family type (Des Moines, Iowa), a two-parent, two-child family needs $63,741 to attain a modest yet adequate standard of living.
    • Across regions and family types, child care costs account for the greatest variability in family budgets. Monthly child care costs for a household with one child (a 4-year-old) range from $344 in rural South Carolina to $1,472 in Washington, D.C.
    • As a share of total family budgets, center-based child care for single-parent families with two children (ages 4 and 8) ranges from 11.7 percent in New Orleans to 33.7 percent in Buffalo, New York.
    • Among families with two children (a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old), child care costs exceed rent in 500 out of 618 family budget areas. For two-child families, child care costs range from about half as much as rent in San Francisco to nearly three times rent in Binghamton, New York.
  • Child care is particularly unaffordable for minimum-wage workers.
    • The high cost of child care means that a full-time, full-year minimum-wage worker with one child falls far below the family budget threshold in all 618 family budget areas—even after adjusting for higher state and city minimum wages.
    • Among families with young children, child care costs constitute a large share of annual earnings for families living off one full-time, full-year minimum-wage income. For example, to meet the demands of infant care costs for a year, a minimum-wage worker in Hawaii—the state with the median state minimum wage ($7.75)—would have to devote his or her entire earnings from working full time (40 hours a week) from January until September.
  • Other salient benchmarks highlight the extremely high costs of child care.
    • In 33 states and the District of Columbia, infant care costs exceed the average cost of in-state college tuition at public 4-year institutions.
    • In terms of child care costs’ share of total family budgets, only in a handful of EPI’s 618 family budget areas are child care costs close to the 10 percent affordability threshold established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
    • Child care costs are particularly high for younger children. When 10 family budgets in various areas are reconstructed to include two-parent, two-child families with an infant and a 4-year-old (instead of a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old), child care ranges from 19.3 percent to 28.7 percent of total family budgets. This compares with a range of 11.8 percent to 21.6 percent for families with a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old.
    • In these 10 areas, child care costs for an infant and a 4-year-old constitute between approximately 20 percent and 31 percent of median family income—far above the HHS’s 10 percent approximately 20 percent and 31 percent of median family income—far above the HHS’s 10 percent affordability standard.

Source: Economic Policy Institute

Available at: http://www.epi.org/publication/child-care-affordability/

Statement on Continuing Resolution for FY2016

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9/30/2015

Continuing Resolution Passes Congress, Critical Funding Needs Remain Unresolved

Tomorrow marks the start of federal Fiscal Year 2016 (FY16), as Congress passed a “Continuing Resolution” (CR) for the first 10 weeks of the fiscal year, acting at the last possible minute to keep the government running until mid-December. Yet this short-term action can’t be counted as an accomplishment because the CR fails fundamentally to meet the resource needs of programs that support low-income families, as it temporarily continues last year’s inadequate funding levels—the lowest in a decade, adjusted for inflation—for all annually appropriated federal programs.

This marks an ominous start to the fiscal year for crucial services, such as child care, education, job training, and health care, that can help hard-working poor and low-income people lift themselves and their families to economic security. And while this short-term fix averts the disruption and severe consequences of an immediate government shutdown this week, it merely postpones the crucial decisions on funding for key priorities—setting the stage for yet another shutdown stand-off when the CR expires on December 11, 2015.

The consequences are grim if Congress fails over the coming weeks to sharply raise funding levels as it deliberates over the FY 2016 budget. For example:

  • Holding child care funding at its current levels means that fewer children will receive the stable and healthy child care they need to thrive and their parents need to succeed on the job. Recent data show that participation in child care funded through the Child Care and Development Block Grant program has fallen to a 16-year low, with just 1.4 million children being served in 2014, and spending at an 11-year low as of 2013.
  • Fewer workers will receive the skills training and postsecondary credentials they need to move toward better jobs, as the current funding levels for key adult and youth employment and training and adult education  programs are almost 6 percent lower than the amounts authorized in last year’s bipartisan reauthorization of the federal workforce development law. This continues a decline in funding for these programs of more than 30 percent in real terms over the past 15 years.
  • Communities of color have been hit especially hard by federal disinvestment in key programs such as child care, workforce training, and Head Start. Youth of color, particularly out of school youth, simply don’t have the resources they need to succeed, and young children cannot get the start they need and deserve without help. With children of color soon to be half of all children—and already half of children under five—their success matters deeply to America’s future.

To avoid devastating impacts on families and on America’s future, Congress must fully fund effective investments in education, employment, young children, and anti-poverty strategies like those just described, which in turn means putting an end to the arbitrary, devastating budget caps that go back into effect this fiscal year. These budget caps, established by the “sequestration” provision of the 2011 budget law, are steering Congress toward misguided disinvestment in essential priorities. In Fiscal Year 2016, these caps squeeze total domestic funding to just below last year’s levels—and far below both historical levels and what is needed.

And when total funding is insufficient, the budgets for key programs for low-income individuals and families will likely be harmed even more—as illustrated  by the proposals of the majority in Congress to make still deeper cuts for key child, youth, education, and anti-poverty priorities, as they strive to maintain overall flat funding levels for domestic appropriations under the caps. Last summer, for example, the House and Senate committees passed Fiscal Year 2016 appropriation bills for the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Departments that cut more than $3.6 billion from Fiscal Year 2015 levels that were already too low. While these bills have not passed—and President Obama has pledged to veto them—the proposed cuts show what’s in store if the caps are not lifted.

These budget choices are particularly misguided given the reality of recently released Census Bureau numbers on poverty showing persistently high rates of poverty, particularly for America’s next generation of workers and citizens, including children (under 18) and young adults (ages 18 to 24). One in five children and young adults, and nearly one in four young children under age 5, was poor in 2014. A national response to poverty and economic insecurity among America’s next generation, and to the sharp racial disparities and inequality that undercut our future, is within our reach. We can drive down the damaging prevalence of poverty and economic insecurity if we make a national commitment to this goal. Such a commitment should start this fall, with the enactment of a federal budget that expands and invests in the crucial education, child care, safety net, and workforce development programs that stabilize families and promote success. Such a truly national commitment must also focus resources and attention on those who face the most barriers—children, youth, and families of color, immigrant families, and those whose opportunities are limited by pervasive poverty in their neighborhoods and communities.

Congress should act immediately to avoid another shutdown threat later this year, by negotiating a comprehensive budget deal that lifts the budget caps for annual appropriations in FY 2016 and future years, protects key mandatory safety net programs including Medicaid and SNAP, and fully funds priorities for the most vulnerable Americans.

Source: CLASP

Available at: http://www.clasp.org/news-room/news-releases/statement-on-continuing-resolution-for-fy2016

Child Care in State Economies

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9/2015

Child Care in State Economies examines the child care industry’s effect on parents’ participation in the labor force, and provides extensive details regarding the industry’s state economic impact, including: usage rates, the role of public funding, revenues, and business structure. The report was commissioned by the Committee for Economic Development, produced by the economic firm, Region Track, Inc., and generously supported by the Alliance for Early Success.

Source: Committee for Economic Development

Available at: https://www.ced.org/childcareimpact

Turning The President’s 2015 Budget Proposal into Action

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3/19/2014

These days, Washington has a reputation for inaction.  As a result, many commentators dismissed the President’s 2015 budget proposal despite its powerful call for reducing poverty and increasing opportunity for low-income adults, children, youth, and families.  But these ideas are too good to lose, and CLASP has suggestions for how to turn them into action.

What’s in the President’s budget?  Broadly, it calls for expanded workforce training for low-skilled adults and high-quality early education for young children – valuing the role of education and opportunity for both generations.  It calls for a higher minimum wage and endorses policies that support working families, including resources for states to implement paid family leave and enforcement of existing labor laws.  Centered on jobs, the proposal supports young people and childless adults (including non-custodial parents) in low-wage work through an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit and increases the availability of subsidized jobs.

How can these good ideas turn into action?  One obvious and crucial path is through Congressional enactment.  Given the large number of Americans who live in poverty, struggle with low-wage jobs, and cannot access high-quality early education or strong college and career preparation, Congressional action and federal investment are crucial to achieving the President’s goals.   But this is not the only way to get started.  Two immediate steps can begin to turn these ideas into reality and help Americans living in or near poverty.

Source: CLASP: Policy Solutions That Work for Low-Income People

Available at: http://www.clasp.org/whats-next

Breaking News: Senate Passes Child Care Reauthorization

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3/13/2014

Senators from across the aisle just voted to reauthorize the S. 1086, the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014.

This is a huge win for working families in this country.  This bill contains many common-sense measures for helping protect children in child care, such as requiring providers to undergo comprehensive background checks, ensuring annual inspections are conducted and requiring childcare providers receive training on CPR, first and safe sleep practices.

We are one step closer to ensuring children are safe and receiving quality early learning experiences while in child care. The research is clear, children’s early years are proven to be the most important time to create strong learners. This bill sets the standard families expect for their children.

Please join us to thank the Senate for standing up for children and working families by voting yes to reauthorize CCDBG.

Source: Child Care Aware of America

Effective, Evidence-Based Home Visiting Programs in Every State at Risk if Congress Does Not Extend Funding

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3/10/2014

By Stephanie Schmit, Liz Schott, LaDonna Pavetti, and Hannah Matthews

The Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV), a federal and state partnership that supports family- and child-related home visiting programs in every state, will expire at the end of fiscal year 2014 unless Congress takes steps to extend it — threatening a host of programs that have proven effective for strengthening high-risk families and saving money over the long run.

MIECHV targets high-risk families who are most likely to benefit from intensive home visiting services, through which trained professionals (often nurses, social workers, or parent educators) help parents acquire the skills to promote their children’s development. The home visiting programs help families connect to necessary services, such as health care or community resources, and monitor child development and progress on developmental milestones. MIECHV provides the federal funds to support the programs, while states and localities implement them. Congress provided $400 million for MIECHV this year.

Source: CLASP: Policy Solutions that work for low-income people

Available at: http://www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/publication-1/CLASP-CBPP-Joint-Brief-FINAL.pdf