NAEYC Children’s Champions
July 29, 2010
More Good News on Congressional Funding
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE PUTS FORWARD SIGNIFICANT INCREASES FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD
This week, the Senate subcommittee on Labor/Health and Human Services/Education department appropriations marked up its bill and it too has significant funding increases for early childhood education.
CCDBG in the Senate bill would be increased by $1 billion (House increase $700 million). Head Start/Early Head Start would receive a $990 million increase (House increase $866 million). Unlike the House bill, the Senate bill includes $300 million for the Early Learning Challenge Fund.
We thank you for all your advocacy work to get to this point. There is more to the process until we get a signed funding bill. In the meantime, we thank the subcommittee for its recognition that investment in core early childhood education programs is long overdue.
At this time, we don’t have other program-specific information. We will update you as soon as we have the paperwork from the subcommittee on what they recommended for other programs.
BILL TO INCREASE MANDATORY FUNDING FOR CHILD CARE INTRODUCED
The Child Care & Development Block Grant is an unusual program in that its federal funding comes from two sources: discretionary appropriations and mandatory funding. In addition to the good news on the discretionary appropriations side, today Senators Kerry (MA) and Lincoln (AR) and Representative Crowley (NY) introduced companion bills, called the Children First Act of 2010 (no bill number yet). The bill would provide an $800 million increase in mandatory child care funding in fiscal year 2011, with adjustments for inflation starting in fiscal year 2012 through fiscal year 2015. It also would require that providers receiving TANF funds would have to meet the same minimum standards as CCDBG-funded providers.
Please ask your Senators and Representatives to cosponsor the Children’s First Act of 2010. Tell them to cosponsor this bill that will help expand access to and the quality of child care in your state. Find your Senators and Representatives at www.naeyc.org/policy/action
New Kids Count Data Book Released
The Annie E. Casey Foundation released this week the 2010 KIDS COUNT Data Book. This annual publication includes state-by-state rankings and measures of child well-being. Nationally, the rate of children living in poverty in 2008 was 18 percent, indicating that 1 million more children were living in poverty in that year than in 2000. Experts project that more up-to-date Census data will show the child poverty climbing to above 20 percent. This sad news further highlights the importance of the funding increases mentioned above. To find out more about your state or national ratings, go to datacenter.kidscount.org/DataBook/2010/Default.aspx
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