NAEYC Children’s Champions Update
February 14, 2010
Call Your U.S. Representative to Oppose Drastic Cuts in H.R. 1 to Children, Education and Families
It’s a good news-bad news day.
Early this week the U.S. House of Representatives will take up a bill (H.R. 1) to try to finish the spending bill for this current year. HR 1 cuts $100 billion dollars from domestic discretionary spending – one of the smallest areas of total federal spending -- including radical cuts to the funding of Head Start, child care, special education, higher education, K-12 education, and many other programs that families and children need to be successful. Further, these $100 billion in cuts for the remainder of this funding year put the burden of reducing the federal deficit primarily on low-income and working families.
Today, the President released his spending goals for fiscal year 2012, next year’s spending round. It’s very positive for early childhood education and we’ll send you the specifics soon. But RIGHT NOW, we need to focus on the big House cuts that deal with current spending.
Background on the Dramatic Cuts in H.R. 1:
These are just a few of the cuts:
- $1 billion from Head Start (which would mean 218,000 children removed from programs, closing 16,000 classrooms, and laying off 55,000 teachers, teacher assistants, and related staff)
- $39 million from child care (which would mean 150,000 children losing child care subsidies)
- $747 million from WIC nutrition assistance
- $693 million from Title I for schools
- $557 million from Part B special education
- Reduce the Pell Grants to individuals
Action and Message:
Call Your Representative in the U.S. House of Representatives – she or he needs to hear from you today, tomorrow and Wednesday to OPPOSE HR 1 as the wrong direction for deficit reduction.
How to Call and Find Your Representative:
Call 202-225-3121 and ask to speak to your Representative’s office with the message above. If you don’t know your Representative, you can find it with your zip code here.
When you connect with the office, give your name and where you live so that they know you are a constituent.
Messages:
Oppose HR 1 – it sends us in the wrong direction for working families and children and in the end will hurt the economy more.
This bill puts the burden of reducing the deficit on the backs of already struggling children and families with our economic crisis.
Even at current levels, we reach only half of the eligible Head Start children, only 4 percent of Early Head Start infants and toddlers, and one in 6 children eligible for child care assistance.
Reducing our investments in child care, Head Start, and education this way moves us backwards in closing the achievement gap, in preparing the next workforce, and in helping families get and keep a job.
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