Legislative Update

January 2010

On December 18, 2009, Dr. Cathy Grace, director of Early Childhood Development at the Children’s Defense Fund, joined Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN), along with representatives from the National Commission on Children and Disasters at a press conference on Capitol Hill to announce the introduction of the Child Safety, Care, and Education Continuity Act of 2010. The bill creates a framework to address children’s needs in the event of a catastrophic disaster, and incorporates recommendations made by the National Commission on Children and Disasters (NCDD) report released in October. Acknowledging that the legislation is a product of the lessons learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Senator Alexander noted that "This bill is an excellent textbook example of Congress learning from history and getting ahead of the curve to help communities restart and children return to life as usual after the next major disaster." Learn more and view video about this important piece of legislation.

The Access to Nutritious Meals for Young Children's Act of 2009, introduced in November in the Senate, has now been introduced in the House by Representative Paul D. Tonko (D-NY). The legislation would make it easier for young children to receive nutritious meals in child care centers, family child care home programs, Head Start and Early Head Start programs. More and more children in our country are going hungry as the economic conditions faced by many families are slow to improve. As the 111th Congress begins its work in 2010, child hunger and nutrition must not be ignored. For more information on the importance of child nutrition and access to healthy food, read CDF President Marian Wright Edelman's Child Watch^® column: "Urban Food Deserts Threaten Children's Health" and this recent New York Times story about "Living on Nothing but Food Stamps."

November 2009

In the last few weeks, several notable pieces of legislation related to Early Childhood Development have been introduced in Congress. At the end of October, Representative Jim Himes (D-CT) introduced the Early Learning Innovation Act (H.R. 3973) (.pdf) to promote the development of new early learning curricula. The bill would direct the Secretary of Education to make grants available to community schools, local educational agencies, or social service providers to implement innovative early learning programs in preschools and elementary schools in high-need communities.

Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced a comprehensive literacy bill that would authorize $2.35 billion in funding to establish a literacy program for K-12 students. The legislation (S. 2740 (.pdf)) would replace three existing reading programs—Early Reading First, Reading First, and Striving Readers.  At least ten percent of the funding authorized would go to early-childhood education.  Another 40 percent would be spent on children in grades K-5. The bill was also introduced in the House (H.R. 4037 (.pdf)) by Representative John Yarmuth (D-KY).

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the Access to Nutritious Meals for Young Children Act (S. 2749) (.pdf), which would expand the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) to improve access to nutritious meals for young children in child care. Specifically, the legislation would increase the reimbursement rates for participating child care programs and other CACFP-sponsoring organizations, make more family child care providers eligible for reimbursement, add a third meal or snack option for children who are in care for longer hours, and simplify administrative requirements.

In addition to these recently introduced bills, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Representative Phil Hare (D-IL) have each sponsored pieces of legislation that are specifically designed to improve after-school programs in rural communities. Both S. 1281 and H.R. 3078 (.pdf), introduced by Lincoln and Hare, respectively, would increase funding for these programs. The legislation would appropriate $75 million dollars through fiscal year 2011 for grants to local educational agencies and community-based organizations to improve, expand, or establish rural after-school programs.

September 2009

On September 18, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives took a significant step forward for very young children and passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 (H.R. 3221). The Act was introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and passed by a vote of 253-171. The bill has now been referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and will require Senate approval before becoming law.

The Children’s Defense Fund strongly supports Title IV of the Act, the Early Learning Challenge Fund, which invests $1 billion per year for eight years in challenge grants for states to build high-quality early learning systems for children from birth through age five. The Early Learning Challenge Fund takes a much-needed step toward bridging the early learning gap that leaves millions of children unable to access the quality early education programs they need and deserve.

The bill has widespread support, including endorsements from President Obama and over 60 children's advocacy, education and policy organizations. Many of these organizations have praised Title IV specifically, including the Children’s Defense Fund, the Center for Law and Social Policy, the National Head Start Association, and Fight Crime: Invest in Kids.

The Early Learning Challenge Fund will transform early learning programs by investing $1 billion per year for eight years to states that will be charged with the following:

• Building an early childhood workforce that is effective, qualified, and well-compensated through sustained, intensive, classroom-focused professional development.
• Promoting best practices in the classroom by implementing research-based early learning standards that are developmentally, culturally and linguistically appropriate.
• Promoting parent and family involvement by developing outreach strategies to improve parents’ understanding of their children’s development.
• Funding quality initiatives that improve instructional practices, programmatic practices, and classroom environments that promote school readiness.
• Implementing quality standards reform that moves toward pre-service training requirements for early learning providers, and adopting best practices for teacher-child ratios and group size. 

Importantly, the Early Learning Challenge Fund opens doors to currently underserved low-income families in the following ways: 

• Requiring the federal government to consider the proportion of children under age five from low-income families in a state when determining grant amounts.
• Requiring states to develop plans for enrolling an increased number of disadvantaged children in early learning programs.
• Requiring states to use at least 65 percent of Quality Pathways Grant funding to expand participation of at-risk children in early learning programs.
• Requiring states to provide a description of how the early learning policies, including child care policies, facilitate access to high quality early learning programs for children from low-income families.