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Public Policy Effort, Day One
I have just finished day one of a four-day public policy effort in Washington, D.C. There are so many challenges ahead for children and families.
Today we heard from a renowned pollster who has surveyed parents and the public on their views of the role of government in support of child care. (More on that in a future blog.) We also heard from a consultant who advises corporations and organizations on positioning their issues in order to get through all the noise. Finally, we heard from top legislative staffers from the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats who shared the realities and opportunities before us in the current Congress.
Tomorrow our 4C contingent from Miami Valley, Northern Kentucky and Southwest Ohio (that is, Lorna Chouinard, Julie Wittten, Carolyn Brinkmann, Elaine Ward and myself) will meet with our Senators and Representatives – seven visits in all – to share information about families and children, to ask for their support of specific legislation and to urge them to put kids first. I’ll let you know what we hear from them.
Should We Hire a Lobbyist?
Ohio has a gigantic budget shortfall and a new governor. What’s more, now both houses of the legislature are the same party – the same party as the new governor. In light of the need to slash budgets, there is every reason for advocates of early childhood education, mental health, developmental disabilities, corrections, community health, K-12 education and higher education to expect major cuts. In fact, proponents of all sorts of tax-supported services are quaking in their boots.
So, what is the reaction? Hire a lobbyist! And invest more in policy organizations that will apply whatever levers of influence that they can.
Organizations like groundWork (advocates for early childhood services), Voices for Ohio’s Children (advocates for children of all ages) and Advocates for Ohio’s Future (for services of all sorts) are hard at work, developing positions, educating and rallying supporters, and gearing up to represent the interests of those who generally cannot represent themselves. There are an equal number of groups for every social and education service you can name.
The newer approach for the grassroots folks is to pay lobbying firms so that we, too, have an insider lobbyist working on behalf of our issues. There is a lot of jockeying to insure that your lobbyist has the best shot of getting to the right decision maker in time to insure the best outcome. The firms with strong conservative connections are being bombarded with business.
I fully understand and support this strategy, along with other strategies. Legislators and new administrators do need to learn about the services they oversee, and to make well-educated decisions, and there is little time to get up to speed on every issue.
But I have to wonder. How much money is going to lobbyists that could be going to services? And are we bolstering a broken system? I believe the return on investment can be great, but it is frustrating. Banking, agribusiness, construction, hospitals, nursing homes, and the aerospace industry are known to have big lobbying budgets and sophisticated lobbyists, and the pay off has been gigantic for them. But it seems wrong for them and it seems wrong for us. The alternative for the child care field – that is not to participate in the paid lobbying arena, however, is to silence the families and child care providers who we serve. Paid lobbyists can offer that voice. But I wish it weren’t so. Ah, if only thousands of parents would spontaneously descend on Columbus to declare their need for high quality early learning and child care…. But alas, they are working and raising their young children. So with their support, we become members of advocacy organizations, and hire lobbyists. 4C is a part of state groups that are making such an investment. What do you think? Should we participate in the paid lobbyist system? What are our alternatives?
Is the Art of Compromise Dead?
In the waning days of 2010, we have seen some signs that compromise is not yet dead, but I wonder if this is the last gasp of a dying virtue.
Just after the federal mid-tem election in November, John Boehner, our region’s U.S. Representative and soon to be Speaker of the House, stated, “This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise.” He also said, “To the extent the president wants to work with us, in terms of our goals, we’d welcome his involvement.”
You see the same thing, to a dramatic and deadly extreme, with the Israelis and Palestinians–and in international strife throughout the world.
With much less global significance, I see this entrenchment in my work and other relationships. There seems to be a great desire to have winners and losers. Whether is it Ohio’s planned Center for Early Childhood Development (two years in the planning and now dead on arrival because, in my opinion, of an inability to compromise); or dinner party arguments; or, in case of my own extended family, trying to make plans that meet the needs of everyone!
Yet a New York Times exit poll taken on election day found that nearly 80 percent of respondents said they believed Republicans and Democrats in Congress should compromise some of their positions to get things done; only 15 percent said they should stick to their positions even if it means getting nothing done.
Of course compromise doesn’t play well with “the base.” But it does with the rest of us! Some progress beats the heck out of having everyone in a snit. In the case of services for children, some progress can make all the difference in the world for school readiness for children.
As Voltaire, writer, historian and philosopher, said, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Talking About Child Care in Our Corner of the Country
- Terrie Hare, Child Care Bureau Chief, ODJFS (left) and Shannon Rudisill, Director of the Office of Child Care, Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, share a book with two-year-old Destiny.
What a great opportunity we had this week to report on the state of child care in our corner of the country to someone who can make it better.
On Monday, the highest-ranking child care official from the Department of Health and Human Services got to meet with our early childhood community. Shannon Rudisill, along with Terrie Hare, Ohio’s DJFS Child Care Bureau Chief, visited a three-star center (East Walnut Hills Learning Center) and learned about the remarkable work that is happening at that center and the other Cincinnati Early Learning Centers programs. CELC President Patti Gleason gave a concise and compelling account of the challenges of providing excellent care to a diverse population. The CELC centers serve children from high-income and low-income families, children with typical development and special needs, happy children and those with serious behavior challenges.
We then went on to a family child care home where provider Joanne Mapp spoke of the 4C Language and Literacy project which opened her eyes to the importance of books and reading even for the very young children in her care. Her participation in this program was featured last week in the The Cincinnati Enquirer. It is one of the few efforts locally to raise the quality of care in small family child care homes where 24 percent of all children cared for outside their home are enrolled. Joanne, a participant in the Child and Adult Care Food Program, also told Shannon how that support impacts the children in her care and encourages her to introduce the children to unfamiliar fresh fruits and vegetables. In an era when there is tremendous concern about childhood obesity, the CACFP is making an impact on health and nutrition.
Shannon and Terrie then came to 4C where, over lunch, a dozen more early childhood leaders briefed them on their successes and challenges. They heard about Head Start and child care partnerships, local community initiatives in Dayton, Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. They heard from a Step Up To Quality licensing specialist, a county DJFS child care supervisor as well as university programs and research..
It became apparent from Shannon’s questions and comments that she gained valuable insights from those “on the ground.” Some examples:
- The burden of duplicate monitoring.
- The need for 12-month eligibility for child care vouchers to provide stability for programs and for children.
- The two very different goals of child care (a workforce support allowing parents to work and an early learning environment preparing children for school) can result in policies and practices that can work at cross purposes.
We, too, gained insight into the activities and plans for early childhood from Washington. HHS is very committed to quality rating and improvement systems (Step Up To Quality in Ohio and STARS for KIDS NOW in Kentucky) and sees them as a potential surrogate for the multiple layers of monitoring. Shannon communicated her desire to connect subsidy to quality rated programs.
She urged us to review and comment on the proposed requirements for state child care plans – documents required to obtain federal funding, which are now posted and soliciting comments.
Shannon Rudisill is a parent of two preschoolers who attend a child care center every day. So, in addition to her tremendous grasp of the big policy picture, she has a gut understanding of the joys and concerns of raising young children, and the role that child care plays in supporting working families. That is encouraging!
While the President’s proposed budget includes increases for child care and Head Start, we are all aware of federal deficits and the political mood to curb government spending. Whether any of the plans for improvement will reach us here in Ohio and Northern Kentucky, we’ll just have to see!
Only Three Things Wrong: the Board, the Director and the Staff
Last week the staff of 4C held a wonderful party to celebrate my 30th anniversary as director of 4C. I was asked about the status of 4C 30 years ago, and I relayed this story:
Before I arrived, 4C had been given the charge of planning a one-stop shop for parents looking for child care financial assistance. At that point in time, parents had to go to two government sources, and to every child care center to find out who had openings and whether the family was eligible for assistance. So 4C was given funding to bring the parties together to create the “Coordinated Day Care System.” After about a year’s time, there was nothing but contentious relationships to show for the effort. In other words, 4C was bombing out on the task.
The United Way withdrew its funding and others were talking about doing the same thing. The Board of 4C recognized the disaster they had on their hands, so they fired the director and convinced funders to give 4C another chance
November 1980, and here I come – relatively young, quite inexperienced, and with very little background in early childhood education or child care.
A few weeks later I was at a gathering of some sort and introduced myself to a man who turned out to be on the United Way board. He laughed out loud when I said I was the director of 4C. He had been at the meeting of the UW board a few months earlier when 4C funding (or rather de-funding) was on the agenda. When another board member asked what was wrong with that agency, the presenter said, “Only three things: the board, the director and the staff.”
He was wrong on a few counts. The board was grappling with a tough situation, including entrenched community leadership. The staff – a total of about 12 people — was really quite capable, particularly those who were delivering direct services.
But the message was clear: 4C had a long way to go to rebuild the reputation and good will of the community. We had to be able to demonstrate that our services were effective and essential. I suppose, to a large extent, we have done that now–with about 70 employees serving 23 counties and reaching over 166,000 children and their families.
I know I will always be grateful for the 4C board members 30 years ago who did the hard work and took a risk in hiring someone who had never led an agency and never worked for a board. I had the opportunity to grow along with 4C. Pretty lucky, don’t you think?
You can view an anniversary video on YouTube that was prepared by 4C staff. It captures some of the people who have made it possible over these 30 years for 4C to move ahead with doing what is needed to ensure that we have quality early education and care for all children.
Not the Usual Suspects
Some of the great (usual) suspects
I really like this blog entitled “Not the Usual Suspects” by Laura Bornfreund of the New America Foundation . In the article, Bornfreund talks about the value of non-traditional voices when it comes to advocacy. It makes sense of course that the people who are most knowledgeable about a subject (like child care center directors, child care resource and referral directors and parents when it comes to child care policy) are the most passionate and willing to bend the ear of elected officials about policy and funding issues.
But we are the usual suspects – predictable even. And it may feel to an elected official that we are just trying to protect our turf or ensure our pay checks.
That is why two groups that have been speaking up for a number of years have been so important. Those unusual suspects have been business leaders of every stripe and an organization called Fight Crime-Invest in Kids which is made up of police chiefs, sheriffs and other leaders in law enforcement. I’ve witnessed a panel of state legislators really sit up and take notice when a uniformed officer talks about diverting children away from the justice system – not with midnight basketball programs but by giving very young children the foundation they need for success – through high quality early childhood education.
Ms. Bornfreund writes of new unusual suspects: the College Board and The Society for Human Resource Management. Each has recently issued a report calling for more support of early childhood education. The College Board called for states to ”provide a program of voluntary high-quality, preschool education, universally available to 3- and 4-year-old children from families at or below 200 percent of the poverty line” in order to improve college graduation rates.
The Society for Human Resource Management’s report “called for more investments in early childhood programs to ensure a well-educated, globally competitive workforce in the future.”
These reports, and the organizations’ commitment to expanding the availability of quality early learning, are music to my (the usual suspect’s) ears. If these non-traditional advocates get heard, the long-term prospects for young children, for crime reduction, for increased college graduation rates and for a globally competitive workforce are improved. Of course this is an extremely tall order for early childhood programs, but the research is extensive, and the voices are mounting.
Child Care Costs are Rising – But so is the Quality. How will we pay for quality child care?
Today’s news direct from the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies:
NACCRRA just released its latest report, Parents and the High Cost of Child Care: 2010 Update which reveals that child care prices continue to rise, despite the nation’s economic downturn.
Specifically, the report shows that in 2009:
• The highest statewide average cost of full-time care for an infant in a center was $18,750 a year.
• For a 4-year old in a center, parents paid an average up to $13,150 a year for full-time care.
• Parents of school-age children paid an average up to $10,720 a year for part-time care in a center.
In short, the key findings show that:
• Since 2000, the cost of child care has increased twice as fast as the median income of families with children.
• The cost of care for an infant in a child care center is more than the cost of college tuition and related expenses in 40 states.
• The high cost of child care forces parents to make difficult decisions about where they place their children for care.
• As child care costs rise, parents are shifting their children from licensed programs to informal care that potentially compromises their safety, health, and school readiness.
The report and related materials can be found on NACCRRA’s website.
Here is the pressing dilemma from my point of view: A portion of the higher cost is due to the fact that teachers are getting better educated, obtaining formal credentials and college degrees. This is causing a rise in the salaries. The quality of child care has risen over the past ten years.
All good for children, right? Well, what happens if parents can no longer afford to enroll their children in quality programs? Poor quality and inconsistent care may be the only option for lower wage families.
Early learning sets the foundation for life-long learning, so the importance of having teachers and caregivers with proper education cannot be overstated. To the extent that the more expensive child care is due to having better educated staff, we have a looming child care cost problem. We cannot turn away from improving the quality of care, so what are the solutions to paying for better child care?
WINGS and Public Policy
Citizens who have no personal stake in the outcome, who care so passionately about policy related to young children, are a powerful force. I am grateful they have taken on my favorite cause!
Striving Together
Wow! Our community is making meaningful strides in improving school readiness for all children, and 4C is proud to be playing a significant role in this achievement.
Strive, a partnership involving the communities of Cincinnati, Newport and Covington whose purpose is to “create a world class education system where every child succeeds from birth through college,” just issued its 2010 report card, and progress is everywhere to behold. The single measure used to report on school readiness is the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment-Literacy (KRA-L) in Ohio and the DIAL 3 in Kentucky. Since 2005, the percent of “ready” children in Cincinnati Public Schools has risen from 44% to 53%, using the KRA-L; in Newport the increase has been from 60% to 70% using the DIAL 3.
Strive has created a structure to measure progress system-wide and that has increased the focus on results – a huge improvement. The two strategies where investments have been made, and are paying off, are home visitation of at-risk mothers (with an array of supports), and efforts to improve the quality of child care.
The national and local data is clear – high quality child care results in improved child outcomes, and at-risk children gain the most advantage from high quality early childhood education. 4C is providing coaching and technical assistance to child care centers on both sides of the river, and the improvements are visible everywhere. It is exciting to be a part of a region that is so committed to supporting children and families.
Health Care Reform for Child Care Providers
I recently attended a national public policy symposium in Washington, D.C., where Carmen Nazario spoke. Ms. Nazario is the assistant secretary for Children and Families of the Department of Health and Human Services. Her comments were wide-ranging, talking about the administration’s budget proposals (expanding child care to 300,000 more children), the First Lady’s efforts to decrease the incidence of childhood obesity, and the Early Learning Challenge Fund. But the biggest “ah ha” moments for much of the audience of early childhood advocates was the discussion of health care reform.
Large numbers of staff in child care centers, and self-employed family child care providers, do not have health insurance through their employers. These low-wage workers often cannot afford insurance for themselves and their families, and do without. Due to pre-existing conditions, they may be unable to even buy health care in the individual market. Ms. Nazario believes that child care workers may be among the biggest beneficiaries of health care reform.
This week may be “do or die” for health care reform that would make care accessible to those who provide care and education to our youngest children. For their sake and the sake of all the families in America who depend upon them, let’s hope health care becomes available at a price they can afford.
Posted by sallie on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 3:57 PM
