Posts filed under ‘General’
I’m Feeling Especially Proud of 4C Staff and Volunteers
Most of my blogs are specifically about public policy issues, but I want to take a quick moment to “brag on” 4C volunteers and staff. In the past week, 4C for Children was given a great honor to be named the overall winner of the ONE Award. ONE stands for Organizations of Noteworthy Excellence. The award recognizes business best practices among tax-exempt charitable organizations in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.
This year, 15 organizations submitted applications and six met criteria for at least one of the three categories (people, principles, process). 4C was the only organization to be recognized in all categories. The ONE Award is based on the Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence Award, given at a national level for businesses that meet a rigorous set of standards. The process includes review by a team of trained examiners.
This was the first time 4C submitted an application, although I must say that we have been working for a number of years to increase our use of data to improve all aspects of our services and impact. The kudos for this recognition are due entirely to the high expectations and diligence of the 4C staff – 70 strong.
We were most honored to be in the company of other terrific organizations that make a huge impact in our region. One of the greatest things is that all the winners this year serve children. The other honorees are:
- Assistance League of Greater Cincinnati
- Cincinnati Union Bethel
- Redwood
- Society of St. Vincent DePaul
- The Children’s Home of Cincinnati
The other highlight of the year (so far—and it is only the end of January) was the very successful Champions for Children gala held on Saturday January 28. Nearly 350 people, dressed in their finery, cheered our champions Senator Eric Kearney, Digi Schueler and Toyota, as well as Champs: The Next Gen – Kenton County Schools’ Hanner’s Heroes. Hundreds stayed to dance the night away. Generous sponsors and friends made the evening a big financial success. One corporate leader, who has been to hundreds of benefits, declared this event to be in her all-time top 10. (I had fun too!) In this case, the kudos go to our volunteer committee chaired by Marla Fuller and Tori Ames, and to Karen Hurley, 4C’s VP of Development.
I wonder what other great things 2012 has to offer.
Child care assistance more essential than ever – but less available
When “welfare as we know it” was ended in 1996, replaced by Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, child care financial assistance was accurately seen as an essential support needed for families to get off public assistance. Over the last 15 years this assistance has lifted millions of people out of poverty.
Today, with states struggling with lower tax revenue and a climate where cutting government spending is sometimes seen as a religion, there are far fewer families who are able to benefit from this assistance. One Associated Press story (http://tinyurl.com/7dsu8ht) tells of a mother and father with a four-year-old boy who are losing their child care assistance because their income is too high. The mother is a waitress at a weight-loss resort, the father a tree-cutter. Both make near the minimum wage.
Their story really struck me because, four years ago, they lived in a tent in a dry river bed, strung out on methamphetamines. Today they are both working, paying rent and supporting their child. They played by the rules – welfare reform has worked for them. It’s tough love with serious consequences for those who do not get training and work.
Now exactly why would we force this mother to quit her job and return to welfare? That is, if the family has not already reached its time limits so she can still qualify I often hear politicians and others interviewed saying that they worked hard for their money, and they do not want to prop up lazy people. But what about hard-working people who have worked extraordinarily hard to overcome odds? Count me in as one supporting more child care assistance to working families.
Talking Points for Day on the Hill
The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies gave its 300-plus symposium attendees a great background and briefing to prepare for our visits to our legislators. We met with staff of Representatives Michael Turner, Jean Schmidt, Steve Chabot (and Steve himself), Geoff Davis, House Speaker John Boehner, and Senators Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown. Here are the 2011 issues that we discussed with members of Congress and their staff.
- About the current budget situation: Don’t cut child care! We cannot strengthen this economy without parents working, and working parents need child care. When you work on the budget for the remainder of this fiscal year, don’t cut child care.
- Reauthorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant: This is the legislation that provides funds to help low-income working families pay for child care, and provides for quality improvement. This law has not been reauthorized for 15 years, and many of its requirements are outdated. When reauthorizing:
- Require comprehensive background checks
- Require minimum levels of training for those who work in child care
- Require that centers and family child care homes are inspected on a regular basis
- Increase the quality set-aside from 4% under current law, to 12%, rising over time to 25% like Head Start.
3. For Senators: Cosponsor Senator Richard Burr’s (R-NC) “Child Care Protection Act of 2011” which calls for comprehensive background checks for child care providers to ensure that convicted felons, child abusers and sex offenders are not paid to care for children. In Ohio, child care providers cannot find out if people thay are planning to hire to care for young children have substantiated cases of child abuse. In Kentucky, background checks do not require fingerprinting.
We will follow up with our messages and see if we have had an impact. Since two of our three messages did not involve funding, we feel there is a lot Congress can do right away. I’ll let you know if we made any progress.
Relationships (Do Not) Matter
Whether an issue relates to business or is personal, whether the audience is customers, family members, employers or contractors, relationships matter. That is why4C is so singularly focused on accountability and communication. We work hard to make certain that the people we work with – whether child care providers, parents, funders or other partners – are highly satisfied with the level of service and responsiveness we provide.
That is why it was jaw-dropping to learn that we lost an important contract that we thought we had served so well. In communicating with the funder, a unit of government, we were told the following. (The wording is slightly modified so as not to identify the funder.)
I can say that we are in no way dissatisfied or unhappy with 4C. We in fact continue to appreciate your responsiveness to our customers and the support you’ve provided to us.
… Your questions about our satisfaction with the quality of your service are unfortunately irrelevant in the context of this procurement and the proposal evaluation. Whether the answers to these questions (level of satisfaction, successful track record, accountability and relationship) for any vendor submitting bids were all negative or all positive, it could not and was not considered in the evaluation of their bid.
So in this case our track record, our partnerships, our relationships do not matter. This is a bad direction for decision-makers. Price can always be negotiated, but trust and dependability cannot. We had an experience in the past in which we were dramatically underbid on a contract where we had extensive experience. We said we would serve 60 people for the amount of money offered. The successful bidder promised 200. After 18 months the successful bidder had served 30 people.
In relating this story to a 4C Board member, I was reminded that we, too, sometimes ditch our current vendors for a better price, especially when resources are tight. I believe that level of satisfaction does factor into the decision to seek other vendors in the case of a private sector organization like 4C, and I also understand that government has more restrictions in its bid processes. Nonetheless, I sure wish the funder could have negotiated with us!
Investing in strong relationships is always the best choice – and the course we will choose. Relationships really do matter.
Leading With Vision
Last week was the annual 4C Leadership Conference in Northern Kentucky. This conference, for directors and owners of early childhood education programs, is one of the few opportunities most directors have to step back from their frenetic pace to think about their organizations’ vision and direction. There were sessions on management as well as on leadership, and my hope is that managers found new passion to lead, and that leaders gained momentum to fulfill dreams.
I currently am participating in a strategic planning process of an organization I care deeply about. When asked by the consultant whether we wanted to add a vision statement to our mission statement, the general sentiment was “not now. We have enough on our plates.” I was dismayed because I am an advocate of the big vision. I love Daniel Burnham’s famous quote, “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized.”
Knowing your organization’s function might allow you to manage to that narrow function, but trying to visualize what could be is the only way to lead, and the only way to gain passionate commitment from others.
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.
What’s Wrong With This Salary Picture?
According to the American Association of University Professors, the average salary for full-time college teachers is $80,000. Those teachers, instructors, professors or adjuncts usually have extensive education and are well prepared for their work. Their students have brains that are nearly fully developed and are at a point in their lives when they have learned how to learn. The teacher is mostly a guide to knowledge.
The average salary for full-time teachers of preschool-age children is under 25% of that amount (child care workers at $17,000, preschool teachers from $19, 000 to $22,000). These teachers have lower educational requirements, yet their role is to help children’s brains develop, to learn how to learn, to develop social and emotional skills, and to help create a foundation for life-long learning.
It is time to raise the bar. With all that is known about early brain development and early learning, it seems that this is the place to start education reform.
March 26, 2010 at 10:35 am Sallie Westheimer Leave a comment
Pre-K: the biggest bang for your education buck
Thanks to Jeff Edmondson of Strive for forwarding this amazing research article from the Public Education Network.
Pre-K: the biggest bang for your education buck
A new study by Wilder Research of St. Paul, Minn., undertaken at the behest of Michigan nonprofit Early Childhood Investment Corp., finds that Michigan preschool programs over the past 25 years are saving the state $1 billion this year in crime and education costs, as well as contributing to increased state productivity. Michigan school superintendent Mike Flanagan said the study shows the state should spend much more than it does getting pre-kindergarten children ready for school, and suggested that the state and districts consider reducing the cost of school employee benefits and using the savings to expand preschool programs. “In a K-12 system, we spend $1 billion a grade, but we don’t spend anywhere close to that where it would get the biggest bang for the buck.”
Among the savings cited in the study were a $220 million savings to public schools because fewer students repeat grades and there is less need for special education instruction; $584 million less for programs for juvenile corrections, child abuse, and welfare; and $347 million less in social costs as a result of less crime and substance abuse, as well as increased income for parents. It also affected state unemployment, and boosted work productivity when children enter the workforce.
Read more:http://www.freep.com/article/20100125/NEWS06/100125039/1008/Study-Mich.-preschool-programs-save-us-1B
See the report:http://www.greatstartforkids.org/content/study-early-childhood-programs-save-mi-1b-annually
Posted by sallie on Monday, February 01, 2010 11:17 AM
The Democratic Process – Hearing from the People
Two nights ago I spent more than three hours at a public hearing for the City of Cincinnati’s 2010 budget. The Council has an impossible task on its hands – cut $51 million from an already tight budget. Well over 100 citizens spoke about a wide variety of City services. The folks dressed in green to support recycling and environmental issues were the most visible. The parents with their children with special needs advocating to retain therapeutic recreation programs were the most moving.
I was there to support human services: homeless shelters, services for victims of domestic violence, food for those who cannot afford food this holiday season or any season, and of course child care so that working parents can get and keep jobs.
What struck me on Tuesday was how respectful the members of Council were. They sat through testimony which was, at turns, boring, thoughtful, repetitive, moving, rude and respectful right back. While our current Council is extremely divided (four of the nine members are declining to participate in the negotiations) at least most of the members seemed to believe in the value of hearing from citizens.
I wish them the best in getting to a balanced budget with the least harm to the City. I also wish that they will fund human services at a time that people are most in need.
Save City Child Care Licensing…Again
Last night I had the opportunity to testify before the Cincinnati Board of Health about the City’s Child Care Licensing Ordinance. The City has regulated child care centers since 1968 and is now proposing to eliminate this protection for children. You might be surprised to know that I support this proposal…up to a point.
Much of the City’s regulation duplicates the State of Ohio’s regulation, and in this era of severe budget cuts, it is hard to justify any duplication at all. Yet, there are three provisions very much worth retaining in order to protect children, align with community goals of school readiness and distinguish Cincinnati by having us closer to national quality goals. Those standards are:
- Room size – The City requires that for each infant there are 50 square feet to allow for cribs, high chairs, rockers and floor space for children to crawl and walk. The state only requires 35 square feet.
- Adult-to-Child Ratio – The City requires one adult for four infants while the state permits two adults to care for 12 infants (1:4 vs. 1:6).
- Group Size – Since the City’s adult-to-child ratios are lower, the total number of children permitted in a classroom is also lower.
The City license is expensive for the 105 programs that are currently licensed ($8 per child per year), so any effort to save them money would be important as well. A coalition of child care center operators and supporters propose that the City eliminate the current ordinance and replace it with a much streamlined approach, to include only room size, ratio and group size. This plan has the benefits of:
- Continuing the basic standards for young children in care.
- Eliminating a staff position at the Health Department by transferring room size verification to the Building Department and allowing a desk review of staffing plans.
- Saving the high cost of licensing for City businesses by significantly reducing the licensing fee.
- Ensuring that all duplication between City and state licensing is eliminated. Anyone care to join in this effort to protect kids and improve efficiency at the same time? We need to influence the members of the Board of Health and the members of Cincinnati City Council. Let me know!
