Hearing of the House Education and the Workforce Committee - The Foundation for Success: Strengthening the Child Care and Development Block Grant Program

Hearing

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to thank our distinguished witness panel for their participation in today's hearing. I look forward to learning about the Child Care and Development Block Grant, or CCDBG, which is the largest federal program providing funding for child care.

Reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant, which hasn't seen a reauthorization since 1996, presents this Committee with a unique opportunity to ensure access to affordable, quality child care that will benefit our children and their parents. Quality child care programs can act as the first part of a continuum of learning that sets children on the path to success. A recent report released by Center for American Progress showed that over 85% of Americans ─ including 77% of Republicans ─ support expanding access to child care programs.

Today, the Child Care and Development Block Grant supports low-income parents' ability to work or participate in training or education programs, and thus their self-sufficiency, and provides young children with early childhood experiences that can improve their learning readiness. These goals of CCDBG are strongly related to the preschool goals that our recent full committee hearing examined.

Despite the similarities between child care and preschool services, there are some fundamental differences between the two: preschool is mostly aimed at 4-year olds, whereas CCDBG funds child care for children from birth to age 12; most preschool programs require specific teacher credentials, such as bachelor's degrees, and child care tends to lack such provider requirements; and prekindergarten programs often have specific evidence-based curricular requirements, which are mostly absent from child care settings.

A number of issues come to mind when we discuss federally funded child care programs - in order to make the best of our investment, these programs must provide access to those who need child care, must be affordable enough for families to use, and services must be of a high quality. Poor child care access, affordability, and quality means that continued Congressional support or reauthorization of CCDBG, including a modest funding increase, will be insufficient to meet needs of low-income working parents and their young children.

On the topic of access, we know that despite about 1.4 million children receiving CCDBG subsidies, only one in six children eligible for federal child care assistance under CCDBG actually receives it. An estimated 590,000 children eligible for child care are on waiting lists in 19 states and that number doesn't include two states that don't keep waiting lists and instead simply turn away eligible families. Just 40% of eligible children have access to Head Start. Barely half of 3 and 4 year olds are enrolled in preschool programs, and just a third of lowincome children are enrolledin such programs. Early Head Start, established to provide quality child development services to children birth to age 3, reaches less than 4% of eligible infants and toddlers.

Even when low-income families do have access to child care, it's often unaffordable, forcing some of them to choose between paying for food, clothes, heat, or child care. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, families living in poverty spend an average of 30% of their income on child care, compared with 18% for families earning between 100% and 150% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), and 7% for families earning at or above 200% of the FPL.

On top of access and affordability issues American families face, we know that barely a third (35%) of 4-year olds in child care centers receive high-quality care. Because CCDBG prioritizes workforce support for parents over education for children, the quality of some of the child care it funds is poor, hindering some children's development and learning. One report found that 42% of children are in state prekindergarten programs that meet less than half of the recommended quality standards. CCDBG requires that states spend at least 4% of their grants on quality activities, but this floor is clearly insufficient.

Research from the National Center for Children and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development confirms that children receive numerous benefits from good quality care such as better cognitive development, fewer behavioral problems, enhanced cooperation, increased school readiness, and improved language use and comprehension. They will also be less likely to be involved in the criminal justice system, become pregnant as a teenager, or drop out of school. As with prekindergarten, the return on public investment and positive outcomes are generated only by quality care - poor quality care can in fact be harmful and put children on the wrong path.

That's why an expanded federal investment in quality child care is needed, including Head Start, along with state support for preschool programs. Given the importance of the quality of care and early education to future outcomes, Congress and the administration are examining ways to improve the quality of publicly funded child care under the CCDBG. The bipartisan CCDBG reauthorization passed by the Senate two weeks ago emphasizes necessary quality improvements, including increasing the quality set-aside from 4% to 10%, and critical health and safety provisions, such as more program inspections and monitoring, and provider training, credentials, and professional development.

I am eager for bipartisan collaboration to reauthorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant, as well as other legislation that addresses the educational needs of our country, such as the H.R. 3461, the Strong Start for America's Children Act. We need bipartisan collaboration to allow all children receive the opportunity to fulfill their potential. Thank you.

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