Early Education in the Senate Stimulus Bill

Earlier this month we wrote about the early education funding provisions in the House version of stimulus legislation currently making its way through Congress. Today, Early Ed Watch obtained more information about the early education funding provisions in the Senate’s version of the stimulus bill.

The House and Senate stimulus bills are similar in many ways:

• Both would provide $79 billion in state fiscal stabilization funds, the plurality which would go to education.
• Both would provide $1 billion in increased funding for Head Start programs, and $1.1 billion in increased funding for Early Head Start programs.
• Both would provide $2 billion in increased funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant.
• Both would provide $13 billion in increased funding for the federal Title I program, with funds routed through the targeted grant formula ($5.5 billion), the Education Finance Incentive Grant formula ($5.5 billion), and to support accountability interventions in schools identified for school improvement under No Child Left Behind ($2 billion).
• Both would provide $13 billion in increased funding for IDEA special education grants to states, as well as half a billion dollars in new funding for infants and toddlers with disabilities (the Senate bill provides $500 million for IDEA part C, and the House bill provides $600 million).
• Both would provide $1 billion in funding for education technology.
• Both would increase funding for Department of Defense child development centers ($354 million in the Senate bill and $360 million in the House bill).
• And both would make substantial investments in school renovation and modernization, although the Senate bill provides more funding ($16 billion) for this purpose than does the House bill ($14 billion).

But within the details of the text of the legislation that we have seen, the Senate bill contains some additional provisions that could be particularly significant for early education.

Most importantly, the Senate bill would set aside 15 percent of the $13 billion in Title I funds, as well as 15 percent of the $13 billion in IDEA funds, specifically for services to preschool-aged children. This is a big deal: 15 percent of both the Title I and IDEA money in the Senate stimulus bill would amount to $3.9 billion in increased school district spending on educational programs for preschool-aged youth. Add in the increased IDEA funding for infants and toddlers and the Senate bill actually provides a greater increase in funding for services to young children through Title I and IDEA than it does through Head Start and CCDBG.

$4.4 billion dollars in new Title I and IDEA funding for children ages zero to five is a substantial boost. But the fact that the Senate is choosing to route substantial increases in early education funding through Title I and IDEA, not just Head Start and CCDBG, is also important. For a long time, discussions about federal funding for early childhood programs and federal funding for education have occurred in isolation from one another, with early childhood advocates focusing on Head Start and CCDBG and education groups focusing on Title I and IDEA, even though Title I and IDEA are in fact important sources of early education funding. The Senate bill, in its current form, would make them even more important sources of funding and could potentially help bring together currently disconnected discussions of early childhood and K-12 education funding.

Even more intriguing, our sources suggest that the impetus for the 15 percent Title I set-aside for preschool in the Senate’s stimulus bill actually came from the Obama administration. If true, that suggests that the administration is aware of the importance of integrating early education efforts into its broader education reform agenda, and is taking steps to do so. We sincerely hope they continue to view early education issues in this light, both through the stimulus debate and beyond as they shape their early education legislative package and proposals for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also known as No Child Left Behind) legislation.

In addition, the Senate bill places a particular focus on child care quality, setting aside $255 million of the increased CCDBG funding for activities to improve the quality of child care programs funded by CCDBG—above and beyond the percentage of funds that states are already required by law to set aside for quality. Of that $255 million set aside, $94 million is dedicated specifically to efforts to improve quality for infants and toddlers.

As we’ve said before, these bills are just the beginning of the process. Although the Senate bill helps clarify what some of the broad outlines of the stimulus are likely to look like, we can’t yet say which details of the House and Senate bills, where they diverge, are likely to make it into the final legislation. But Early Ed Watch will continue to closely track this legislation as it moves forward in the weeks ahead, so keep your RSS reader turned here.