The FY 2016 Spending Bill Brings Some Holiday Cheer for Early Education
Blog Post
Dec. 17, 2015
Early Wednesday morning, the House and Senate appropriations committees released their FY 2016 omnibus funding bill that would fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year. It is expected to pass the House and Senate and be signed by President Obama before Christmas. The Labor-HHS-Education bill includes a $5.4 billion increase from last year’s enacted level.
There are a handful of funding streams that support early education at the federal level. Head Start, Early Head Start, and the Child Care and Development Block Grant are funded through HHS, while Title I, Preschool Development Grants, and IDEA Preschool Grants are funded through the Education Department. There are other programs that touch on early education, but these are the largest that benefit vulnerable children. Here’s a breakdown of how they fared in the budget deal and what this means for the coming year:
- Head Start and Early Head Start: The omnibus bill includes $9.168 billion for Head Start and Early Head Start, a $570 million increase over last year’s enacted level. While this is still about $1 billion less than President Obama asked for, it’s more than many in the early ed community were expecting and more than was in the House and Senate committee bills released earlier this year. According to the funding bill, $294 million would be available “to grantees that apply for supplemental funding to increase their hours of program operations and for training and technical assistance for such activities.” The Obama Administration requested approximately $1.1 billion to increase the “dosage” of all Head Start programs to at least six hours per day and 170 days per year. While many full-day, full-year programs already exist, many Head Start programs operate under the current minimum hours of 3.5 hours per day and 128 days per year due to limited funding. Research indicates that more time in the classroom is associated with higher outcomes for Head Start attendees. This level of funding is far from the amount needed to increase dosage for all programs, but it can be used to help select programs transition to full-day, full-year services. It will be important for HHS to provide adequate support and technical assistance so that quality is not compromised during this transition. The extra time allowed for in full-day programs can greatly benefit children, but only if that time is used well.The bill also includes $635 million for Early Head Start, which means a $135 million increase for the Early Head Start- Child Care Partnerships initiative. This program aims to improve the quality of child care centers and increase access to Early Head Start, which only reached about four percent of eligible families last year due to limited funding.
- Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG): A sizeable $326 million increase to CCDBG is also included in the bill, more than we saw in the House or Senate budget proposals earlier this year. The CCDBG reauthorization in late 2014 made some needed changes to the law, such as encouraging continuity of care by reassessing family eligibility only once per year and making programs safer by requiring all participating providers to undergo annual health and safety inspections. The increased funding would help implement the provisions of the new law, with about $127 million intended to specifically improve quality of child care programs for infants and toddlers.
- Preschool Development Grants: The bill includes $250 million for Preschool Development Grants (PDG), which support states in expanding access to high-quality pre-K for four-year-olds in high-need communities. (This program is not to be confused with the newly created Preschool Development Grant program in the Every Student Succeeds Act.) This is the same level of funding as last year but its inclusion is a surprise to some. Both the House and Senate bills included no money for the program. States have been implementing their PDG awards since the first round of winners were announced about one year ago. The grant periods were intended to be four years and defunding the program would have halted work that is just picking up in many states.
- Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA): The bill includes a $500 million increase to Title I, which provides local school districts with funds to improve the education of disadvantaged students from birth through the 12th grade. This increase puts the program at approximately $4.9 billion. Most districts use the funding for K-12 programs, but as my colleague Laura Bornfreund has explained, Title I funds can be used to support children beginning at birth, which can include providing pre-K. Although a small percentage of districts use Title I funds for this purpose, the very newly reauthorized ESEA, the Every Student Succeeds Act, does clearly reiterate that Title I funds can be directed towards young learners.
- IDEA Part B (Preschool Grants) and IDEA Part C: The appropriations bill allocates about $368 million for IDEA Preschool Grants and over $458 million for Part C, which serves infants and families with disabilities. The levels are less than the President requested, but slightly higher than in FY 2015.
- Race to the Top -Early Learning Challenge: As expected, the bill does not include any funding for Race to the Top. Congress did not appropriate funds for the program last year either. Several of the grantees are still implementing their four-year Early Learning Challenge grants, but there likely won’t be any additional funds allocated to this initiative in the future.