Early Education in the Stimulus

Earlier today, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wisc.) released an outline of spending priorities for an economic stimulus package. Obey’s plan would provide $550 billion in new spending to stimulate the economy, including over $52 billion in funding for Pk-12 education programs, including early education. (The entire bill can be found here.)

Specifically, the proposal calls for:

• $2 billion in funding for the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG), to provide childcare to an additional 300,000 children
• $2.1 billion in Head Start funding to provide Head Start services to an additional 110,000 children
• $600 million for IDEA Infants and Families Programs, which provide special education services to infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families
• $13 billion for the federal Title I program, which provides funding to improve education for disadvantaged youngsters, and is an important source of federal funding for pre-kindergarten education
• $13 billion for IDEA special education programs
• $14 billion for K-12 school construction
• $1 billion for educational technology programs
• $250 million for states to develop data systems that help educators track and analyze student performance data for accountability purposes and to improve instruction
• $66 million to enhance programs for homeless children and youth, in response to the current fiscal crisis and increased rates of homelessness
• $300 million to improve teacher quality, including $200 million for competitive grants to state and school district programs that reward teachers who increase student achievement and $100 million for competitive grants to states to address teacher shortages

In addition to this education funding, the proposal would provide $360 million for the Defense Department to build new Child Development Centers to provide childcare for military personnel. The proposal would also temporarily increase the federal Medicaid match, helping plug holes in state budgets to reduce the need for state cuts in Medicaid and other programs, such as pre-k and child care.

It’s important to realize that these proposals are only a starting point. House debate over the stimulus package in the coming weeks will likely lead to modifications to the House legislation. And the Senate needs to pass its own bill–which could look quite different from the House version. So whatever stimulus package we eventually get is going to look different from these proposals.

We think it’s smart for Congress to take advantage of the stimulus to make much needed investments in modernizing and building new school facilities. It also makes sense to increase CCDBG spending to ensure that low-income families continue to have access to child care. Title I has been an important source of funding for school districts early education investments–including investments in community-based pre-k programs–and is also targeted to low-income students, so increasing Title I funding can also help support early education for disadvantaged youngsters. Increased IDEA and Medicaid funds can also help take some of the pressure off state budgets, hopefully reducing the need for state pre-k cuts. Wisely, this proposal would route new education funds primarily through existing funding streams, which will enable funds to get out the door to schools and communities more quickly.

Our biggest concern with the proposal Rep. Obey released today is that it refers to school construction funding for K-12 facilities and higher education facilities but not early education. This is only a sketch of a proposal right now, so the exclusion of early education may just be an oversight. But it is very important for Congress to ensure that any new school construction funds support the construction and renovation of pre-k and early education, as well as K-12 facilities. Moreover, new school construction funding streams must be designed in a way that ensures community-based early education providers have access to funding, rather than giving school districts a monopoly on new school construction funds. This important for two reasons: First, early education providers have substantial and documented facilities needs that are a major obstacle to expanding access to high-quality early education, and, compared to school districts, they have very limited access to facilities financing. Second, community-based early education providers, because they are smaller and less bureaucratic than school districts, may be able to put new school construction funds to work fixing or expanding their buildings more quickly than school districts can.

Two other details worth mentioning regarding the proposals put forward today: As we’ve written previously, any federal investment in state data systems should require these sytems to incorporate information on children’s participation in public pre-k and Head Start programs, to allow state and federal officials to track the long-term effects of early education investments. Second, while increasing funding for CCDBG is an important step to ensure continued child care access, it’s not enough. Federal policymakers must also support adjustments to existing federal and state regulations to ensure that parents who lose their jobs don’t also lose access to care while they look for new jobs. The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) has put forward some very sensible proposals on that issue that should be incorporated into any stimulus package along with increased CCDBG funding.