(This is the fourth story in a series on special needs in early education.)

Could autism overwhelm federal programs that support children with disabilities?

Autism appears to be nearly everywhere these days - 1 in 110 children are now diagnosed with the disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control. It is on “Oprah,” national magazine covers and the minds of parents.

Now there are signs not every child that could have autism is getting diagnosed. Researchers found lower rates of diagnosis among African American and Hispanic families and suggestions that parents’ education may play a role in getting a diagnosis, according to a commentary.

What would happen if every family had access to high-quality autism screening and intensive services, which can total more than 20 hours a week? Would the system fall apart? These are among the questions raised by the commentary “Is Autism the Disability that Breaks Part C?”

We worry, however, that as professionals continue to make recommendations for intensive early intervention for children with ASD (autism spectrum disorders), the programs are going to crumble under the additional burden. – “Is Autism the Disability That Breaks Part C?” Journal of Early Intervention, 3/10.

The fact is the recent spike in autism diagnoses is already straining the system. Parents of autistic children run into waitlists, a shortage of therapists and health insurance that often fails to cover tens of thousands of dollars in therapy a year. This occurs even in cities such as Seattle, which are home to cutting edge research and support.

The commentary wonders whether this increase could strain or break federal support for disabled infants and toddlers, known as Part C.

One of the most important issues it raises is a divide between haves and have nots within the autism community.

We worry, however, that establishing an early and accurate diagnosis may be related more to where a family lives, whether the parents went to college, and what medical insurance they have than to the young children's behavioral profiles. To the extent that our perceptions are valid, something in "the system" is not working. – “Is Autism the Disability That Breaks Part C?”

Schwartz also suggests there is a gap between families who get a diagnosis of autism for their child and those whose children have another type of developmental delay.

“There is also a divide between families who have ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and those who do not,” Schwartz wrote in an email. “…But we need to provide services for all children that are high quality.  Unfortunately… the way schools are funded that is becoming increasingly difficult.”

The co-authors write in their commentary they are far from opposed to intense early intervention for children on the autism spectrum. In fact, they point out they developed one of the models. Instead, they write the system needs to be changed to ensure all families raising a child with a disability get support.

Co-author Ilene Schwartz, who adds in the story she is hopeful the system will not collapse, has ideas to ensure the system doesn’t break.

One of her most interesting proposals is that high quality child care could help manage the burden.

“If all children had access to high quality child care, then we may be able to provide fewer hours of specialized instruction.  High quality child care where children are engaged and have high quality and consistent interactions with caring adults, supported by some specialized intervention and some training for parents and other caregivers may be sufficient and it would certainly be more sustainable and more child friendly,”    Schwartz, director of the University of Washington’s Haring Center for Applied Research and Training in Education, wrote in an email.

Schwartz raises more questions than answers – not surprising given we don’t know what causes autism or how to cure it.

It sounds like we need to start answering some of these questions before the system breaks down even more.

Article: “Is Autism the Disability That Breaks Part C? A Commentary on "Infants and Toddlers With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Early Identification and Early Intervention, “by Boyd, Odom; Humphreys, and Sam.” By Ilene S. Schwartz and Susan R. Sandall, University of Washington, Seattle. Journal on Early Intervention, 3/10.

The country may be slowly emerging from the recession, but cuts to state prekindergarten spending are only getting deeper, a new report says.

So far, prekindergarten programs have lost $348 million in funding in fiscal 2010 and 2011, according to a report from the National Institute for Early Education Research.

And those state cuts are only part of the story.

As many programs depend on local funding as well as state funding, total cuts of government funds likely exceed state cuts. – “Brief Report: Funding cuts to state-funded prekindergarten programs in FY10 & 11.

If you recall, spending on state pre-k programs slowed last year, and some states cut spending, NIEER reported in “The State of Preschool 2009.” But, the report warned more cuts could be coming. 

“The immediate future of pre-K seems much more perilous than past trends might suggest…State budgets will more fully bear the brunt of the recession in 2010 and 2011.” NIEER co-director Steven Barnett, author of the 2009 report and co-author of the recent update, said in a statement earlier this year.

Washington is among the states that cut, trimming $1.7 million in fiscal ’10 and $10.4 million in fiscal ’11, according to the latest brief. 

 Senate Adds Money for Toddlers and Infants with Disabilities:  There was some good budget news today. The Senate Appropriations Committee added $20 million for the main federal program for disabled infants and toddlers, known as Part C, The Council for Exceptional Children reports.

At almost the 11th hour in a vote backing right up to recess, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved an increase in IDEA Part B funding of $420 million dollars and - somewhat more surprisingly – it approved an increase in IDEA Part C funding of $20 million dollars. – “Senate Appropriations Committee Approves Increases in Funding for IDEA B and C.”

Policymakers need to know what works if they want to build a quality early learning system, which is why it’s big news that Washington State won $17.3 million to build a statewide data system that will track student progress from pre-kindergarten to work.

 The U.S. Education Department is sending the money to Washington as part of last year’s economic stimulus package. The new funds will allow the Department of Early Learning to create a system that consolidates information on licensing, professional development, quality ratings, child care subsidies and other programs, which are currently spread out in various systems, according to DEL spokeswoman Amy Blondin.

While there is data on students’ progress, the new effort will combine K-12 data with pre-kindergarten, post-secondary and employment information, according to Gov. Christine Gregoire’s office.

“For the state overall, it will allow us to "follow" students from pre-k through college. That will give us a much better picture of how students are doing throughout their education, and what we can do to better support their success,” Blondin wrote in an email.

Having reliable data also could be an asset in winning additional federal funding for child care and preschool – the Obama administration has highlighted the need for proven programs, and good tracking data is a big part of proving programs work. So, this new data network may bring even more federal funding to Washington.

“Having a data system to look at the progress of a student from pre-kindergarten through college is something that will help us better understand their needs. This grant will be an important part of our efforts to implement education reform and improve the quality of education for our children,” Gov. Christine Gregoire said in a statement on the new funds.

Thanks to the Early Learning Community for highlighting this development.

Early Ed in K-12 Reform News: A key Senate committee discussed how early learning could fit into the reform of federal K-12 laws and Early Ed Watch has a good overview. (You can also watch a webcast of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing.)

With time running out in the Washington State legislative session, a cut in child care subsidies for poor families remains a $30-million part of a House plan to balance the budget, though the Senate appears to support more funding.

The House budget plan now has a smaller version of Gov. Christine Gregoire’s proposed cut to the Working Connections Child Care program – a move that would force thousands of poor families from the program that provides child care subsidies and support, according to interest groups.

But, over in the Senate, the budget blueprint would preserve funding for the program.

Supporters argue that working but still poor parents would have a far harder time pulling their families out of poverty without this help with often hefty child care bills.

Without work supports such as WCCC, maintaining employment can be difficult if not impossible. According to the state Department of Early Learning, the average cost of a child care center for two children is about $1,177 per month. (Assuming one toddler and one school-age child.) As shown in the graph below, that is over half of the total monthly income for a family earning $24,000 per year. – “Important Work Support in Jeopardy,” Washington State Budget and Policy Center.

While it isn’t clear what will happen to the program, something should happen soon. The regular legislative session is slated to end March 11.  With a long and slow economic recovery now likely, the question is: Will legislators make the connections between working, the need for affordable child care and a stronger economy?

For further reading:

• “Child Care Subsidy for Working Parents in Jeopardy,” The Children’s Alliance, 1/29/10.
• “Important Work Support in Jeopardy,” Washington State Budget and Policy Center.

California faces yet another large budget shortfall and that means policymakers in the nation’s biggest state may face a new round of tough decisions on early learning spending.

Earlier this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked off the debate by declaring a fiscal emergency and proposing his new budget, which contained potential child care cuts, Preschool California reported. If California doesn’t receive a big bump in federal funding, it would trigger cuts that could eliminate the state’s CalWorks program, which supports poorer families with child care aid and employment help, and its Healthy Families health care coverage for kids, according to an analysis provided by the advocacy group.

The governor’s budget also contains cuts to child care reimbursement rates. It wasn’t all bad news, however. The governor’s budget “increases by $65.5 million to backfill Pre-School one-time funds used in the current year,” Preschool California said. (We are still waiting for more details about the budget plan.)

Now isn’t a great time to cut child care spending in California because the state received a C for its early learning and development in a recent report card issued by Children Now, an Oakland, California-based advocacy group.

It could be another tough year of state funding battles.

Washington State News

• Governor's Budget: "Devastating" For Children In Need – 12/16/09, KCPQ 13
• VIDEO: Editorial Board Interview with State Education Leaders (DEL Director Bette Hyde and Charles Earl, executive director of the State Board of Technical and Community Colleges) – 12/15/09, Kitsap Sun
• Report stresses importance of early childhood education; urges lawmakers to implement crucial benchmarks – 12-13-09, Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal
• Governor's Balanced-Budget Plan Provides Plenty of Pain for Kitsap – 12/12/09, Kitsap Sun
• Letter to the Editor: Budget cuts would be detrimental –12/13/09, The Herald
• Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner mobilizes moms to fight for their rights  – 12/13/09, Seattle Times
• Paying for day care isn't child's play  – 12/13/09, Yakima Herald Republic
• Financial aid, all-day kindergarten would disappear under all-cuts budget  – 12/11/09, Wenatchee World

National News

• Redshirting: When should children start kindergarten? – 12/16/09, San Francisco Chronicle (CA) : Blog: The Mommy Files
• Cutting investments in children will do more harm than good – 12-15-09, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
• Opinion: In autism, medication is only a partial answer – 12/14/09,  The Boston Globe (MA)
• Editorial: Big benefits: Pre-k meal program not just a tool to fight hunger – 12/15/09, Cumberland Times-News (WV)
• BrightStars program evaluates R.I. child-care providers –12/10/09, The Providence Journal (RI)
• Does Texas Pre-K work? – 12/14/09, The Texas Tribune (TX)
• Editorial: Pre-k proves crucial to future academic success – 12/13/09, Glasgow Daily Times (KY)
  

Research/Policy

•   FY10 Funding for Federal Early Ed Programs – 12/15/09, New America Foundation: Early Ed Watch Blog

Congress finally finished its federal education spending bills and early learning didn’t lose much ground, though some major programs didn’t gain a lot either, according to a new analysis from The Early Ed Watch Blog.

The fact that child care block grants and special education help for preschoolers essentially kept pace with last year isn’t necessarily bad news, since early learning funding received a healthy bump, worth billions of dollars, in the economic stimulus package.  Check out Early Ed Watch’s excellent analysis for details and a funding chart.

The appropriations decisions are the latest twists in what has been a wild year for early education funding – a big infusion in federal stimulus dollars, state policymakers fighting to preserve programs and now another round of state budget battles are looming.

What do you think about the state of early ed funding in this economic climate? How are the federal and state governments doing? Give a grade. Post a comment and tell us what you think and where these funding debates are headed.

News and Notes:

• Home Visitation: The Center on Law and Social Policy released a new report on “Extending Home Visiting to Kinship Caregivers and FFN Caregivers.”
• The Wall Street Journal blog The Juggle offers this interesting post: “Is Raising Children Linked to Depression?”

It is still tough out there as state unemployment rates rise and jobs disappear, but pre-kindergarten initiatives fought the recession to a virtual standstill, losing no overall ground in state funding this year, a report released today says.

Despite widespread budget deficits, early learning preserved much of its political clout in state legislative sessions - 27 of 38 states either found more money or preserved current funding for existing pre-k programs in 2009, according to the report. Perhaps the strongest sign of early learning’s staying power was that of the 10 states with the worst budget shortfalls, seven either boosted or maintained pre-k spending.

Though total state investments will be effectively flat in FY10, rising slightly more than 1 percent to $5.3 billion, lawmakers’ choices clearly indicate that early education remains a top fiscal priority – even in these difficult times. By better than two to one, legislatures made concerted efforts to preserve pre-k. – “Votes Count for FY10,” released by Pre-K Now on 10/22/09.

While there was good news, it was a rough year, and the report had some tough words for Washington state.

Elsewhere, in Texas and Washington, the governors vetoed strategic efforts to expand pre-k opportunities or improve quality.

The debate in Washington is more complex than that brief description, and the authors address that later in the report.

Though the veto was disappointing, the governor (Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire) did follow up by asking state education agency leaders to develop a proposal for the 2010 legislative session to ensure that all children have the benefit of early learning.

In fact, a draft of that plan will be released for a first-round of feedback next week.

Washington also received a bad grade for cutting the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program by $1.65 million.

Washington was not alone. Ohio, Illinois and other states slid on financial commitments to pre-kindergarten, according to the report.

As a nationwide force, though, pre-k fought back the rising economic waters. But, as we have written here before, the worst may be yet to come because the financial health of state budgets could decline in the next few years.

Though the present pre-k funding picture is encouraging, in this politically contentious and economically uncertain environment, families with young children are especially vulnerable, and the danger is by no means passed. State budgets are projected to get worse before they get better. Indeed, new shortfalls are already being reported, and many states are projecting fiscal problems to last for years to come. Lawmakers will soon face even more hard choices.

The question of an early education funding cliff generated a lot of interesting analysis, including the idea there will be a pause in the rise of pre-kindergarten and bigger kindergarten classes from the National Institute for Early Education Research’s Steven Barnett.

The NIEER’s co-director sent me his analysis of the impact of public funding cuts on early learning when I was reporting last week’s blog post. Instead of trying to summarize Barnett’s thoughtful and clear statement, I will get out of the way and let him speak for himself as today’s guest blogger.

This fall will see a halt, or at least a temporary pause, in the rapid increase in state pre-k that we have seen over the past several years. In some states this is a disaster. Ohio's program has been eliminated, and a whole laundry list of states has had their programs cut. These cuts will set back children's learning and development and make it more difficult for their parents to hold down a job because preschool programs provide education and child care.

The big picture for early childhood overall is that demand for preschool is increasing at the same time that public funding is decreasing. When a state cuts its child care programs that increases demand for pre-k and when it cuts pre-k, it pushes families onto the waiting lists for child care subsidies, and both kinds of state cuts will increase the applicants to Head Start. 

Economists have found in past recessions that parents respond to their tightened financial circumstances, job loss and pay cuts by reducing the amount of preschool they buy for their children and seeking more free services. We will see a larger kindergarten class this fall in the public schools because parents will send children who are near the age cutoff to kindergarten when they might otherwise have kept them in preschool.

At the same time, more families are falling below the income eligibility cutoffs so that Head Start, subsidized child care, and state pre-k programs will all see more applicants. In addition, Congress recently raised the income eligibility limits for Head Start to make more families eligible even without the current crisis. The federal stimulus bill provides more money for Head Start and child care (but not state pre-k), but impact on availability is limited because of flat funding in prior years and fears of expanding without having the funds to keep that level of enrollment in the future. Still, without the stimulus funds for states, budget cuts would have been much worse.

There seem to be some patterns in the cuts. There are states where planned expansions have been put off, New Jersey and New York, for example. The rust-belt states seem to have been particularly hard hit - Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois - have either had large, devastating cuts or considered them. In such states, small cuts will be considered a victory. One approach to cut educational quality is by reducing funding per child (e.g., Florida and Louisiana) and reducing supports for quality like professional development. Legislators in North Carolina sought to dismantle the state's top quality More at Four program and replace it with child care.

Until the public and their elected officials insist on treating pre-k like real education, as they do in states like Oklahoma and West Virginia, it will continue to be OK to tell young children, "Sorry you can't go to school this year because we don't have the money." It wouldn't make sense for kindergarten or third grade; it doesn't make sense for pre-k either. You don't eat your seed corn, but that is what some states are doing.

(Editor’s note: Barnett wrote this in response to a question about whether states are cutting pre-k funding in ways advocates worried about in the spring.)

This is only the beginning. On Thursday, Pre-K Now will release a report detailing how states are cutting, preserving or boosting their early learning budgets.

Early learning initiatives are winning fresh federal funding these days from the economic stimulus package, but what happens when this one-time river of money runs dry?

Today, the excellent Politics K-12 blog writes about this funding cliff – when stimulus dollars states use “to backfill cuts and free up money to balance other parts of their budgets” run out in 2011 – and it seems early education could face a similar fall.

The funding collapse could impact pre-kindergarten and preschool programs in a few ways, Politics K-12 blogger Michele McNeil said in an email interview.

“…Some states build pre-K into their bigger K-12 funding formulas…others have it as a separate line-item. If early ed is in the broader funding formula, then it will face the same fate (e.g. potential cuts) as general K-12 funding. If early ed is a separate line item, then when the funding cliff comes and state budget writers are staring a deficit in the face, they will likely protect K-12 first, which means they may cut or reduce the early ed line item if they need to make budget cuts,” the Education Week reporter wrote.

Funding of pre-kindergarten may change sooner than 2011.

"This fall will see a halt, or at least a temporary pause, in the rapid increase in state Pre-K that we have seen over the past several years. In some states this is a disaster. Ohio's program has been eliminated, and a whole laundry list of state's have had their programs cut.  These cuts will set back children's learning and development and make it more difficult for their parents' to hold down a job because preschool programs provide education and child care," National Institute for Early Education Research co-director Steve Barnett wrote in recent weeks. 

Once money runs out, early learning has a few things going for it. It is a hot topic in statehouses and Congress, with more permanent funding in the federal legislative pipeline, as lawmakers recognize the social and economic gains of quality early education. Plus, President Barack Obama is a big fan of the work.

Even with Obama’s support, money may be hard to find with the federal budget deficit at record levels.

Home Visitation Update: Congress pushed home visitation legislation closer to the president’s desk this week, when the Senate Finance Committee passed it as part of a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system, The Early Ed Watch Blog reports.

The blog offers this hopeful conclusion:

Unless something unexpected happens – and anything is possible given the overheated environment surrounding health care reform (see our post on Chuck Norris) – chances are good that any health care bill that passes the House and Senate will bring home visitation along for the ride.

Check out Early Ed’s complete analysis in its full story.