The buzz today is about the Obama administration’s Workplace Flexibility Forum this afternoon, and one of the key things to watch is what comes out of this meeting to expand the availability of quality child care. 

Why? Work-family flex often begins with finding high quality child care. If working parents cannot find good child care, they often struggle to strike a balance in their lives.

Today, there are hopeful signs it may get easier for working moms and dads. In the last few years the increase of women in the workforce, the shifting gender roles in parenting and the rise of Generation Y and its comfort working from home, office and anywhere else there is a wifi connection fueled the work-flex debate.

Once you add President Barack Obama’s commitment to the issue – he has tapped work-flex experts as top advisors and has his own challenges raising two daughters - you begin to see ingredients that could make the daily juggle of work and family easier.

“It doesn’t have to be hard," First Lady Michelle Obama said in opening remarks. “Flexibility policies actually make employees more not less productive.”

As the forum began, Michelle Obama highlighted the federal government’s own commitment to expand telework, access to emergency child care and more affordable day care.

It can be done. Pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. broke ground on a new child care center in this recession. While not every company and industry can build its own child care, a range of businesses supported and added flex benefits in recent years.

But, there are plenty of high obstacles to any change, such as a weak economy and little spending flexibility in Congress.

What do parents of babies, toddlers and pre-kindergarteners want to see come out of this forum? Do you think we will see anything?

Whatever you think the Obama administration will keep working on the issue with future forums around the country in the coming months.

Check out an archive of the forum here or the live feed, which runs until 1:15 p.m. PST today, here.

Further reading:

• White House Announces Forum on Workplace Flexibility.
• “Making History: The White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility,” Huffington Post, 3/30/10.
• “First Lady to Speak at White House Workplace Flexibility Forum,” The Juggle, Wall Street Journal, 3/31/10.
• “White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility,” Motherlode, The New York Times, 3/31/10. 
• “Workplace Flexibility Jumps to the Top of the Agenda (Kinda),” RebelDad, 3/30/10.

The House of Representatives voted to give early learning efforts a big boost Thursday by approving $8 billion over the next 8 years for the Early Learning Challenge Fund, Pre-K Now reports.

The money is part of the far broader Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which now moves to the Senate. President Barack Obama already supported the idea in his budget proposal earlier this year.

Further reading -

Check out Pre-K Now’s memo on the Early Learning Challenge Fund

Read more at The Early Ed Watch Blog: “House Clears the Way for Early Learning Challenge Fund.”

Congress is back in session and new home visitation funding is back on track after Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus included $1.5 billion over five years for the work in his version of health care reform.

The Finance Committee is slated to take up Baucus’s plan – the chairman’s “mark” should serve as a starting point – this Tuesday. While less ambitious than President Barack Obama’s proposal to spend $8.6 billion over ten years on home visitation, Sen. Baucus’s plan is interesting.

Overall, the Senate bill would create a state grant program for early childhood home visitation.

As part of that plan, the bill would require states to rely on proven and research-based programs, but it also would leave room for experimentation. It would allow a grantee to spend 25 percent of their funds on a promising new program, which would be “rigorously evaluated.”

The bill would allocate three percent for research and evaluation, which sounds a little low for an area with a need for a lot of innovation and flexibility.

Groups that won funding “would be required to establish appropriate process and three and five year outcome benchmarks to measure improvement in maternal and child health, childhood injury prevention, school readiness, juvenile delinquency, family economic factors, and coordination with community resources.” – “Chairman’s Mark America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.”

It is too early to say what if any home visitation program and funding will become law this year. But with the Obama administration backing the idea and versions in the

House and Senate health care reform bills, it seems like fresh funding could make it to the president’s desk.

(Thanks to The Early Ed Watch Blog for finding this news.)

Further reading:

• “Chairman’s Mark America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.”
• Early Ed Watch Blog, “Home Visitation Program Appears in Latest Health Care Proposal.”

The recession threatens to take a bite out of Washington state’s efforts to bolster early learning, with legislators proposing cuts in a state-run preschool program for poorer families, child care referrals and support for family caregivers.

It is a tight spring in the state capitol as lawmakers struggle to close an almost $9 billion budget deficit.

To help close the gap, the Senate budget plan calls for cutting spending on the Early Childhood Education and Assistance program by 2.1 percent – eliminating 165 preschool spaces for children – while the House version trims payment rates for providers by the same percentage, according to an analysis by Seattle-based Children’s Alliance.

Both versions contain other early education losses, cutting $1.7 million from child care referral and support networks and halting Early Childhood Apprenticeships, according to the interest group.

Washington’s early learning dilemma mirrors debates occurring in state capitols around the country. Even as policymakers pay closer attention to child care issues, they have little or no money to spare thanks to multi-billion-dollar state budget shortfalls driven by plummeting tax revenues.

But, advocates argue that cutting services to poor families during this historic economic contraction sets logic on its head, since more families will fall into poverty as they lose their jobs.

“Tough times (are) not the time to cut services for children,” Jon Gould, deputy director of Children’s Alliance, said in an interview.

Yet, early learning initiatives are faring relatively well in this budget crunch compared to other services and programs, in part because Gov. Christine Gregoire has made the issue a top priority.

There is even good news tucked into one of the tightest budgets in awhile. Both plans contain support for the field test that’s already under way of the state’s system to improve the quality of both home-based and center-based licensed child care. Plus, the House includes money to keep work going on a kindergarten readiness program.

The federal government will take some sting out of any cuts by sending $22 million in Child Care Development Funds to the state as part of the newly-enacted economic stimulus package.

The budget is far from done, however. The size, shape and even types of cuts in early learning programs are not guaranteed. House and Senate legislators now need to reconcile their two versions and pass a final package, with a vote expected in the next few weeks. The last day of the 2009 legislative session is scheduled for April 26.