Washington State News

• District looks at developing early education plan – 10/16/09, The Daily World
• Olympic College celebrates groundbreaking for $4.5 million child care center – 10/14/09, Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal
• Bremerton Navy Base to Get New $4.2 Million Child-Care Center – 10/13/09, Kitsap Sun
• Look who’s signing: Parents look to jump-start their baby’s language development through hand gestures – 10/12/09, Spokesman Review

National News

• Pew Analysis to Highlight Which States Are Making Important Investments in Pre-K and Which Are Off Track – 10/14/09, REUTERS
• Study Finds Preschool Use of Educational Video and Games Prepares Low-Income Children for Kindergarten – 10/14/09, REUTERS
• Rating System Could Improve Quality of Early Childhood Education – 10/09, The Epoch Times
• Assessment weaves through every activity in Newport News preschool programs – 10/12/09, Newport Daily Press (VA)
• Aussies Want to Ban TV for Kids Under 2 – 10/12/09, FOX News
• State to require toothbrushing at daycares, preschools – 10/12/09, Milford Daily News (MA)

Research and Policy

• The Timing and Quality of Early Experiences Combine to Shape Brain Architecture – 10/16/09, Center on the Developing Child, Harvard
• Testing pre-schoolers: How one district gets it done – 10/16/09, Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media Blog: Early Stories
• Who needs pre-school anyway? The BBC wants to know – 10/16/09, Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media Blog: Early Stories
• So Far, So Good: Home Visitation Still Intact in Health Care Reform Bill – 10/14/09, New America Foundation: The Early Ed Watch Blog

Family-based child care is a critical link in the early learning chain – 10 to 25 percent of children are in that setting – and a new report draws a blueprint for improving those sites, where quality can be hard to measure.

Researchers looked at connections between staffed support networks and family child care, reaching the unsurprising finding that this type of support can improve quality. What is more interesting is the report’s specific strategies that boost or do not boost quality. For example, on-site training was highly effective, while referrals to off-site training were ineffective.

It also suggested using a formal quality assessment tool – Washington’s Quality Rating and Improvement System comes to mind – and hiring coordinators holding bachelor’s degrees, who take graduate level courses in infant studies.

Obviously, the effort to improve child care cannot overlook family providers.

Many parents choose family child care for their young children because of its convenience, flexibility, and intimate family setting. The quality of care provided in these settings, however, is often reported to be low, especially for those serving children from low-income families. Because this group of children also tends to benefit even more from high-quality early care and education experiences than do their more advantaged peers, improving the quality of care in family child care homes is imperative for their healthy development and well-being. – “The Family Child Care Network Impact Study: Promising Strategies for Improving Family Child Care Quality.” (See text for footnotes.)

Thanks to the Center for Law and Social Policy for highlighting this research.

NEWS FLASH: What happens if quality early learning becomes too popular?

It looks like the increased enrollment will mean Florida must pitch in another $17.5 million this fiscal year, the Office of Economic & Demographic Research told lawmakers this week. –  “Pre-K enrollment up in Florida's VPK program (creating a budget problem).” Orlando Sentinel, 10/9/09.

Amid all of the economic rubble, Washington State is expanding a new child care rating system, one of Gov. Christine Gregoire’s boldest early learning proposals, which she cut back last year amid the financial collapse.

This week, Thrive by Five Washington announced it will add three more counties – Clark, Kitsap and Spokane - to its test of the Quality Rating and Improvement System, known as Seeds to Success.

It is a dramatic turn of events because ten months ago Gov. Gregoire’s administration announced it was suspending its work on the rating system as it struggled to cut the state budget. It was big news at the time, with my editors pushing the story to the top of A1 without a lobbying effort from me, rare for early learning developments.

The state had a good reason for cutting funding, though. It decided the priority in this recession was to preserve services - subsidies to help poor parents pay for child care and expansion of the state-funded preschool program.

Months later, the state Legislature stepped up with another $1 million for the rating system – a sign of the depth of support for early learning among Washington lawmakers - that allowed those three counties to join the test.

Thrive and the state Department of Early Learning are working together to test a voluntary rating system, essentially a scorecard that will rate child care facilities from 1 to 5 in key categories. Only yesterday, the two groups testified before a state House committee on the status of the effort.

Providers can use the ratings to recognize where they are strong and what they need to work on.

But parents may be the big winners. Moms and dads could use a scorecard because they spend, on average, more than $7,600 a year on child care in Washington, yet it isn’t always clear what they get for all that money. As they look for child care they are often forced to rely on other parents and tours.

"You really don't have anything to judge decisions, just word of mouth," Cynthia Engel, a 38-year-old mother of two, told me for my story last year.

"You can look at Consumer Reports if you want to buy a VCR."

Read more about the rating system at the Department of Early Learning’s summary.

States are struggling with recession-fueled budget cuts, but Washington State made some progress on early learning issues last year, investing in a quality rating system and avoiding a waiting list for child care assistance, a new report found.

Overall, the “State Child Care Assistance Policies 2009” issue brief says most states preserved key child care assistance between February 2008 and February 2009. The 30-page brief, however, offers encouraging news for local parents because Washington was 1 of 11 states that described how it would use money from the economic stimulus package for quality initiatives and professional development, while reporting no waiting list for child care assistance.

Washington may have made limited progress during this tough economic time, but it still has plenty of holes to fill. And the state’s child care effort mirrors much of the country, according to the report.

Between February 2008 and February 2009, the majority of states had no changes in the child care assistance policy areas covered in this report—income eligibility limits to qualify for child care assistance, waiting lists for child care assistance, copayments required of parents receiving child care assistance, and reimbursement rates for child care providers serving families receiving child care assistance. — “State Child Care Assistance Policies 2009: Most States Hold the Line, but Some Lose Ground in Hard Times.”

Still, there was bad news out there about cuts to child care support, the authors found.

However, in those states in which changes occurred, more states moved backward than forward in each of these policy areas. Moreover, most states did not advance or fell further behind in one or more policy areas since 2001. (Read the report for footnotes.)

Even though the latest indicators suggest the U.S.  economy is getting healthier, the National Women’s Law Center issue brief warns there may be more bad news in the future about child care, though billions of dollars in fresh federal dollars could help offset it.

Finally, as more families struggle with unemployment and lose their homes, the country has taken a step backward on child care assistance over the last eight years, according to the report.

Yet, after years of stagnation in funding and policies, many state policies are behind where they were in 2001 and many low-income families remain unable to receive child care assistance, or receive child care assistance that fails to provide sufficient support.

Thanks to The Early Ed Watch Blog for highlighting this report. Check out its excellent analysis.

At 1 p.m. today, Bette Hyde and I will present to the House Early Learning & Children Services Committee on the progress of the field test of Seeds to Success, the state’s quality rating and improvement system (QRIS). The presentation will include a progress report on the work being done in each of the five communities involved in the pilot. In addition, a provider-coach pair from both Clark County and Yakima County will speak about their experiences with QRIS and provide perspective on the impact QRIS is having in their communities. 

Watch the hearing LIVE on TVW.

This was a week about early learning money. The news was full of stories about fragmented funding for preschool, pre-kindergarten and child care in California, how to spend economic stimulus cash on child care ratings and Texas money on better classes.

• 
  
• In One Pocket and Out the Other for Preschool Funding

 A promised deluge of federal stimulus funds for preschools, a major priority for President Barack Obama, will start flowing to centers in San Diego just as state funding is being clipped.

That might sound like a blessing, but dollars from state, federal and other programs cannot be easily swapped to plug gaps. The push-and-pull on preschool money is putting many centers in the paradoxical position of juggling expected cuts with investments in better programs and training, benefiting some families and not others. The fates of different preschools and their different programs will vary dramatically depending on where they get their money, and whether they can find ways to tap the stimulus. – VoiceofSanDiego.org, 4/28/09 (Thanks to Early Stories for finding this news.)

• A Stimulus for Second-Generation QRIS (Quality Rating and Improvement System)

The stimulus presents a unique opportunity for states to invest in QRIS, which can help them ensure the quality of their growing investments in pre-K and early childhood programs while also driving improvements in child well-being and educational development across the ECE sector. Several states have “shovel-ready” plans for QRIS expansion or pilot programs that could put stimulus funds to work immediately. – New America Foundation, April Issue Brief.

Plus: Making a Connection Between Social Behaviors in Preschool and Kindergarten Success

Hanish and her colleagues also found that, in preschool, children who play well with their peers are more likely to do well in preschool teachers' assessments of their math and literacy skills, as well as their ability to pay attention and follow instructions.

Contrary to what some researchers expected, however, the data did not show any significant link between social behaviors in preschool and literacy and math skills in kindergarten. – Early Ed Watch, 4/28/09.

• New Peabody institute to conduct first-ever assessment of Tennessee's pre-k program

Vanderbilt University’s new Peabody Research Institute and the Tennessee Department of Education today announced a partnership to conduct the first statewide evaluation of the effectiveness of Tennessee’s Voluntary Pre-K Program. (Cost is $6 million). – Vanderbilt University, 4/27/09.

• Childhood nutrition: WIC's workload grows as others' shrink

Oregon WIC is now at 103 percent of capacity, serving more people than they're actually funded for. – The Oregonian, 4/26/09.

• No teacher can wrangle an infinite number of 4-year-olds

In Texas, though, the sky’s the limit. Of the 38 states that sponsor pre-K classes, Texas is the only one that doesn’t cap student-to-teacher ratios. In the Houston area, we hear of classrooms in which a lone teacher wrangles a herd of 28.…The Texas Legislature is considering bills to raise the quality of our state’s pre-K programs. – Houston Chronicle, 4/28/09

(Thanks to Pre-K Now for finding many of these news stories.)

Washington legislators cut early learning spending in their final budget – trimming $2.3 million from a public preschool program – but the effort to improve child care, preschool and pre-kindergarten was among the lucky in this tough fiscal season.

The House and Senate sent Gov. Christine Gregoire a budget this weekend that would cut 2.1 percent from ECEAP slots, which means about 160 spots for preschoolers would be lost, according to an analysis by the Washington State Association for Head Start & ECEAP.

The good news is the final budget would only cut two staffers from ECEAP, not four as proposed earlier.

“On the whole, we can consider ourselves very, very lucky,” Joel Ryan, executive director of the association, said in a statement.

Advocates also secured $1 million for a child care quality rating system (QRIS).

Other states likely will not be as generous.

Oregon, for example, is considering slashing its state-supported Head Start program by 50 percent, Ryan reports.

Here are a few other highlights and low lights from the final state budget, courtesy of the association:

• Adds $100,000 to continue work on a kindergarten readiness program.
• Cuts five full-time workers from the licensing staff at the Department of Early Learning. (Saves $870,000.)
• Cuts $1.75 million from a home visiting program for new mothers. 
• Includes $1.5 million for the career and wage ladder program (funds continuing education and other support) that will be matched by the federal government.