The Great Recession is eroding financial support for early education, but it’s also creating a great opportunity to rethink how the first years of learning are financed.
A new analysis sounds a call to revamp the often confusing network of early learning funding, which ranges from the Child Care and Development Block Grant to state and local governmental support. Since many early childhood educators have to do more with less these days, what remains should be more efficient, the report from the Alliance for Early Childhood Finance suggests.
We challenge the current, siloed approach to early care and education policy and finance, and encourage a new approach to ECE policy that establishes system-wide direction for all ECE settings, regardless of funding stream… -- “Toward Better Policy for Early Care and Education in the United States.” 10/11.
The report offers a series of recommendations to improve the financing of early learning, which are well worth checking out, and doesn’t call for a new centralized system. Instead, it suggests better coordination.
It is not necessary to merge funding streams to achieve this goal; what is needed are clear and consistent policies that harmonize the rules, regulations, policies and procedures used by the entities that administer funds. Currently, each funding silo has its own rate structure, budget and fiscal reporting.
The recession provides an urgency to make these changes. But is it enough to spark real change in the economics of early learning? Check out the report and decide.
New Rules for Home-Based Child Care in Washington: The Department of Early Learning announced a new set of rules for family and home child care in Washington this week, the first comprehensive revisions since 2004:
The new rules will:
• Increase education and training standards for providers and staff, requiring providers to have, at minimum, a high school education or equivalent. (Current providers have until March 31, 2017, to meet these minimum education requirements.)
• Require a higher level of communication between the provider and families around child development and the provider’s child care philosophy.
• Enhance standards for playground safety, food service, cribs, emergency preparedness, nurture and guidance, and screen time.
• Require DEL to conduct a noncriminal background check for anyone age 13 to 16 who lives in the home, and anyone age 14 to 16 who works as a volunteer or assistant. -- Edited version of a summary of the rules from DEL.
Read more about the rules here.