2015 State Action on Early Care and Education

While much of federal education policy in 2015 was focused on ESEA reauthorization, all 50 states were simultaneously enacting policies that had both positive and negative consequences for early care and education. Recently, the National Women’s Law Center released an update highlighting important actions taken by the states in the last year in an effort to expand access to high-quality early care and education. Below are a few highlights of state actions taken during 2015.

Child Care

Many states took steps during 2015 to improve access to child care centers as well as the quality of the centers themselves. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 24 states passed significant child care bills in 2015. California, for example, passed a budget that includes an additional $53 million to provide child care assistance to 6,800 additional children. The budget also includes $45 million to increase reimbursement rates for licensed child care providers by 4.5 percent and $18 million to increase reimbursement rates for license-exempt child care providers.

Colorado also took steps to improve child care provider reimbursement rates by including an additional $1.3 million in child care funding in the budget. In fact, between the 2015 funding increase and the increase in the previous legislative session, state child care funding in Colorado has risen by 115 percent. Additionally, Colorado increased the maximum length of time parents can receive child care assistance while looking for a job from thirty to sixty days.

State Pre-K

There were also promising steps taken by several states in an effort to expand access and increase the quality of pre-K programs. Due to increased funding for the state’s First Class Pre-K program combined with Preschool Development Grant money, Alabama was able to fund 202 new pre-K classrooms that will serve an additional 3,600 children. This expansion increases the percentage of four-year-olds in the state who are able to participate in the pre-K program from 13 percent to 19 percent.

North Dakota established a voluntary pre-K program for four-year-olds and appropriated $3 million over the 2015-2017 biennium to fund it. The program will provide grants to providers ranging from $1,000 to $2,000 per child to help low-income families access high-quality early childhood education. The grants will be awarded starting in July 2016.

Ohio made major strides in its pre-K program during 2015. The state spent $40 million to expand its pre-K program by 3,675 slots in 2016 and an additional 2,450 planned slots for 2017. These funds are targeted to serve children in families with incomes below 200 percent of poverty.

Rhode Island increased its funding for its state pre-K program by $1 million which will allow the program to increase its enrollment from 306 children to 558 children. Rhode Island also made progress in increasing student access to full-day kindergarten. The state allocated $1.4 million to the seven school districts in the state that do not yet offer full-day kindergarten to all students. These funds are meant to help the districts meet the new state requirement that they offer universal full-day kindergarten by the 2016-2017 school year.

Quality Rating and Improving System (QRIS)

A statewide QRIS can be helpful for assessing, improving, and communicating the level of quality in early care and education programs. Several states took steps in 2015 to create a QRIS or expand an existing QRIS.

Using funds provided by the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear signed legislation to expand Kentucky ALL STARS, the state’s QRIS. Due to this legislation, all school-based and private early care and education programs will be rated based on a wide set of criteria including classroom and instructional quality.

Washington also took steps to expand the reach of its QRIS. Governor Inslee signed the Early Start Act, requiring licensed child care providers receiving state funds to participate in the state’s QRIS. The legislation calls for $98 million to implement these improvements and to fund training and technical assistance to help providers achieve higher quality ratings.

Montana and California both allocated additional money in 2015 to support its QRIS. Montana provided $2.4 million in one-time funding while California allocated $24.2 million in QRIS grants to improve the quality of programs serving infants and toddlers.

Taking Steps Backwards

Unfortunately, not all state action related to early care and education in 2015 was positive. In Vermont, for instance, Governor Peter Shumlin proposed to eliminate funding for the Early Education Initiative grant program. This program provides grants to early education providers serving three- and four-year-olds who have developmental delays, are economically disadvantaged, or are dual language learners. While the program was not completely eliminated, only $200,000 was allocated for it compared to $1 million in previous years, and it is set to be terminated at the end of this fiscal year.

There was bad news out of Arizona and Maine as well. In Arizona, the state budget cut $4 million in funding for child care subsidies. This loss of funding means that about 1,000 additional children per month will not receive child care assistance. Meanwhile, in Maine, legislation that would have provided state funding for child care assistance to fully match available federal child care funds failed in the Senate by one vote. And a bill to provide $2.2 million for home visiting services to new parents was held over until the next session of Maine’s legislature.

Many states are moving in the right direction when it comes to providing high-quality early care and education, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. With child care becoming increasingly unaffordable for many families and the lack of high-quality options in many places, policymakers and stakeholders will need to revisit how early care and education is financed. And with only 29 percent of the country’s four-year-olds and 4 percent of three-year-olds enrolled in a state-funded pre-K program, much works remains to be done to increase access to high-quality pre-K for all children."