HHS Announces Details About New PDG B-5 Program

On September 7, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a funding opportunity for the new Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five (PDG B-5) program. All 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, are eligible to apply for the grants, and HHS expects to distribute 40 awards by the end of the year, ranging from a minimum of $500,000 to a maximum of $15 million. There is a minimum 30 percent match required for states receiving the grants. States that receive the initial funds will be eligible to apply for renewal grants for up to three years; states that were funded under the previous PDG program will also be able to apply for PDG B-5 renewal grants. The deadline for states to submit proposals detailing how they will use the funds is November 6.

Authorized by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the PDG B-5 program is expected to distribute about $250 million per year to help states “develop, update, or implement a strategic plan to facilitate collaboration and coordination among early childhood care and education programs in a mixed delivery system to prepare low-income and disadvantaged children to transition into...elementary school.” Specifically, states awarded the funds must use them for five activities:

1. Conducting or updating a statewide birth through five needs assessment of the availability and quality of existing programs
2. Developing or updating a strategic plan that recommends collaboration, coordination, and quality improvement activities among existing state programs
3. Maximizing parental choice and knowledge about the state’s mixed delivery system by ensuring that parents are aware of the variety of early care and education programs for children from birth to kindergarten in the state
4. Sharing best practices among providers to increase collaboration and efficiency of services, with a particular focus on improving transitions to elementary school
5. Improving the overall quality of early care and education programs by implementing evidence-based practices and improving professional development for early care and education providers.

The new PDG B-5 program differs in significant ways from the original PDG program. The original program was created by the Obama administration and issued as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. That program, which awarded grants to a total of 18 states, focused on developing pre-K programs or expanding access to high-quality pre-K for four-year-olds from low-income families. The original PDG program benefited approximately 49,000 children by increasing the number of pre-K slots, increasing pre-K program length to full-day, decreasing class sizes and child-staff ratios, providing professional development to teachers, increasing teacher qualifications, and providing comprehensive services to students.

The new PDG B-5 program targets children from birth to kindergarten entry rather than focusing exclusively on four-year-olds. It also differs from the original PDG program in how it is administered. The lead department administering the PDG B-5 program is HHS in partnership with the Department of Education while the reverse was true under the original program.

There are also important restrictions on federal involvement when it comes to the PDG B-5 program. While the original PDG program placed no specific limits on the activities of HHS and the Department of Education, the new program has a long list of prohibited federal activities. For example, neither HHS or the Department of Education is permitted to mandate the length of day of early care and education programs or degree requirements for early educators. (For a comprehensive look at differences and similarities between the old and new PDG programs, check out this helpful resource from First Five Years Fund).

Now that more specifics about the program have been released, states will be rushing to complete and submit their applications by the November deadline. The winners of the grant competition are expected to be announced by the end of 2018. Here are some key questions to consider about how the new program may impact early care and education:

• Will the amount of money awarded to states be sufficient to significantly impact early care and education? The average projected award is only $5 million per budget period. Under the original PDG program, 14 of the 18 winning states received awards exceeding this amount, with some states receiving awards in the $20-$25 million range.
• How will sustainability be addressed? In other words, once the grant funding ends will states be positioned to continue the work they’ve started?
• The new PDG grant program prioritizes improving the coordination and continuity of a comprehensive birth-through-five system, but this age range includes a wide variety of programs (Head Start, Early Head Start, CCDBG, state-funded pre-K, etc.) How will states encourage cooperation, alignment, and data-sharing between these multiple programs?
• Can and will the new funds be used to address the low compensation levels of the ECE workforce? Specifically, how will states address the fact that teachers of infants and toddlers are typically paid even less than teachers of three- and four-year-olds?
• Will the limits on the powers of the federal government to dictate (or even recommend) standards in areas such as teacher education levels and child-staff ratios hinder state efforts to improve outcomes for young children?