August 2008
Public Policy Reports and Alerts:
Federal:
Congress just passed a reauthorization to the Higher
Education Act, and it may well be signed by the President. The revised
Act provides a number of new features helping those who work in early
childhood, primarily that student loans can be forgiven for new borrowers
who work in child care, Head Start, early Head Start, or public Pre-K
programs. New grants will be offered, when appropriated, on a competitive
basis for teacher quality partnership proposals that may include compensation
incentives for early childhood educators getting an AA or BA, and for
cross-sector, integrated and comprehensive professional development
systems for those working with children 0-5. It will take a while for
these authorizations to be implemented, but they are the first signs
of progress in child care funding streams coming from the Federal Government
for quite a while. NAEYC lobbied vigorously on our behalf for these
provisions.
No news on the Federal funding issues. At this week's biennial State
and Territorial Administrators Meeting, the HHS/Child Care Bureau did
not announce any new initiatives, and the Bureau's researchers, meeting
afterwards, focused their attention on parental child care choices,
quality rating and improvement systems, professional development, and
cooperation between agencies to improve child and family outcomes. One
interesting factoid that emerged is that recent research has shown that
the BA in early childhood has lost much, if not all, of its significance
as an indicator of high quality in child care classrooms, as measured
by environmental rating scales. Apparently non-college credit courses
in early child development and curriculum have sharpened their focus
on responsiveness between teacher and child, while college faculty have
become more focused on K-12 children and have become much less able
to devote their time to early childhood topics than before.
Maryland:
State and local agencies are now working on their budget
requests for the fiscal year starting next July, and the outlook is
far from promising. At the State level cuts may be required if the economy
does not begin to improve and the slots referendum fails. At the local
levels the economy also is a factor. This is not a year in which new
and expensive initiatives for young children are likely to be welcomed
by legislators, although the need is great and the costs of continued
inaction will be substantial.
The Pre-K for All Working Group has completed its deliberations on a
report to add details to last year's proposals, and it may come out
soon. There is a new Early Childhood Council, created by the Governor's
decision following a Federal mandate under the Head Start Reauthorization
Act. MSDE/ECD groups are hard at work in developing a quality rating
and improvement system (QRIS) and professional development plans, especially
for upper division college work in early childhood education.
MDAEYC:
MDAEYC's new Web site, www.mdaeyc.org,
is a wonder to behold. Its public policy pages provide much information
about where we stand and what we're doing about it.
Please tell your colleagues that they can get these
reports directly if they send me a request by email.