Ready 4 K @ the Capitol - March 26, 2010

This week at the Capitol, the House Early Childhood Committee released their omnibus bill. It was unveiled on Monday, testimony was taken Tuesday, and it was amended and voted out on Thursday. It includes the following provisions:

• A one time cut of $7.5 million, accomplished by capturing the underspending in Basic Sliding Fee child care;
• Re-purposing $500,000 of existing quality dollars at DHS for providers to use to get ready for a quality rating system;
• Ensuring parents who receive child care assistance, and are under the age of 21 and in high school or pursuing a GED are eligible for CCAP for the full school year. This was a recommendation of the CCAP Simplification Task Force;
• Several new duties were added to the Governor’s Early Childhood Advisory Council, including adding a representative of the Dept of Health, requiring the Council to make recommendations on screening and assessments, requiring the Council to create and implement school readiness report card, and creating a task force to develop recommendations by January 2011 for the creation of an Office of Early Learning;
• Requiring that charter schools that provide early childhood screening must inform families that apply to the charter school about the availability of the program;
• Clarifying who is eligible to participate in School Readiness programs.

The bill passed out of the committee and was re-referred to the full House Finance Committee, where it will be divided and the child care portions will be amended onto the Omnibus Health and Human Services bill, and the education provisions will be amended onto the Omnibus Education bill. We expect this to happen in the next couple weeks, after legislators return from Spring Break. The full bill can be read here.

The Senate has yet to release their Education and Human Services Budget.

Read our full mid-session report, which aligns Ready 4 K’s policy agenda with corresponding legislation.

Our bill tracker may also be a useful resource for you, and it has been updated to reflect action on the House Omnibus Early Childhood Bill. However, once we have omnibus bills from the Senate, we will no longer update the tracker and will focus our attention on tracking the omnibus bills and conference committee activity.

In federal news, the Health Care Reform Package that passed Congress this week includes $1.5 billion over five years for a new grant program for evidence-based home visiting services. Within the next six months, states will have to conduct a needs assessment, develop three-to-five year outcome benchmarks to measure improvements, and to choose program models that meet certain criteria as evidence-based models. The first $100 million in federal funds will be distributed before the end of the current federal fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, 2010. The Minnesota Department of Health has announced that it will be taking the lead in collaboration with the Departments of Human Services and Education to do the planning that will be required for Minnesota to prepare a grant application. There is still much to learn much about what will be required from states, and through our continual involvement with the Minnesota Coalition for Targeted Home Visiting, we will stay abreast of news and share what we learn with you.

Coming up @ the Capitol

Over the weekend, it is expected that the conference committee on the first budget balancing bill, which includes essentially everything except health & human services and education, will complete their work and each body will take up the bill on Monday, March 29.

The Legislature goes on a week-long break starting at the end of the day on Monday, March 29, returning Tuesday, April 6. So what does this mean? Your legislator will be back in their district for a full week, and should be expecting to hear from you, their constituents. So take a moment to call, write or find your legislator at the local café and tell them how important it is to hold early care and education harmless.

Have a good break, and we’ll see you next month!

Ready 4 K@ the Capitol - March 19, 2010

It's been a couple weeks since we posted the updates here. If you'd like past updates, please contact Eric Haugee, eric at ready4k.org

March 19, 2010

This week at the capitol, we received the disappointing news that the Governor once again line-item vetoed bonding for Early Childhood Facilities, and again, gave no indication why. It was one of dozens of projects he eliminated from the bill, cutting it from $1 billion to $680 million, well below his suggested $725 million level. It seemed he had hoped that the Legislature would pass another, smaller bill to get funding for some key projects that the Legislature hadn’t included in their bill, but Capitol Investment conference committee chairs Sen. Keith Langseth (DFL-Glyndon) and Rep. Alice Hausman (DFL-St. Paul) have shown little interest of doing a second bill thus far.

Ready 4 K President Todd Otis said recently that “if ever there were a dramatic example of why we need to pay attention to the person we elect as Governor, this is it.” Read his full statement here.

In more positive news, several bills Ready 4 K is supporting moved further along in the process, with the Senate Education Committee dedicating an entire hearing this week to early care and education legislation. The wonderful folks from Invest Early in Grand Rapids came down to testify in support of the Early Childhood Community Partnership bill, a key initiative of the Minnesota’s Future early care and education allies group. As Blandin Foundation Program Officer Mary Kosak testified, “It was as if [bill author] Sen Tom Saxhaug, after his many visits to Invest Early, carefully crafted this legislation from what he learned.” Committee members gave helpful feedback about some of the provisions in the bill, most notably about the geographic area for grants to be made in and how the collaboration should take place. Given the fiscal challenges that the state faces, it is unlikely these grants will be funded, but it’s always good to keep this issue in front of committee members.

Other bills the committee heard included the legislative package put forward by the School Readiness Funders Coalition. The bills—making recommendations on screening and assessments of children, creating and implementing a statewide school readiness report card, and creating the Office of Early Childhood Care and Education—all received favorable comments from the committee and were re-referred to other committees for further action. The final bill the committee heard creates a program for at-risk four-year-olds, and allows school districts to levy up to $9,000 per eligible pupil to pay for it. Ready 4 K believes this bill moves the state in a positive direction by allowing districts to levy for early care and education programs.

The big news on the House side was the announcement of “budget targets” for each of the House Finance Committees. This year, since we are facing a budget deficit, the budget targets are the amount of funding committees must cut from their budgets. The House Early Childhood Policy and Finance Committee was given a target of $7.5 million. While we won’t know until next week how the Early Childhood Committee plans to allocate this cut, the $7.5 million is equal to the “underspending” in Basic Sliding Fee (BSF) child care assistance. While this would mean fewer low-income families would be served, at least it wouldn’t be a permanent cut to the program. The best of the worst, really. Click here for more information about this.

The House Early Childhood Committee this week began winding things down in preparation for their omnibus bill to be released. On Tuesday, the committee heard a proposal to allow programs that receive three or four stars on the Parent Aware quality rating and improvement system pilot to receive a 15 percent rate increase. While a step in the right direction, we would agree with Child Care WORKS Executive Director Susie Brown, that “this bill does not present a perfect long term solution as it rewards 3 and 4 stars at the same level, consistent with other Parent Aware quality incentives. We would like to eventually see in the statewide QRIS a higher rate for each star, creating incentives to move to the highest level of quality.”

At the same hearing, members heard a presentation on potential federal funding for home visiting programs. Maggie Diebel from the Mn Dept of Health was joined by Jill Briggs and Jane Kretzmann, co-chairs of the Targeted Home Visiting Coalition (which Ready 4 K is a part of). They assured the committee that the state is fully prepared to act quickly, once it becomes clear what the grant process is going to be.

The House companion bill creating an at-risk four-year-olds program was heard Thursday in the same committee, as were a presentation on Minnesota’s application for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Funding for Early Childhood State Advisory Councils and a presentation of the MN Parents Know website.

Finally, we learned just today that federal funding for the Early Learning Challenge Fund was removed from the US Senate’s budget bill, essentially signaling that it will not happen in this go-around of federal budget negotiations. Stay tuned.

Track all the early care and education bills here.

Coming up @ The Capitol

Next Friday is the third and final legislative deadline, which is for divisions of the House and Senate Committees on Finance to act favorably on omnibus appropriation bills. We haven’t heard yet what the plans are in the Senate, but the House Early Childhood Committee will be posting their omnibus bill on the committee’s webpage at 11a.m on Monday. Amendments and testimony will follow on Tuesday and Thursday. Please show up and show your support (but note the new time below)!

The legislature goes on spring break Tuesday, March 30 to Tuesday, April 6. As such there will be not be a Ready 4 K @ the Capitol next week. Instead, as is the tradition, we will send out and post here a mid-session update.

Ready 4 K @ the Capitol - March 5, 2010

March 5, 2010

This Week @ the Capitol

This week at the Capitol, committees ramped up their work, as deadlines loom in the near future. The Capitol Investment Work Group (formerly Conference Committee) continued to meet and try to reach an agreement on the overall size of the bonding bill. The pace of the session makes it feel like late April, with the warming temperatures not helping—even though we know there are three more months left and more snow eventually on the way.

The week kicked off with hundreds of parents, children and providers raising their voices for continued investments in early care and education. The twelfth annual “Voices for Children” advocacy day on the hill sent a powerful message to legislators and the Governor that an economic recession is exactly the wrong time to cut your best performing stock, our children. Photos and more can be found on the “Voices for Children” Facebook page.

The February Forecast was released this week with little fanfare, showing a small decrease in the state deficit from $1.2 billion to $994 million. There is no sign that the Governor plans to reduce any of his proposed cuts based on the forecast.

On Tuesday, the House Early Childhood Committee took up a bill to fund local early childhood partnerships to collaborate to get the best outcomes for young children and their families. Ready 4 K Policy and Civic Engagement Director Karen Kingsley joined Rep. Sandy Peterson, author of the bill and co-chair of the Early Childhood Caucus, in reviewing the legislation, which is the product of months of work of Minnesota’s Future, a collaborative effort of several early care and education organizations to put forward an agenda for Minnesota’s next governor. We are encouraging organizations from across the state to endorse this effort, and you can join by visiting the Minnesota’s Future website and completing the online form.

Providing an example of local collaboration, Jane Patrick, Early Childhood Initiative Coordinator from Fergus Falls and Nancy Jost, West Central Initiative Early Childhood Coordinator, gave wonderful testimony about the success they’ve had in their communities bringing people together from health, schools and early childhood to give children and families the support they need to be successful. The bill was laid over for possible inclusion in the omnibus bill. Watch the hearing here.

The committee also heard a presentation of the Child Care Assistance Simplification Task Force, which laid out a series of recommendations to improve the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) and make it easier for families and providers to participate. Legislation to implement one of the recommendations —to allow teen parents to have continuity of care for their children for up to one year—was also heard and laid over for possible inclusion in the omnibus bill.

On Thursday, the House Early Childhood Committee heard presentations about evaluations of the School Readiness Connections program, Pre-K Allowances and the Early Childhood Scholarship program. All evaluations showed largely positive results, however the evaluations did generate some lively discussion in the hearing about the best way to finance increased access to high quality early learning.

Over in the Senate, the bill to designate $500,000 of current child care quality dollars specifically to help providers get ready for QRIS passed another committee and was sent directly to the floor of the Senate. During the hearing, members of the committee had good questions about the quality dollars, but did note that of the nearly $10 million total dollars set aside for quality efforts, $1.3 million of those are state dollars. The lack of any increase in the state allocation in the past several years—in fact it was cut by two percent in 2008—will hopefully deter any further erosion of these important resources.

Also, the Senate Higher Ed Budget Division presented its budget, and thankfully did not accept the Governor’s $500,000 cut to child care grants for low-income college students.

In a chess-like maneuver, the Bonding Work Group passed a slightly trimmed down bill, adding some of the Governor’s key priorities and removing some of theirs that he had objected to. Expect it to be passed by both bodies next week and sent to the governor. This differs from “normal” negotiations, which usually involve trading written offers between the conference committee and the Governor, before passing a final agreed-upon bill. While early childhood facilities grants remain intact, given the size of the bill, we anticipate the overall bill will have the same fate of the first bill and be vetoed. So, we'll have to keep fighting to make sure early childhood facilities remain in the (really) final version of the bonding bill.

Check out the updated bill tracker here.

Coming Up @ the Capitol

The first deadline is Friday, March 12, meaning that committees must act favorably on bills in the House of origin. All of the bills we are working on have or will have met first deadline.

Visit the legislative schedule page for the most up-to-date hearings.

"Leaving the Little Ones Behind"

Marian Wright Edelman, President and founder of the Children's Defense Fund, shares this article with the Huffington Post.

Leaving the Little Ones Behind

When people talk about the "achievement gap" at-risk children face, they often think of it in terms that apply to school-age children -- but that gap can start much earlier than most people might guess. A recent report by the nonprofit, nonpartisan research group Child Trends showed that disparities actually begin appearing before a child's first birthday. The report, "Disparities in Early Learning and Development: Lessons from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort," was funded by the Council of Chief State School Officers. It found that gaps in child development are already apparent when babies are just nine months old, and grow even larger by 24 months. These disparities in infants' and toddlers' development can be measured across cognitive, social, behavioral and health outcomes.

Read more...

Ready 4 K @ the Capitol - February 12

This week at the Capitol, the bonding bill was the focus of most of the activity, passing the full Senate on Tuesday and clearing all the committees in the House. The $2 million for early childhood facilities remains intact in both bills; however, in the House Finance Committee hearing, the grant program language was amended to the increase the amount that projects may receive. Under current law, a grant for an individual facility must not exceed $300,000 for each program that is housed in a facility, up to a maximum of $750,000 for a facility that houses three programs or more (programs include Head Start, School Readiness, Early Childhood Family Education, licensed child care, and other early childhood intervention programs). The amendment changes the amounts to $500,000 and $2 million, respectively.

The full House is expected to take up the bill on Monday. Upon passage, the House and Senate will work out the differences between the two bills, and submit it to Governor Pawlenty, where he can sign it, line-item veto individual projects, or veto the entire bill. We will be working to ensure that the facility grants do not end up as a casualty of the veto pen, so if have any connections to the Governor, please use them!

The House Early Childhood Committee held their first two hearings of the 2010 Legislative Session this week. On Tuesday, the committee had an update from the Department of Human Services and the Head Start Association on American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009 funding. Yasmina Vinci, national Head Start Director, had been in town for a previous engagement and thankfully for the committee, her return flight to Washington DC was delayed due to the winter storms. She was able to tell the committee about federal budget activity, and in particular speak about the recent Head Start Impact Study findings , which showed, among other things, that “providing access to Head Start has a positive impact on children’s preschool experience.”

On Thursday, the committee heard from Kathryn Tout, project director at Child Trends, on key findings from the Year 2 Evaluation Report of Parent Aware, as well as two providers—Nicole Joy Frethem from Lexington Kids Christian Childcare and Shelly Thunborg from New Horizon Academy—about their experience with the rating system. The committee members engaged in a thoughtful discussion about the research methodology and the next steps with Parent Aware.

Our bill tracker is up! While only two bills relating to early care and education have been introduced, expect more in the coming days.

Coming Up @ the Capitol

The big news next week is that the Governor’s budget will be released on Monday. While he outlined in his State of the State that he would hold programs for the military, veterans, core public safety functions and K-12 classrooms harmless, he declared that “nearly all other areas will be proposed for reduction.” Many committee hearings next week will be focused on hearing from the administration about the governor’s budget. We are bracing for the worst, and hoping for the best.

Ready 4 K @ the Capitol - February 5

This week at the Capitol, legislators returned to St. Paul with essentially two tasks: solve a $1.2 billion budget deficit and pass a large bonding bill in the hopes of putting Minnesotans back to work. The deficit is expected to balloon to $5.4 billion in 2012-13, and there is some interest in starting to take a whack at this future deficit as well. And, with legislators running for re-election this fall and several of them running for Governor (current Governor Tim Pawlenty is not seeking re-election), it could get very messy.

So what’s in store for early care and education? As you may remember, last session, thanks in large part to your efforts, funding for early childhood programs was held harmless. Our top priority this session will be once again to make the case that an economic downtown is exactly the wrong time to cut funding for early care and education. However, even with Senate and House leadership acknowledging that early care and education is one of their top priorities, it may be difficult to withstand cuts in this environment. But that doesn’t mean we won’t fight!

Our other priorities this session are to encourage and support efforts happening at the local level, by giving communities the authority to fund early childhood initiatives through local revenue options and by encouraging the establishment of local early childhood community partnerships. We are still developing these initiatives and will be seeking your feedback and support soon.

We will also continue to support ongoing efforts to develop the voluntary Quality Rating and Improvement System. In addition to tracking what is happening with the Parent Aware pilots, Ready 4 K is supporting a bill to realign current funding to provide additional resources for providers to help them get ready for the statewide expansion of the QRIS. Once this bill is introduced we will let you know.

Ready 4 K is taking the lead again to secure bonding dollars for communities to build early childhood facilities, and we’re happy to report that $2 million for these grants was included in the House and Senate bonding bills! As you may remember, the Governor has vetoed this funding the past two years, so we’re focusing most of our efforts on reaching out to him for his support. Please talk to your local legislator and urge them to contact the Governor about this funding.

Check out our full 2010 Legislative Session Policy Recommendations here. We are still developing this years’ bill tracker, and you can expect it to be up and running by next week.

Take Action!

Now is the time to send your legislator a note to welcome them to session. Let them know that we must continue to make early care and education a top priority. Visit our Take Action page to send a message to the governor and your legislators.

In the face of deficit, to cut early childhood is like dropping our best performing stock

Today we found out that the state of Minnesota will face a $1.2 billion deficit over the remainder of the biennium (ends June 30, 2011). This is on top of a $6.4 billion deficit originally dealt with by the legislature. The picture does not improve going forward; a $5.4 billion deficit is already projected for the 2012-2013 biennium. This $1.2 billion deficit is the result of a slower than anticipated economic recovery with higher than expected unemployment and lower wages. These factors combine to create a decrease in income tax revenue. Check out Minnesota Budget Bites for more detailed analysis of the budget picture.

One thing from this picture is clear: we must continue to make investing in early care and education a priority. We know this is the best investment we can make for both our short-term and long-term economic prosperity. To cut early care and education to solve the projected $1.2 billion state deficit would be like dropping our best performing stock and is exactly the wrong thing to do.

When parents know their children are well cared for they receive the assurance they need to be productive at work. Plus, giving children access to high quality programs maintains jobs for the trained professionals who work in the field. These investments also lay the foundation for future economic prosperity by ensuring that our youngest Minnesotans will be successful in school, career and life.

Ready 4 K is committed to being a voice for Minnesota’s youngest citizens. We are preparing for the 2010 legislative session and protecting our investments in the face of the $1.2 billion deficit. But we need your help. Join our network today and find out more about how you can be an advocate for children. Stay tuned for more information about Minnesota’s budget picture and its impact on Minnesota’s youngest children and families.