The Child Care and Development Block Grant Act
A tremendous round of applause to the many advocates and government officials, including Teachstone’s partners at the Early Childhood Education Consortium (ECEC) and all of those in the Office of Child Care, who worked tirelessly for a bicameral, bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). The slightly modified House version passed the Senate at the end of the day on Monday and was signed into law by President Obama on Wednesday.
The 1996 CCDBG Reauthorization
I remember the palpable energy and excitement in Washington over the last CCDBG reauthorization when I moved there in 1997. The legislation had passed the year before, and I was working as a fellow in the Child Care Bureau (now the Office of Child Care), the office tasked with administering the CCDBG.
The 1996 reauthorization of the original 1990 legislation provided a new focus on education for parents and others on child care selection through child care resource and referral, as well as quality improvements for providers and teachers through improved professional development, compensation, licensing, and monitoring.
The New Version of CCDBG
The new version of the CCDBG gets us closer to the goal of providing high quality early childhood education to all young children in the United States.
Highlights of the quality provisions in the law that passed this week include
- Increasing the quality set aside from the 4% in the 1996 reauthorization to 9% over the next five years
- Improving infant and toddler care with a minimum quality set aside of 3% each year
- Requiring states use quality funds on at least 1 of 10 specified activities, including developing tiered QRS (TQRS) and supporting statewide resource and referral services
- Requiring states establish professional development and training requirements with ongoing annual training and progression to knowledge and skills of providers
Opportunities abound for reaching more teachers and ensuring all children are in classrooms with teachers who have the knowledge and support to interact effectively to support children’s learning and development.
We are especially excited about the specific infant-toddler set aside which reflects the growing wave of awareness of the importance of the first three years. Check out Teachstone’s infant-toddler resources, including the Infant-Toddler Video Library Companion, which helps build rich conversations around our classroom videos with a printed facilitator's guide.
