FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MEDIA CONTACT: Anna Sczepanski
March 11, 2016 301-585-5034, anna@cfoxcommunications.com
District’s Early Care and Education System Needs Strategic Investments
Two new reports provide insights into the impact of universal pre-K on the
cost and availability of services for infants and toddlers
March 11, 2016 – According to two reports out this week – one from the District of Columbia Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) and one from DC Appleseed and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute – the current business model for providing high-quality early care and education services to the District’s most vulnerable children is not sustainable. Both reports encourage new financing strategies and explore solutions to service provision.
“Early care and education providers are doing some of our city’s most critical work, yet both these studies tell us that providers are struggling to cover the cost of providing quality care,” said Jennifer Lockwood-Shabat, president and CEO of Washington Area Women’s Foundation. “We need to raise the revenues for early care and education providers so that they can attract and retain highly skilled and motivated teachers. Raising revenue will also ensure access to affordable early care and education for our city’s low-income families, who depend on child care so that they can support their families. Early care and education makes a critical difference in children’s health and education outcomes, and we can’t afford to wait to address these findings.”
Washington Area Women’s Foundation leads an Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative that funded a partnership between DC Appleseed and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute to undertake their study, based upon the interests of providers and advocates in the community. They have also closely followed OSSE’s cost modeling study, which was made possible by new provisions in the federal Child Care Development Block Grant Act reauthorization that give states the ability to leverage analysis beyond the typical market rate survey to inform child care subsidy rates.
The two studies use different methodologies but arrive at several shared findings that are critical for improving the early care and education system in the District:
- Policymakers should align child care subsidy rates with costs. Increased rates are required to help fill the gap between what subsidies cover, and the true cost of providing services – a gap which was further exposed by the transition of many three- and four-year-olds to pre-K programs at public and public charter schools. Short-term priorities should be to target higher rates for providers serving children with special needs and for those that are reaching the District’s “Gold” level in the current Quality Rating and Improvement System. In both of these cases, revised rates would help ensure the District is encouraging high-quality early care and education for some of the city’s highest-need children.
- Government, business, and philanthropy should test and fund innovations in the early care and education business model. Both studies find that providers face financial challenges based on current business models. Encouraging shared services such as shared billing departments, accountants, and coordinated enrollment could help mitigate specific cost issues.
- Public/private partnerships should support and invest in the advancement of the early care and education professional workforce. Despite its critical impact on children and families, early care and education is one of the lowest paying professional fields. The majority of jobs are held by women workers, themselves struggling near poverty levels to support their own families. More must be done to structure training, credentials and compensation in a systemic way. Investing in training and professional development will help the workforce advance in their careers while also improving the quality of care and education available to children.
To download the OSSE report, click here. To download the DC Appleseed and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute report, click here.
About the Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative
Washington Area Women’s Foundation established the Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative in 2008, as a multi-year, multi-million dollar collective funding effort. The Collaborative is supported and directed by corporate funders and local and national foundations. Current investors include: Bainum Family Foundation, The Boeing Company, Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, PNC Foundation, Richard E. and Nancy P. Marriott Foundation, Washington Area Women’s Foundation, Weissberg Foundation, and The World Bank Group.
About Washington Area Women’s Foundation
Washington Area Women’s Foundation is a DC-based public foundation dedicated to mobilizing our community to ensure that economically vulnerable women and girls in the Washington region have the resources they need to thrive. Learn more about The Women’s Foundation’s mission to transform the lives of women and girls, the Washington region, and the world by visiting us online, on Facebook or on Twitter.
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