Advocacy
FINAL FUNDING BILL GOES TO PRESIDENT FOR SIGNATURE
The First Session of the 110th Congress is drawing to a close. The President has signed the Head Start reauthorization bill. The Higher Education Act reauthorization bills in the House and Senate are moving forward, hopefully to be completed early in the Second Session, with important provisions to help improve early childhood educator preparation, compensation, loan forgiveness for higher education, and state early childhood professional development and career systems in states. In addition, the WIC program received a funding increase.
Your calls and emails helped keep the importance of early childhood education visible.
However, the President vetoed the first bill that Congress sent to him that had increases for several early childhood education programs. After two Continuing Resolutions, Congress reached an agreement on a bill that the President was willing to sign. To reach those numbers, Congress made a 1.747% cut across all programs.
Starting with the opening of the Second Session in January 2008, it will be important for members of Congress to hear often about the importance of high quality early childhood education programs.
Here are highlights in the final spending bill compared to last year's funding levels:
Title I of No Child Left Behind - $1.6 billion increase
IDEA Part B - $259 million increase
21st Century Community Learning Centers - $100 million increase
Child Care & Development Block Grant - no increase
Head Start - reduced by $10.58 million
Early Reading First - reduced by $5 million
Even Start - reduced by $15.8 million
Reading First - reduced by $636 million
IDEA 619 Preschool - reduced by $6.65 million
IDEA Part C Infants and Toddlers - reduced by $746,000
CAMPIS - reduced by $276,000
CAAEYC’s Public Policy Goals for 2008 are:
- Build public and legislative understanding & support for the development of an early childhood system to ensure quality.
- Support our members in efforts to build public policy understanding & advocacy at local levels for quality early education.
CAAEYC’s advocacy agenda for 2008 includes:
- Advocate support for Pennsylvania Pre-K thru efforts for sustainability and advocate for TA for current Pennsylvania Pre-k sites.
- Advocate to develop an information technology solution to insure accountability in Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts program to include provider management, fiscal oversight and General Assembly data collection requirements.
- Advocate for increase access to high quality early childhood education programs for Pennsylvania’s children by increasing the percentage of providers participating in Keystone STARS at STAR 2 or above by expanding support and financial awards.
- Advocate to expand T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood scholarship program.
- Advocate to fund the development and implementation of the Early Learning Network.
- Advocate to increase access to child care subsidy for an additional 10,000 children.
Another Advocacy issue on our radar is Cover All Pennsylvanians. Cover All Pennsylvanians is the centerpiece for Governor Rendell’s comprehensive health care reform plan. CAP will replace the current Adult Basic program and make quality, affordable health insurance available to small businesses and uninsured individuals. For more information go to http://www.insurepanow.org/ or call 1-866-439-7422.
Contact us at caaeyc@epix.net if you are interested in participating in our 2008 advocacy efforts.
