Child care and the 2024 Election: How will the political landscape influence what’s next?
Topics: Policy & Advocacy
Continue ReadingUsing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to map early childhood education policies across states
National Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Day celebrates the use ofGIS, a powerful software toolused to create and display maps that help geographically illustrate and communicate complex problems. GIS maps can help identify assets and resources, as well as understand underlying location-based trends in datasets.
Topics: Policy & Advocacy
Continue ReadingFederal Relief Funding for Child Care is Over. Now What?
Topics: Policy & Advocacy
Continue ReadingState Session Round Up: Summer 2024
Building off a busy legislative year in 2023, states continued to make progress in 2024 on advancing policies and investments for their child care systems. This year, states had multiple factors to juggle related to child care policy, including spending down remaining American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, developing new Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Plans for 2025-2027, and addressing new federal requirements in CCDF regulations.
Topics: Policy & Advocacy
Continue ReadingLearn more about Bipartisan Bills on Child Care Tax Credits and Workforce Support
On July 31, Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) introduced two bipartisan child care bills that aim to ease the burden of child care costs for families, encourage businesses to support additional child care supply, and support the child care workforce. CCAoA supports Senator Kaine and Senator Britt’s bills and applauds their bipartisan effort to strengthen the child care system.
Topics: Policy & Advocacy
Continue ReadingLearning from Relief Funding: A Look at Outreach and Education Efforts Across the Country
Child care received $52.5 billion in temporary federal relief funding to help the sector recover and rebuild in the wake of the pandemic. Research shows that the investments have made a difference in lowering prices for families and increasing child care employment and wages, which helped stabilize the market in a time of turmoil. This funding, especially stabilization grants made available under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), gave each state an opportunity to make much-needed improvements to their child care system. States are required to spend any remaining amounts by September 2024 and, unfortunately, further federal investments have not been made.
Topics: Policy & Advocacy
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