"Many families are priced out of licensed child care services… the health and safety of those children are at risk." –Lynette Fraga  CNN Money

Raising a child will cost families more than $240,000 before a child’s 18th birthday an August 2013 US Department of Agriculture report showed.

The second biggest expense in that $240,000? Child care and education – not including college.

Child care is one of the biggest costs to raising children

Between 1960 and 2012, child care and education expenses went from 2 percent of the cost to raise a child, to 18 percent. Child care and education takes up a bigger chunk of the pie than healthcare and food. Child care and education is the second biggest expense behind housing.

Families are forced to make tough choices as the cost of child care continues to rise and wages stay the same or go down. But there is an even bigger unknown than child care costs. What is the quality of the child care program?

Quality child care too expensive for some

We know many parents turn to unlicensed child care settings because licensed care can be more expensive. Unlicensed programs are not required to meet basic state health and safety standards. Their providers are not required to complete a comprehensive background check and their buildings are not required to be regularly inspected. That leaves children to chance.

Quality requires Accountability

In the United States, nearly 11 million children under age 5 are in child care each week and although child care costs are high, most states have inadequate requirements for the quality of care. Currently, the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), which provides funds to states to help make child care more affordable for families, does not require that funds be used to pay for licensed care.

Child Care Aware® of America is pushing for the passage of the CCDBG reauthorization, that would raise the standards for quality child care in this nation.

The costs to raise a child are high. But the risk of unlicensed child care is even higher.

It’s that time of year again—August recess! Congress has adjourned for the month of August and will not be back in session until September 9. During their month-long recess, many Members take the opportunity to re-engage with their community and the constituents they serve. This is a perfect opportunity for you to foster and cultivate those very important relationships with your Senators and Representative, as well as their key staff. You want them to know who you are and what issues you care about –early learning, child care, resource and referral services, etc., and how those issues are affecting your local community and your state.

Earlier this week, members of the Child Care Aware® of America Policy Team jumped on a plane and went to Tampa for a one-day on-site Advocacy Training. They worked closely with the Children’s Forum in Tallahassee to put together a jam-packed agenda for each of the 60 attendees at the training.

“The African saying, that it takes a village to raise a child is true, but the thing we need to remember all the time is that we are that village, it’s not somebody else, each one of us are part of the village and we have to daily say, what I can do to contribute to this, what can I do to help somebody further the life of a child,” stated Alma Powell, Chair of the Board at America’s Promise Alliance, discussing the importance of the advocacy community taking action on early childhood policies.

Last week, Senator Mikulski (D-MD), Senator Burr (R-NC), Senator Harkin (D-IA), and Senator Alexander (R-TN) introduced a bill to reauthorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant, the primary federal grant program that provides child care assistance for families and funds child care quality initiative.  Child Care Aware® of America announced its support for the “Child Care Development and Block Grant Act of 2013” introduced today, which would reauthorize the program for the first time in over 17 years.

Mission: Readiness, a nonprofit organization made up more than 350 retired military senior officers who are asking state and federal lawmakers to create policies that will help youth prepare for employment and military service, released a report showing how high-quality early learning programs could lead to 2 million more high school graduates and $150 billion in economic benefits. With 75% of all young Americans ineligible to join the military, largely as a result of not having a high school diploma or being able to score high enough on the military’s entrance exam to be allowed to serve, Mission: Readiness recognizes the economic and national security benefits of high-quality early learning settings.