State Legislature Roundup: Some Wins, but More Support for Child Care is Needed | Exchange Press 

States and local communities play a significant role in shaping the policies that determine child care access for families and the quality of available care. This article explores legislation that state and local governments enacted in 2022 to support child care and early learning. These actions are especially important, as the last available federal funding, which has allowed states to implement temporary child care policies, is set to run out by September 24. 

As states spend down their relief funding over the next year, it will be critical to keep advocating for child care and early learning policies at the state level. While some legislative actions have been big policy wins for families, providers, and children, not every state has made bold reforms for child care and early learning. That leaves a patch-work of early learning access across the country. In 2023, we must make child care investments a priority in all state houses and at the federal level.

Follow Lynette Fraga on Twitter @lynette_fraga and Child Care Aware of America @ChildCareAware

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Child Care in 2021 Was More Expensive than Other Household Expenses 

Such as Housing and Health Care 

ARLINGTON, VA, October 13, 2022 — Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) today released Price of Care: 2021 Child Care Affordability, which outlines the continuing increases in the price of child care across the United States. 

The report highlights survey data that shows that child care prices outpaced inflation in 2021 for the third consecutive year. In 2021, the average annual inflation rate was higher than usual at 4.7%, but child care prices rose by an average of 5% when compared to 2020 prices. This means families with children were more likely to struggle to afford child care on top of essentials such as food, housing and transportation. 

“Parents continue to face the challenge of finding and affording high-quality child care,” said Lynette M. Fraga, Ph.D., CCAoA Chief Executive Officer. “Recent public investments in child care have been a lifeline and helped keep programs open. But robust, long-term public support is needed to make child care affordable for families and ensure more children have access to high-quality early learning experiences to prepare them for success in school and beyond.”   

Vox

On the Senate floor in early August, just two days before lawmakers voted to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, four senior Democrats came out to lament what they believed to be the bill’s biggest omission: child care.

“We cannot simply vote on this package and call it a day,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said. “Our child care system isn’t just stretched thin; it is broken.”

Less than two months later, the extent of that brokenness is clearer than ever. Public schools are fully reopened, and most pandemic-era restrictions are relaxed. But working conditions for families with kids who need child care are not back to normal. For both workers and parents, already-grim trends in child care have only gotten worse since the pandemic began: program costs have increased, while waiting lists in several states number in the tens of thousands.

ARLINGTON, VA, September 14, 2022 — Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) today released the first report of our research series: Catalyzing Growth: Using Data to Change Child Care. The report, Annual Child Care Landscape Analysis: 2021 Supply and Quality Trends, provides detailed information about the child care system in the United States. 

This year, CCAoA is featuring longitudinal supply data to increase understanding of how the supply of child care has changed since 2019, prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nationally, CCAoA found that while there was an increase in the number of child care centers from 2020 to 2021, the total number of centers remains slightly lower than the number open in 2019.   

There continues to be a downward trend in the supply of licensed Family Child Care (FCC) homes. Among the 40 states for which CCAoA has complete data, we found a 10% decrease in FCC homes over the last three years (107,783 in 2019 to 97,393 in 2021). Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the supply of FCC homes was decreasing. This is an alarming trend because FCC homes are an affordable option for many families and often the only choice for families, especially in rural communities. 

ARLINGTON, VA, August 17, 2022 —  Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) announced that Chief Executive Officer Dr. Lynette M. Fraga is leaving the organization early in 2023.  

Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) today announced that Chief Executive Officer Dr. Lynette M. Fraga is leaving the organization early in 2023.  

CCAoA is frustrated and disappointed with the news that the Senate may soon consider a budget reconciliation package, the Inflation Reduction Act, that includes no funding for child care and early learning. There is still time left for Congress to right this wrong. 

For months, child care programs, system leaders, families and businesses have shared countless stories of the longstanding challenges the sector faces. Their messages are the same: the status quo of low compensation for educators and high prices for families is unacceptable. The child care system can only move toward thriving in the future with robust public investment.  

The news that a budget reconciliation bill committed to inflation reduction, as its name implies, is slated to move forward without tackling the high prices families face for child care is alarming. As CCAoA research shows, in three out of four regions of the U.S., the annual price of center-based child care for an infant exceeds the cost of housing. In all four regions, child care exceeds the annual cost of in‑state tuition at a public four‑year university. If Congress’ main concern is helping families deal with rising costs, nothing could be more important than investments that help reduce the high price of child care. 

CCAoA believes this is also an issue of equity. As we consider the impact of the pandemic on women, who still make up all net labor force leavers since February 2020, it is unacceptable for Congress to continue to make policy choices that leave them behind. 

Before voting on the Inflation Reduction Act, CCAoA implores Congress to include significant, sustained funding for the child care and early learning system. 

In response to movement on a reconciliation package framework that excludes any funding
for child care and early learning, 24 prominent national organizations issued the following
statement calling on Congressional Leaders to reverse course and provide funding to address
America’s ever-worsening child care crisis:

At a moment when Americans are struggling just to get by amid the worst inflation in decades,
the Senate is moving forward with a reconciliation framework that excludes any investment to
address the largest financial burden facing millions of families: child care. America’s early
learning system, which was already failing to meet the needs of families and providers before
the pandemic, is currently being propped up by federal relief funding that will soon expire,
putting the future of our nation’s child care in jeopardy. Any reconciliation package that comes
before Congress for a vote must include significant, sustained funding to prevent the collapse of
our child care and early learning system and make quality care options available and affordable
for more families.

For the past two years, there has been clear acknowledgement from lawmakers and voters
alike that Congress must invest in building a system of early learning and care that meets the
needs of families, young children, and the providers they rely on. President Biden and
Democratic Leaders in the House and Senate touted early learning and care as foundational to
supporting America’s workforce and in turn, our nation's economic recovery and long-term
success, which was backed up by a proposed transformational investment in child care, pre-K,
and Head Start in the Build Back Better Act. It is unimaginable, then, that the Senate would
move forward with a package that does not include a single penny to ensure child care is
available and accessible in every zip code across the country. Women, in particular, will bear the
burden of Congress’s inaction, preventing countless moms from pursuing economic security —
let alone economic success.

Indeed, failure to include child care investments in reconciliation will not only be a missed
opportunity to immediately lower costs for families; it pushes the nation’s early learning system
closer to a catastrophic funding cliff that will affect America’s entire economy, resulting in higher
prices and longer waitlists for families and reduced access to quality care for children, while
lower wages push more early educators out of the field. There is no doubt that lawmakers
understand that the positive impact of investing in early learning and care would be felt for
generations. So too, will the consequences of inaction. As Congressional Leaders turn this
framework into a legislative package, they must add back in a meaningful portion of the original
child care and early learning funding that were eliminated, and come together through any
means possible to provide the substantive investments that are desperately needed.

Organizations: America Forward, Bank Street Education Center, CareForAllChildren, Center for
Law and Social Policy (CLASP), Child Care Aware of America, Council for a Strong America
(CSA), Early Care and Education Consortium (ECE), Early Learning Ventures (ELV),Educare
Learning Network, First Five Years Fund (FFYF), First Focus Campaign for Children, Futures
Without Violence, Imaginable Futures, LEGO Systems, Inc.,Main Street Alliance (MSA),
MomsRising, National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), National Head
Start Association (NHSA), National Women's Law Center (NWLC), Save the Children, Save the
Children Action Network, Start Early, The Century Foundation, ZERO TO THREE

New York Times

“We expect there to be an initial rush, where 20 percent of parents will get vaccinated in the next couple of weeks,” said Nikki Garro, the director of early childhood health programs at Child Care Aware, a national child care advocacy organization. “Then it will be a slow trickle.”

It is unlikely that day care providers or early childhood centers would mandate coronavirus vaccinations, she said, as only seven states require flu shots for child care and pre-K programs. But every state requires the measles, mumps and rubella inoculation before child care enrollment.

“We want to be sure to support programs because parents may have questions and also ensure that the adults too, who have not received their booster shot, still recognize that is an important part of reducing the spread,” Ms. Garro said. “Also, children under 6 months who are in child care will still not have access to vaccines, so we need to protect the youngest children.”

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