(links to source documents are in the postings below)

1. New! Inequitable Access to Child Care Subsidies - CLASP

2. New! Child Care Supply by U.S. Congressional District - Center for American Progress

3. New! State Experiences Implementing the Child Care and Development Block Grant - CLASP

4. New! Expansion of Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) - National Women's Law Center

5. Whose Minding the Kids (Birth to Age 15) - U.S. Census Bureau

6. Access to High Quality Early Care and Education - CEELO

7. Types of Child Care in New York - NYS OCFS

8. New York Child Care Demographics by County - NYS OCFS

9. Sector Quality Differences in Early Childhood Education and Care - U.S. DOE Funded Study

10. Assessing the Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education - ACF

11. Prevalence of Non-Parental Child Care Arrangements - US Department of Education

12. Types of Child Care by Mothers Education - Child Trends

13. Primary Child Care Provider for Children Under Age 4 - Child Stats

14. Child Care Teacher Qualifications and Child Outcomes - Early Childhood Research Quarterly

15. Infant and Toddler Childcare Deserts - Center for American Progress

Child Care - The Basics

Post #1

Inequitable Access to Child Care Subsidies

April 2019

Findings

Overall access to CCDBG was low: Nationally, access to CCDBG remained low across the board. We estimate that just 8 percent of the 17.4 million potentially eligible children based on federal eligibility parameters received subsidies in FY 2016, while 12 percent of 10.9 million potentially eligible children based on state eligibility parameters received subsidies. Based on federal eligibility, the overall access rate among potentially eligible children regardless of race or ethnicity ranged from 3 percent in the District of Columbia to 15 percent in New Mexico. Based on state eligibility, access ranged from 4 percent in the District of Columbia to 24 percent in Iowa, Vermont, and Nebraska.

Access to CCDBG varied considerably by race and ethnicity: Overall, Black children had the highest rates of access to CCDBG. Nationally, 15 percent of potentially eligible Black children were served based on federal eligibility parameters and 21 percent were served based on state parameters. While Black children had the highest rates of access, an overwhelming majority (79 percent) of potentially eligible Black children were not receiving subsidies. Most states were particularly underserving potentially eligible Latinx and Asian children in CCDBG in FY 2016. Asian children had the lowest rate of access nationally, with just 3 percent of potentially eligible Asian children served in CCDBG based on federal eligibility and 5 percent based on state eligibility. Six percent of potentially eligible Hispanic children were served nationally based on federal eligibility and 8 percent were served based on state eligibility.

Access to CCDBG varied by state: Findings based on federal income eligibility limits Federal law permits states to serve children in households with incomes up to 85 percent SMI, but few states have eligibility parameters that reach this level. In FY 2016, just Maine, North Dakota, and certain counties in Colorado and Texas set eligibility limits at the federally recommended threshold.16 Examining access based on 85 percent SMI offers a more uniform basis of comparison from state to state. It also demonstrates the extent to which federal and state budgets fail to fully fund CCDBG for all children potentially eligible under federal income eligibility parameters. (See Appendix I for more information.) Twenty-three states served potentially eligible children at a rate equal to or higher than the national access rate of 8 percent under federal eligibility parameters, while 27 states served potentially eligible children at rates below. Access based on federal eligibility also varied widely by race and ethnicity. Of the 38 states in which we could analyze access by race and ethnicity, potentially eligible Black children had the highest rates of access in 28 states. Potentially eligible Hispanic children had the lowest rates of access in 4 states and Asian children did in 18 states. Table 1 identifies the states that had the highest and lowest access rates for each racial and ethnic group.

Child Care Supply by Congressional District

Post #2

Child Care Supply by US Congressional Di

April 15, 2019

The Center for American Progress released information about the child care supply in each Congressional district. The data, which can be downloaded in Excel, includes the following for each Congressional District:

District Population Under Age 6
Percent of All Parents of Children Under Age 6 working
District's Median Household Income
District Population Under Age 5 in Poverty
District Number of Licensed Child Care Slots
District Percent of Child Care Slots to need

State Experiences Implementing

Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG)

January 31, 2019

When CCDBG reauthorization passed in 2014, states were challenged to meet sweeping policy changes without sufficient funding. Shortly after CCDBG’s passage, states began work on their CCDF plans due in March 2016. They submitted 2016-18 plans based on limited guidance available at the time and using their own interpretation of the new statute. Using the best information available from OCC, regional offices of the federal Administration for Children and Families (ACF), and national experts, states drafted their initial 2016-2018 plans, making decisions with massive implications for families, providers, and state budgets.

States where child care assistance policy lived largely in statute sometimes had somewhat skeletal or incomplete plans. Their plans were scant because they were dependent on state legislatures to move the new federal requirements forward and either had political obstacles or needed more time due to their legislative schedules.

As a result, many initial state plans would eventually require at least some degree of reworking and left large questions about how states would implement the new law.

States have created early childhood and child care assistance systems through a patchwork of administrative and legislative policies that makes system change challenging.

While states have some existing communication systems, such as Early Childhood Advisory Councils created under federal Head Start law, these systems are uneven across states in their authority, transparency, and influence. And beyond those mandated structures, states often have few ways for parents, providers, and other stakeholders to participate in the process—resulting in policy that does not necessarily respond to the real needs of parents and communities.

Advocacy organizations, especially those led by parents, need support to build capacity and expertise. While technical assistance from national organizations and others can help, community-based organizations struggle with staffing resources and capacity, along with other supports needed to take their rightful place at state policy tables.

Post #3

Expansion of Child Care and Development

Block Grant

January 31, 2019

Congress approved a $2.37 billion increase in funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), the major federal child care program, in March 2018. This was a historic increase for CCDBG, a program that provides funds to states to assist low-income families in affording child care, to help ensure the health and safety of child care, and to invest in improving the quality of care.

The new federal funds are essential to help address existing gaps in the child care assistance program. Only one in six children eligible for federal child care receives it. And only one state set its provider payment rates at the federally recommended level of February 2018. While the recent funding increase is helping states make progress in improving families’ access to assistance and provider payment rates, further federal and
state investments will be necessary to fully address these and other gaps.

Post #4

Who’s Minding the Kids?

Child Care Arrangements: U.S. Census Bureau Spring 2011

Post #5

Whose Minding the Kids Census Bureau.PNG

The universe of respondents in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) child care module consists of adults who are the parents of children under 15 years old.

Child care providers can be broadly classified as relatives or nonrelatives of children. Relatives include mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents; other relatives are individuals such as aunts, uncles, and cousins. Nonrelatives include in-home babysitters, neighbors, friends, and other nonrelatives providing care in either the child’s or the provider’s home. Another subcategory of nonrelative care is family day care providers who care for two or more children outside of the child’s home.

Organized child care facilities include day care or child care centers, nursery schools, preschools, and Head Start programs. Kindergarten/grade school is also included in the organized care total for children 0 to 4 years of age.

To present a more comprehensive view of the regular weekly experiences of children under 15 years old, this report also shows the incidence of children enrolled in school and enrichment activities (such as sports, lessons, clubs, and after- and before-school care programs), and the time children are in self-care situations. These later arrangements may not actually be interpreted or reported by parents as child care arrangements and hence, should not be used as measures of child-related activities or compared with other estimates of children’s daily activities in other Census Bureau reports on child well being.* The child care questions are available on the Internet.

Access to High Quality Early Care and Education: Readiness and Opportunity Gaps in America

A substantial body of research establishes that high quality preschool education can enhance cognitive and social development with long-term benefits for later success in school, the economy, and society more broadly. Such programs have been found to have particularly large benefits for children who are economically disadvantaged. Such children are found to have fallen behind their more advantaged peers in language and other abilities essential to school success prior to age 3, and the achievement gaps that receive so much attention on exams at 3rd grade and beyond are largely evident at kindergarten entry.

Unfortunately, our research on access to preschool in the United Sates finds that access--especially access to quality--is highly unequal despite the extent to which public policy at federal and state levels targets disadvantaged children. In part, this is because targeted programs too often are not high quality. Also, targeting is not as effective in reaching disadvantaged populations as policymakers naively assume. In addition, disparate and uneven state policies exacerbate inequalities. Inequality of opportunity for good early education is a particular concern for African American, Hispanic, and non-English-speaking children.

This brief is organized into four main sections. The first describes the “readiness gaps” at kindergarten entry as of 2010. The remaining sections examine the extent to which there are “opportunity gaps” in the early care and education services that may be associated with those readiness gaps. We begin with the care arrangements at age 2 and then examine early care and education arrangements for children aged 3 and 4. Finally, we turn to state pre-K policy and its impacts on enrollment, quality standards, and funding for children ages 3 and 4.

CEELO NIEER Access to High Quality ECE.P

Post #6

CEELO NIEER K Readiness by Parent Educat

NYS Office of Children and Family Services

Types of Childcare - New York

Post #7

Listed below are brief descriptions of common types of child care programs in New York State.

Day Care Centers - provide care for more than six children at a time, not in a personal residence.

Small Day Care Centers - provide care for up to six children, not in a personal residence.

Family Day Care Homes - provide care for three to six children at a time in a residence; may add one or two school-age children. The maximum allowable number of children will depend on whether there are and how many infants are in care.

Group Family Day Care Homes - provide care for seven to twelve children at a time in a residence; may add one or two school-age children. The maximum allowable number of children will depend on whether there are and how many infants are in care. A provider must use an assistant when more than six children are present.

Pre-Kindergarten - usually located in public schools, but can also be found in private schools or day care centers; supervised by the State Department of Education.

Head Start Centers - targeted for preschool-age children from low income families; federally funded and usually licensed as Day Care Centers.

School-Age Child Care Programs - provide care for more than six children from kindergarten through age twelve. Care for children during non-school hours; also may provide care during school vacation periods and holidays.

Nursery Schools - provide care for three hours a day or less. In New York City, the City Department of Health regulates these programs. A nursery school may voluntarily register with the State Education Department (SED).

Family, Friend, and Neighbors (Informal Care) – is home-based care for one to two children at a time in addition to the provider's children; are not required to register.

Within-in and Between-Sector Quality Differences in Childhood Education and Care (2015)

Children who attend formal ECEC settings score higher on cognitive and academic assessments relative to both children who had no exposure to ECEC and those in informal settings (Ansari & Winsler, 2011; Bradley & Vandell, 2007; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2004; Vandell, 2004). This formal care advantage with respect to cognitive outcomes has been documented widely, though formal care is also associated with higher levels of stress and externalizing relative to parental care, a pattern not observed for informal settings (Belsky, 2002; Coley, Votruba-Drzal, Miller, & Koury, 2013; Vermeer & van IJzendoorn, 2006).

Existing research provides evidence that the type of non-parental care children experience matters for their developmental outcomes. This study replicates this finding and assesses the role of quality differences across sectors in these differences. We find, as have earlier studies, that ECEC quality – whether basic safety conditions, structural measures of quality such as caregiver education levels, caregiver-reported measures of classroom practices, or directly observed classroom quality – is systematically higher in formal settings. These quality differences further predict the developmental disparities across children in different sectors.

Across both toddler and preschool programs, formal programs rate higher on almost all quality measures. Moreover, we find significant differences between the formal programs serving two-year-olds and those serving four-year-old children. For instance, caregivers of two-year-olds turn over at higher rates and are 35 percentage points less likely to hold a degree in early childhood education. We also show that within the formal sector, Head Start and pre-kindergarten provide higher quality care than childcare centers, though differences in quality within the formal sector are dwarfed by much larger between-sector differences.

None of our key findings about quality differences are explained by differences across sectors in the demographic characteristics of enrolled children. Although there are substantial differences by race and SES in care utilization patterns, accounting for these factors, as well as an extensive set of other covariates, has nearly no impact on the quality disparities.

Post #8

Formal v Informal Child Care Children Un

New York Child Care Demographics by County

Example: Schenectady County

NYS Child Care Demographic Data 2017.JPG

Schenectady County Child Demographics.JP

Post #9

Schenectady County Child Care Costs 2.JP

Post #10

Assessing the Implementation Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education (ECE-ICHQ): A Review of the Literature

Recognizing that the research on specific program features is not currently as well developed as the research based on evaluations of particular programs as a whole or global quality measures such as the Environment Rating Scales, we expand our discussion to include program features that have yet to be rigorously tested as predictors of child outcomes or classroom practices but are hypothesized to be important by experts.

The mixed nature to the findings overall makes it difficult to draw conclusions for the Early Care and Education – Implementation Costs of High Quality (ECE- ICHQ) project. Most of the evidence of the association between specific program features, program quality, and child outcomes is correlational and few studies have been able to speak to the combined effects of program features.

To understand the features that support quality within ECE centers, we drew primarily from seven sources—six recent research reviews and one meta-analysis—that linked features of ECE to child outcomes (such as improved school readiness) and/or classroom practices (such as instructional and emotional support as measured by classroom observation) as an indicator of quality.

Five key activities form the core of effective implementation for any program or practice:

(1) recruitment, hiring and selection of practitioners with the required skills and competencies;

(2) selection and use of tools that clearly convey the key concepts, principles, procedures, and practices of an innovation;

(3) training that delivers content knowledge to practitioners,

(4) technical assistance (TA) or coaching that includes observation and feedback, and

(5) a quality assurance (QA) and quality improvement (QI) process.

Some features that were discussed have been demonstrated to be associated with both teacher-child interactions and child outcomes in at least some studies.

group size and adult-child ratio,
staff education and credentials,
environment and materials, and
training and professional development

Three features—staff compensation and benefits, assessment and evaluation, and leadership and administrative practices—have a limited evidence base in terms of associations with child outcomes or teacher-child interactions because they have not been tested to date, according to the resources we reviewed.

ECE Features Linked to Child Outcomes.PN

Non-Parental Child Care Arrangements

Post #11

In 2012 60% of children under age 5 received some form of non-parental care. In 2010, over 50 percent of children entering kindergarten had attended a center care arrangement in the previous year

In 2016, the percent of children under age 5 in various types of care (note, the percentages below are not substantially different from 2001):

Relative Care = 26%
Non-Relative Care = 14%
Center Based Care = 34%

The evidence suggests that this may be because as children get older, their parents begin to focus more on their academic skills. Younger children’s parents, in contrast, may be more concerned about practical factors such as cost and arrangement reliability as well as factors related to caregivers’ trustworthiness and ability to form caring, home- or family-like relationships with children.

Children in poor families (below the federal poverty line) and those in low-income families (with incomes between the poverty line and twice the poverty line) are less likely than children in more affluent families to be in center-based programs. In 2012, 46% of three- to six-year-olds in poor families, and 52% in low-income families, were in such programs, compared with 72% of children in families with higher incomes.

Childcare Type by Mother's Education

Post #12

Mothers with higher levels of education are more likely to enroll their children in early care and education programs than are mothers with less education. In 2012, 43% of three- to six-year-olds whose mothers had not completed high school participated in such programs, compared with 50% whose mothers were high school graduates, 58% whose mothers had at least some vocational/technical training or college, and 79% whose mothers were college graduates

Child Care Arrangement by Mothers Educat

Primary Care for Children Under Age 4 with

Employed Mother

Post #13

Child Care Arrangements by Type Children

Childcare Teacher Qualifications and

Children’s Academic Success

Post #14

Results from regression models suggest few associations between teachers' education level, ECE credits, or level on the professional career ladder and observed classroom quality. The key exception is that teachers who do not have any postsecondary education and training in ECE are in classrooms of significantly lower quality compared with teachers who have a college degree. Results from hierarchical linear models indicate that teachers' education does not predict children's early academic skills.

This study examines the associations of teachers' levels of education and professional training with observed classroom quality and children's school readiness in community-based child care centers. Prior research provides mixed evidence about whether teachers' education predicts early childhood education (ECE) classroom quality and children's outcomes.

This study is able to examine whether variations in degrees and ECE credit-based training for teachers predict observed classroom quality and children's school readiness skills. Analyses control for a rich set of variables, including children's demographic information and fall assessment scores, teachers' work-related characteristics (e.g., motivation for ECE work), and classrooms and programs' features.

Infant and Toddler Child Care Deserts

Center for American Progress (CAP)

This report, Understanding Infant and Toddler Child Care Deserts, provides new analysis of 9 states: IN, MD, MS, MT, NC, OH, OR, VT, WV, and DC and finds that young families are the most affected by child care shortages; there are more than 5 babies for each spot of licensed infant and toddler child care. These shortages are especially pronounced in rural areas and counties with lower median family incomes. The results suggest that policies promoting greater public investment to reflect the higher cost of caring for infants and toddlers would help more families find and afford care.

Key findings include:

There are only enough licensed child care spots to serve less than 1 in 5 infants and toddlers.
The shortage of infant and toddler care affects rural and lower-income communities the most
More than 95 percent of the counties in this study have three or more infants and toddlers per licensed child care slot.

CAP also has provided sample social media for you to use:

In rural areas, there are 9 infants and toddlers for each slot of licensed child care #ChildCareDeserts #childcare4all https://ampr.gs/2RnfXiJ

There are over 5 babies for each spot of licensed child care #ChildCareDeserts #childcare4all https://ampr.gs/2RnfXiJ

You’ve probably heard about #ChildCareDeserts- but did you know that they’re worst for the youngest children? #childcare4all https://ampr.gs/2RnfXiJ

There’s only enough licensed child care to serve 19% of infants and toddlers. #ChildCareDeserts #childcare4all https://ampr.gs/2RnfXiJ

Finding child care for your baby shouldn’t depend on your zip code or income level. #ChildCareDeserts #childcare4all https://ampr.gs/2RnfXiJ

Child Care Deserts Infants and Toddlers.

Post #15

Still Shortchanging Our Youngest Children: State Payment Rates for Infant Care 2018

Infant Care Under Payments NWLC 051519.J

Note: New York data is based on NYC sampling. Key findings from this analysis of payment rates for infant care as of February 2018 include:

• Only six states paid rates for center care for infants that were at or above the federally recommended level (the 75th percentile of current market rates); the remaining states set rates below the recommended level, including 24 states with rates for center care for infants that were 20 percent or more below the recommended level.

• Only 12 states paid rates for family child care for infants that were at or above the federally recommended level (the 75th percentile of current market rates); the remaining states set rates below the recommended level, including 14 states with rates for family child care for infants that were 20 percent or more below the recommended level.

• Forty states paid tiered (higher) rates for infant care provided by centers meeting higher-quality standards, but in 28 of these states, rates for centers at the highest quality level were still below the federally recommended level.

• Thirty-nine states paid tiered rates for infant care provided by family child care homes meeting higher quality standards, but in 20 of these states, rates for family child care at the highest quality level were still below the federally recommended level.

• All states paid higher rates for infant care than for preschool-age care, but the amount by which rates for infant care exceeded rates for preschool-age care varied widely, from 5 percent to 101 percent.

• Forty-eight states paid higher rates for infant care in centers than in family child care, with the amount by which rates for centers exceeded rates for family child care ranging from 4 percent to 129 percent. Two states paid higher rates for infant care in family child care than in centers, and one state paid the same rates for infant care in centers as in family child care.

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