~Sharing
Web Resources~
Through exploring the Children’s Defense Fund website I
have discovered a section called Policy priorities. This section has information dealing with
budget watch, children’s health, welfare, ending child poverty, elementary and
secondary education, juvenile justice, projects for children in need, advocate
and family resources.
In the early childhood education and care section issues
addressed were the advantages of early childhood education, new data is out
concerning early childhood education and care, increasing access to full-day
kindergarten which is a strategy for boosting learning achievement gaps for
children, and the President’s budget for fiscal year 2013 in early childhood
education.
The Children’s Defense Fund has Information concerning
issues that are important to children in the 21st century; there are new common
core standards that set high expectations for every child including
kindergarteners. We need to prepare all of our children to compete in this
global economy but for millions of children in the United States there is a
missing half-step in their early learning years. Full–day kindergarten boosts
children’s cognitive learning, creative problem-solving skills, and social
competence.
Insight gained from the website about issues and trends
concerning early childhood education include the President’s 2013 fiscal year
budget proposal that would increase Head Start funding by $85 million over
fiscal year 2012 funding levels. This would allow 962,000 children to participate
in Head Start. These funds would also support the implementation of new
regulations to strengthen the program by requiring low-performing grantees to
compete for continued funding.
Provide an $825 million dollar increase in the Child Care
and Development Block Grant which offers subsidized child care dollars to
families who need it. These funds would include a $300 million investment for a
new child care quality initiative that states would use to improve the services
that children receive in child care settings by investing directly in programs
and teachers. This increase would also ensure that more than 70,000 additional
low-income children would be eligible to receive services.
Support programs that benefit families with infants and
toddlers by providing a $20 million increase to Part C of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act, the section that provides grants for infants and
toddlers with special needs.
Provide a $50 million increase to evidence-based early
childhood home visiting programs to improve health and developmental outcomes
for families in at-risk communities.
Provide a third round of Early Learning Challenge Grants
to help states improve their early care and education systems through a portion
of the $850 million investment in Race to the top funding.
This increase in the budget would give children and
families the opportunity to be aware and have accessibility to attend these
early childhood education programs and be successful know and in the future.
Your post gives me hope, Clarencia. I have never been quite able to qualify for head start through our family income, but can't afford to pay for it. I hope some of the proposed budget increases would allow for the income qualifications to be expanded and include those of us who are sitting just outside of the current qualifications. The more children we are able to provide quality programs for, the better! Thanks for your post.
ReplyDeleteHi Clarencia! I really enjoyed your post this week. For my website, I chose Zero To Three. I read on that website that last month during appropriations, Congress proposed to increase funding even more. Please see my blog for the exact amounts. I believe this is a step in the right direction and Congress is finally seeing the importance of early learning. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteIt's encouraging to know that so much money is going towards EC education. As I saw the figures I wondered if the money is being used wisely. There tends to be a lot of corruption with such large amounts of money. I still would love to see teacher salaries go up. I think that alone have a major impact.
ReplyDelete