stimulus

New "Factory" for Pre-k Stimulus Ideas

Sara Mead — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:50:00 -0400

The National Institute for Early Education Research has joined the blogosphere! Its new blog, Idea Factory, seeks to collect and share ideas and examples from the around the country of how states and school districts can use federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to support quality pre-k programs. Of course, we here at New America's Early Ed Watch have our own ideas on this subject, as well.

Two New Issue Briefs Offer Ideas for Using Stimulus Funds for Early Education

Sara Mead — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:28:00 -0400

States and school districts have begun receiving billions of dollars in federal stimulus funds for early education. One of the most important ways that the states and districts can do this is by investing stimulus funds in early education and PreK-3rd reforms to ensure that all students establish a solid foundation of math, literacy, and social/emotional skills by the end of third grade. Two new issue briefs from the New America Foundation's Early Education Initiative provide guidance and options for how states and school districts can use stimulus funds to improve access, equity and alignment in early learning for children from birth through elementary school.

Maximizing Reform in the Stimulus Bill: Supporting Effective Early Education, published in cooperation with the Education Commission of the States, encourages states to think creatively about how to use stimulus funds to maintain early education services and improve access, quality, and alignment in early education. The issue brief argues that there are multiple early education investments states and districts can make with ARRA funding that will continue to produce benefits even after stimulus dollars are gone. States and school districts must prioritize early education investments that: 1) Integrate early education investments with K-12 school improvement efforts, 2) Leverage existing programs, including Head Start and community-based pre-k providers, and 3) Build infrastructure to support quality early education programs in a systematic way. Examples of such investments include:

Building Quality Rating and Improvement Systems,
Providing training and support to community-based child care providers,
Using a PreK-3rd strategy to turn around low-performing elementary schools, and
Refurbishing or building facilitites for early education use.

This issue brief is part of a series of ECS issue briefs that provide guidance to states on how to effectively use ARRA funds to advance education reforms.

Building a Solid Foundation, a new issue brief from New America's Early Education Initiative, explains why states and school districts need to make PreK-3rd reforms -- which start with high-quality pre-k and continue with a seamless, high-quality early learning experience through third grade -- a central part of their strategy for stimulus funds. The report also offers menus of policy options for both states and school districts to use stimulus funds to put in place PreK-3rd reforms that will deliver lasting benefits after stimulus dollars are gone.

Strategies for states to use stimulus funds to support PreK-3rd reforms include:

Ensure that State Early Learning Advisory Councils Support PreK-3rd alignment.
Strengthen state standards in PreK-3rd.
Adjust state school funding formulas to incorporate Pre-k.
Allow the creation of pre-k charter schools.
Integrate early education into state longitudinal student data systems.
Provide incentives for districts that maintain pre-k funding or use ARRA funds for pre-k.

Strategies for districts to use stimulus funds to support PreK-3rd reforms include:

Sustain current investments in pre-k, full-day kindergarten, and supports for teaching and learning in the early grades.
Use new Title I funds to expand access to quality pre-k.
Align standards, curriculum, and instructional strategies to provide a seamless early learning experience for all children from pre-k through third grade.
Establish common, aligned standards and expectations across all pre-k programs in a community, by working with and providing professional development for teachers in community-based pre-k programs.
Reconstitute chronically low-performing elementary schools as PreK-3rd Early Learning Academies.
Rethink the school day to allow common planning time.
Build or refurbish facilities used by pre-k and PreK-3rd programs.

This issue brief is the second Early Education Initiative issue brief offering guidance to states on the use of stimulus funds. In April the Initiative published an issue brief on how states can use stimulus funds to support the development of Quality Rating and Improvement Systems for early care and education settings.

A Closer Look at the President's Budget: Title I Early Childhood Grants

Sara Mead — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:40:00 -0400

On May 7 the Office of Management and Budget released the President’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2010. As Early Ed Watch reported at the time, that budget includes funding for several new early education programs, including Title I Early Childhood Grants, Early Learning Challenge Fund, Early Literacy Grants, and Home Visitation. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be taking a closer look at these proposed programs. Today, we turn to Title I Early Childhood Grants.

The President’s fiscal year 2010 budget requests $500 million in funding for a new program of matching grants to school districts that use their Title I funds to make investments in pre-kindergarten programs. Title I, the largest federal program supporting preK-12 education, is intended to improve education for disadvantaged youngsters. Current law allows school districts that receive Title I funds to use those to provide pre-k and other early childhood education services to at-risk children below the age of compulsory school attendance. But only about 2 percent of Title I funds are used for this purpose.

The proposed Title I Early Childhood Grants program seeks to create an incentive for school districts, which received a substantial increase in Title I funding as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, or the stimulus), to use those funds to create, expand, or improve the quality of pre-kindergarten programs.

Funds would be distributed to states based on their share of Title I, Part A funds received in fiscal year 2009. States would then use these funds to provide matching grants to school districts that invest Title I funds in pre-k and other early childhood programs. States would have considerable flexibility in how they choose to operate these matching grant programs. For example, states would be allowed to determine the size of the required local match, to set additional quality requirements for districts to receive matching grant funds, to choose to prioritize certain types of early childhood investments over others, or to prioritize certain school districts over others for matching grants. This flexibility is designed to allow states to tailor the matching grant program to meet identified state needs and to coordinate effectively with existing state pre-k and other early childhood investments. School districts would be required to provide annual reports on the amount of pre-k expenditures and the number of children served.

It’s not surprising to see the administration seeking ways to encourage school districts to use stimulus Title I funds for pre-k. The Senate’s version of the stimulus bill included provisions to set aside 15 percent of both Title I and IDEA funds in the bill specifically for services to preschool-aged children. Those provisions were eliminated in conference committee negotiations, however, due in large part to opposition from interest groups representing school boards and administrators. The proposed Title I Early Childhood Grants program is the administration’s second attempt to push more Title I funds into pre-k programs.

Incentivizing districts to use the infusion of new Title I funds to make pre-k investments makes a lot of sense. Over the past decade, increasing state investments have fueled pre-k expansion. Current budget crises now threaten this progress. The stimulus, however, has provided many districts with a substantial infusion of Title I resources they can use to keep the ball moving forward on pre-k even as states falter. Given the abundant evidence that achievement gaps for disadvantaged students are entrenched well before they start kindergarten, pre-k investments are also consistent with districts’ mandate under NCLB to narrow achievement gaps. And districts that use Title I funds for pre-k are uniquely well-situated to ensure that pre-k programs are aligned with K-3 offerings. The challenge, of course, is to persuade districts to use new Title I funds for pre-k, rather than simply maintaining status quo programs. And that’s exactly what the administration hopes these new incentive funds will be able to accomplish.

There’s a catch here, however, that could undermine the effectiveness of what’s otherwise a smart strategy on the part of the administration. The administration’s proposal here hinges on persuading districts to invest new, stimulus Title I funds in pre-k. But, in its guidance to districts and public outreach around stimulus funds, the Department of Education has also made a point of warning districts about the “cliff” in federal funds—the fact that stimulus investments in Title I, IDEA, and the Education Stabilization Fund will disappear after two years—and in urging them to use these funds to make one-time investments, rather than spending them on new programs and positions that require ongoing funding commitments. The problem: Pre-k is much more an example of the latter type of investment—one that requires ongoing funding—rather than the former. As a result, districts may be reluctant to use stimulus funds to invest in new pre-k programs they aren’t sure they can sustain—even if the federal government provides them an incentive to do so.

The administration has an answer to this, buried in the text of the fiscal year 2010 justification of appropriations estimates to Congress. The Obama administration is seeking to create a new Early Learning Challenge Fund, as part of the broader Zero to Five Initiative President Obama proposed during his campaign. Administration officials intend for that Early Learning Challenge Fund to include—among other things—funding to sustain local early childhood initiatives started with ARRA funds.

Essentially, the Department is asking districts to make future funding commitments now based on the promise of a program that doesn’t yet exist. Before the Early Learning Challenge Fund can provide funding to sustain local early education initiatives, it first has to be authorized by Congress—and, while the outlook for major early education legislation is better than at any time in recent memory, it could still be tricky, particularly with health care reform sucking up so much oxygen right now. Districts have, of course, been known to make funding commitments without a clear sense of how they’ll sustain them in the future. But whether or not Congress chooses to authorize this program could have a major impact on whether or not districts choose to use their new ARRA Title I funds for early childhood programs. It’s increasingly clear that the Early Learning Challenge Fund is the critical lever when it comes to driving early education forward—and later this week we’ll be taking a closer look at the administration’s proposals for that program.

High-Quality PreK-3rd: How Much Does It Cost?

Sara Mead — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:19:00 -0400

How much does it cost? And, how are we going to pay for it? Debates about improving quality, access, and alignment in early education programs often hinge on these two questions. No matter how much researchers demonstrate that investments in quality early education today pay for themselves in future benefits and taxpayer savings, today’s policymakers must still find the resources—out of current budgets—to pay for those investments. That’s especially challenging in today’s tight fiscal climate.

A new set of resources from the Foundation for Child Development seek to provide an answer to the question of “how much does it cost” to provide all children with access to a high-quality preK-3^rd early education program. Lawrence O Picus, Allen Odden, and Michael Goetz are nationally recognized school finance experts whose work has played a role in school finance adequacy litigation in states across the country. Their evidence-based approach to estimating the costs of an adequate education provides the basis for school finance systems in several states.

In a new report published by FCD, Picus, Odden, and Goetz apply the same evidence based approach to identify the programmatic and staffing elements necessary to deliver a high-quality preK-3^rd education, and to estimate how much it would cost to provide these elements for all youngsters. They estimate that the national costs of providing a high-quality preK-3^rd education to all youngsters would be $215 billion annually, or $10,867 per student in grades preK-3^rd. Such a system would cost $71.5 billion more than we currently spend to educate students in preK-3^rd grade.

More important than the overall cost estimates Picus, Odden, and Goetz reach, however, is the framework they use to estimate those costs. As Rima Shore demonstrates in a new FCD issue brief, this framework provides a useful tool that states can use to determine how much it might cost them to establish a high-quality preK-3^rd system, taking into account their own unique needs and goals. Because the framework identifies specific components of a preK-3^rd system, state policymakers can adjust those components based on their own needs. For example, Picus, Odden, and Goetz’ model assumes class sizes of no more than 15 students in grades K-3, but a state could decide that it wanted to implement slightly larger class sizes and also provide more intensive support for English language learners. This framework can help states to consider such tradeoffs in designing early education investments.

As states begin receiving new federal stimulus funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), this framework can help in another way, as well. By laying out different programmatic and staffing elements that contribute to high-quality preK-3^rd systems, it also offers a menu of items that school districts can use their ARRA to invest in, in order to advance high-quality preK-3^rd in their districts. Some elements of the framework, such as pre-k slots, full-day kindergarten, and new staff positions at the K-3 level, require ongoing funding commitments. But others, such as investments in professional development, aligning curriculum and instruction preK-3^rd, or updating facilities to better meet the needs of young students, are one-time investments that deliver ongoing payoffs, making them good candidates for ARRA funds.

The Department of Education has already issued guidance that encourages districts to think about using ARRA funds to better align standards, curriculum, and instruction in grades preK-3^rd, and, when there are plans in place for sustainability, to expand access to early education. Smart school districts such as Montgomery County, Md., are already committing their ARRA funds to expand full-day Head Start and other elements of quality preK-3^rd early education. Other districts should listen to the Department’s advice and follow Montgomery County’s example. These new resources from FCD provide a useful tool to help them do so.

In the coming weeks we’ll have more to say about how school districts can and should use stimulus funds to advance a high-quality preK-3^rd education.

More from HHS

Sara Mead — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:19:00 -0400

HHS has released guidance and state allocations for $2 billion in Child Care and Development Fund funds appropriated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Guidance at the link above, state allocations after the jump.

Getting the Ball Rolling on Head Start Stimulus $$

Sara Mead — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:12:00 -0400

Yesterday the Department of Health and Human Services released additional information on new Head Start and Early Head Start funds appropriated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the fiscal year 2009 omnibus appropriations legislation. The ARRA provides $2.1 billion over two years for Head Start and Early Head Start, $1.1 billion of which is allocated to Early Head Start and $1 billion for Head Start. The fiscal year 2009 appropriation provides $7.1 billion in funding for both Head Start and Early Head Start programs, a $234 million increase over the fiscal year 2008 appropriation.

But it’s more complicated than that. Head Start funds are allocated to a variety of purposes and activities—including cost of living allowances for Head Start staff, quality improvement activities, and expansion to serve additional children—according to various provisions set out in the 2007 Head Start reauthorization legislation, the ARRA legislation, and the fiscal year 2009 appropriations legislation. Untangling the amount of money that goes to different purposes can be confusing. The Department’s release yesterday helps make this clearer.

The chart below shows the amount of new Head Start funds under the ARRA and fiscal year 2009 appropriation that will be allocated to different uses. (In includes only the increase in Head Start funds for fiscal year 2009, not the entire appropriation.)

Expansion

The largest portion of new funding—nearly $1.2 billion—will be used to expand Early Head Start programs. These funds will serve some 55,000 additional pregnant women, infants, and toddlers, nearly doubling the number served by Early Head Start. A smaller amount of funding—$219 million—will fund expansion of existing Head Start programs to serve some 16,000 additional children nationally. HHS will hold a grant competition for new Early Head Start funds, and expects to make grant applications available within a few weeks. Head Start expansion funding will be allocated to existing grantees.

Quality and Coordination

$354 million in ARRA funds will go to support quality improvement activities in Head Start centers, including increasing staff compensation (necessary to raise staff education levels to comply with the reauthorization’s requirements), providing staff training, and improving Head Start facilities and transportation. $2 million in funding is also available for the Head Start Centers of Excellence program, authorized in the 2007 reauthorization, which identifies outstanding Head Start centers across the country to serve as models of quality.

$100 million in funding will be available to support the creation of State Advisory Councils, to improve coordination at the state level among Head Start, state pre-k, child care, and other early education programs. The 2007 Head Start reauthorization authorized funding for these councils, but because Head Start funding was stagnant in fiscal year 2008, they were never funded. The increased Head Start funding in the ARRA provided the resources needed to get the councils started. That’s important because state early learning councils have the potential to play an important role in laying the state-level groundwork for President Obama’s proposed investments in state Early Learning Challenge Grants to be effective. Keep an eye on what states do with these funds.

Cost of Living Allowances and Other Funding

Between ARRA and FY 2009 appropriation funds, nearly $326 million will be available to provide nearly five percent cost of living increase for Head Start programs and staff—substantially larger than the increases in recent years. Funding will also be available to support training and technical assistance, program monitoring, and program support.

When Funds Will Be Available

Funding for quality improvements and cost of living allowances will be available immediately to Head Start grantees. Funding for advisory councils and for expansion will not be available until the Department issues guidance on these programs, which it expects to do in the coming weeks.

An initial estimate of the amount of new Head Start funding that will go to different states appears below. This is only an estimate, because the Department will not know the exact amount each state will receive until grantees submit their requests and funds are allocated.

Administration Urges States and School Districts to Invest in Early Education Facilities

Sara Mead — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:45:00 -0400

This is a slide from a new Department of Education slide presentation, created by Department officials to provide states, school districts, and education stakeholders with information on when they'll receive and how they may use funding provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also known as the stimulus legislation. The Department of Education specifically encourages school districts to include early childhood education facilities in any facilities investments they make using ARRA funds.

That's a good idea. Lack of access to quality facilities is one barrier to expanding access to high-quality pre-k programs. Further, many existing early childhood programs are in "make do" facilities that aren't really designed to meet young children's needs. Investing in quality space for effective early childhood programs is a smart idea that could help expand access over the long-term, but without requiring the same ongoing funding commitments that other investments in expanding pre-k access would involve. During debate over the stimulus legislation, many early education advocates (including Early Ed Watch) encouraged Congress and the administration to use the stimulus to make substantial investments in early childhood facilities. That kind of specific language didn't make it into the law.

Congress did, however, provide substantial funding for school construction and renovation. Districts can spend their share of $39.8 billion in State Fiscal Stabilization Funds for education on school construction, renovation, or repair. ARRA also provides $22 billion in school constructsion bonds and $2.8 billion in Qualified Zone Academy Bonds, which can be used for repairs or renovation. Early Ed Watch agrees with the Department that school districts should use some of these funds to make needed investments in early childhood facilities, either for district-run pre-k programs or community-based providers.

Districts should also consider using stimulus funds to revamp existing elementary school facilities as PreK-3rd early education academies. Implementing an aligned, coordinated program of early education from pre-k through 3rd grade is a research-based approach to improving student achievement that also provides a compelling vision for whole school reform, and has a track record of success in districts and charter schools across the country. In other words, it's a strategy that's totally consistent with the administration's fourth guiding principle for the use of ARRA Funds: Improve Student Achievement Through Effective Reforms. And the administration's ARRA guidance for Title I specifically encourages school districts to use ARRA funds to align pre-k and K-3 early education programs.

But implementing PreK-3rd programs effectively may require schools to retrofit their facilities, such as incorporating space for pre-k classrooms, overhauling existing elementary classrooms to meet the needs of small children, and creating common spaces for preK-3rd students and teachers that are separate from those serving older youngsters. Funding these changes can be difficult for school districts, but stimulus funds provide a source of facilities funding that they could use to meet these needs.

Perhaps most importantly, the fact that the administration is encouraging districts to use ARRA funds for early childhood facilities suggests once again that they are thinking seriously about the importance of early education, with the context of both the stimulus and their broader education reform agenda.

That's essential because the ARRA legislation itself actually gave pre-k programs short shrift. While ARRA makes much needed investments in CCDBG and Head Start, it doesn't do much to support state pre-k programs, which have grown substantially in the past decade and now serve more children nationally than Head Start. Eighty-one percent of State Fiscal Stabilization Funds under ARRA are distributed directly to school districts and postsecondary institutions, preventing most states from using them to shore up state pre-k programs. While pre-k programs may be able to secure a portion of the 18.2 percent of SFSF funds not specifically set aside for education, they'll have a lot of competition for that money. And ARRA's maintenance of effort provisions could further harm state pre-k programs, by creating incentives for governors and legislatures to shift state funds out of pre-k programs and into the K-12 funding formula. The upshot: If we're going to maintain and improve access to early education programs over the next few years, local school districts are going to have to play a bigger role in funding these programs. So it's good to see the administration urging them to do so.

Whether districts will be willing to invest stimulus funds in early education remains an open question, however. So far, districts seem primarily interested in using stimulus funding to maintain the status quo--not to implement bold new reforms or think in new ways about their roles in educating young children. The administration is pressing them to try thinking differently, and early education advocates should do the same.

Solve the Title I Set-Aside Problem by Tapping Funds for Pre-K

Sara Mead — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:41:00 -0400

Ed Week’s David Hoff draws attention to a provision in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that could complicate school districts’ efforts to spend $10 billion in Title I funding provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Under NCLB, school districts must provide students with supplemental tutoring or give them the option of transferring to a better-performing public school if they are enrolled in schools that have failed to meet student achievement benchmarks for multiple years. Districts must set aside up to 20 percent of Title I funds for these purposes.

But in practice, many school districts with low-performing schools haven’t actually spent the full 20 percent set-aside on school choice or tutoring (also known as supplemental educational services, or SES). That's in part because of a lack of better-performing schools for students to transfer to, and in part because many districts have done a lousy job of making parents aware of their options under the law. Districts that don’t spend the full set-aside may use that money for other purposes, but they must wait until the following year to do so. With the new infusion of Title I funding, the amount of set-aside money districts are unable to spend is likely to grow. And some observers fear that a delay in spending these funds could undermine their stimulative impact.

Complicating the picture are regulations put in place near the end of the Bush administration that would make it more difficult for school districts to roll over unused set-aside funds and use them for other purposes. Lobbyists for school districts and school administrators are citing the stimulus as a reason that the Obama Administration should undo those regulations and expand waiver authority for districts to use the set-aside funds for things other than public school choice and SES. Education reformers and advocates for low-income children fear that such changes might make it harder for children stuck in poorly performing schools to get the educational supports they need and could reward school districts for bad behavior.

We have a better idea: Maintain the requirement that districts set aside 20 percent of Title I funds for public school choice and SES, but allow them to use that funding for pre-K as well. Don’t allow districts to roll over unspent set-aside funds, but if they can’t or don’t spend the full set aside on choice and SES, require them to use the remaining funds to provide high-quality pre-K for children in neighborhoods. Services could be provided through school-based programs, Head Start, or community-based providers who meet high quality standards (such as employing teachers with bachelor's degrees).

This approach has a number of virtues: First, it provides a way for districts that can’t or don’t spend their full Title I set-aside funds on public school choice and SES to spend that money, without giving them a blank check to use it however they see fit. Second, it eliminates the incentives that currently exist for school districts to dissuade parents from taking advantage of public school choice and SES options. Because districts now may roll over unused set-aside money and use it for other purposes, they have an incentive to keep uptake in choice and SES as low as possible, in order to maximize the amount of money they can keep. Forcing them to spend that money on pre-K would eliminate that perverse incentive. Third, it supports efforts to improve low-performing schools by providing a proven intervention—high-quality pre-K—targeted to individual children in communities with a history of poor school performance. If these children arrive in school better prepared to learn, then their schools will have an easier time making adequate yearly progress in the future.

Finally, this proposal would help compensate for the ARRA’s failure to adequately support state and local investments in pre-K programs. While the stimulus provides increased funding for Head Start and CCDBG, it doesn’t include funding specifically to help maintain funding levels for state pre-K programs. Although the ARRA provides more than $53 billion in state fiscal stabilization funds, the largest share of which is dedicated to education, the way in which the law specifies those funds be distributed actually makes it difficult for governors to use that funding to maintain state pre-K expenditures. In fact, the law’s maintenance of effort provisions for K-12 and postsecondary education may actually create a disincentive for governors to maintain pre-K funding.

The bright spot is that school districts—which are receiving most of the education funds in the ARRA—can use those funds to invest in pre-K programs, but districts are facing lots of competing pressures on their budgets right now, too. Policies that create an additional push for districts to spend Title I funds on pre-K—such as allowing them to use set aside funds for pre-K—could play an important role in helping maintain access to early education for low-income youngsters.

Novel Idea: Maybe It Isn't OUR Job to Revive the Economy

Mark Huelsman — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:43:00 -0500

"The role of consumers has had considerable attention in the press because the economy desperately needs additional spending right now. But it is not - and should not be - the responsibility of middle-income families to provide that spending."

Robert Frank made a good point this weekend.

Possibly the most frustrating part of the economic recovery debate has been the willingness of many policymakers and thinkers to lay the responsibility of recovery at the feet of the American consumer. Luckily, economists (like Mr. Frank) and think-tank types (like our own Alejandra Lopez-Fernandini and Rourke O'Brien) have been presenting the argument in recent weeks that, quite likely, we should give families signals to save and perks when they do. From last Thursday's USA Today:

Yet those Americans who choose prudence should not be made to feel unpatriotic -- as if they are destroying the economy of their country -- because they fail to spend recklessly. It's time we move beyond this economic belief that places the health of the U.S. macroeconomy squarely on the willingness of individual households to spend, spend, spend.

It's an uphill battle. Unfortunately, Mr. Frank seems to oversell and overcomplicate the "paradox of thrift" a bit -- making it a central caveat to his argument when there are both benefits to saving (like giving banks the confidence to lend again) and straightforward ways around the negative macroeconomic aspects (like Mr. Frank's plea to let government increase spending to not only make up the "loss" of families reigniting the concept of thrift, but to spend enough to jumpstart the economy).

Regardless, it's a refreshing and all-too-rare argument these days. We can all agree that it is in our long-term interest to promote saving and responsibility; it shouldn't be the exact opposite in the short-term.

A Closer Look at the Stimulus Bill

Sara Mead — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:27:00 -0500

Text of the Conference Report on the stimulus bill is now available on the House Rules Committee website (warning: these are very large files). The House and Senate are voting on the legislation today. Early Ed Watch read through the bill and took a closer look at the funding levels the bill provides for various early education programs:

Early education advocates are pleased that the conference committee restored Head Start funding in the bill to the $2.1 billion level in the House version, up from the $1.05 provided for Head Start in the Senate bill. But they should actually be pretty disappointed with the conference committee. While the Senate's version of the bill would have set-aside 15 percent of new IDEA and Title I funds for programs to serve preschool-aged students, the conference committee dropped that provision from the bill. Had the provision remained in the bill, that would have meant nearly $2.3 billion more in funding for early education programs than the conference bill provides. The early education funds lost because the conference committee dropped the 15 percent set-aside of Title I and IDEA funds for preschool-aged children from the Senate's bill outweigh the gains from restoring Head Start funding to the House level.

In our view, this most important part of this bill for early education has always been the State Fiscal Stabilization component, because state fiscal aid can help reduce the need for state-level budget cuts that could potentially decimate state investments in early education services, as well as the emerging infrastrucutre to support them. The conference committee did restore some state fiscal stabilization funding that was cut in the Senate's bill, although not to the levels in the House bill. Moreover, we have some concerns about how that $53.6 billion in state fiscal stabilization aid will be spent. The bill allocates the lion's share of that money--81 percent--to support "elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education and, as applicable, early childhood education programs and services." So, they included early childhood in programs for which these funds can be used--good. But the bill then specifies that governors must use these funds for two purposes: First, restoring state education aid to school districts provided through the state's school funding formula to 2008 or 2009 levels; Second, restoring state aid to public institutions of higher education to 2008 or 2009 levels. If money remains after states have done both these things, they must allocate it to school districts in accordance with the Title I funding formula. No mention of using these funds to maintain state pre-k or other early childhood funding--a huge ommission.

Now, nine states do fund pre-k programs through the state school funding formula--and this is yet another example of why we think that's ultimately the right way to fund pre-k programs. And the bill does allow governors to use 18.2 percent of their state fiscal stabilization funds to support other government services--funding which they could (and, we'd argue, should) use to maintain support for state pre-k and other early childhood investments. But early childhood will have lots of competition for those funds. Early education advocates in the states must swing into action now to ensure that their governors use those funds to maintain early childhood investments.

Still, there's much to celebrate in this bill. The $53.6 billion in State Fiscal Stabilization aid will help governors in states that have prioritized early childhood to continue to invest in these programs. The $2 billion in additional CCDBG funding will support job creation by making child care available to low-income and working-class families who need it to work. The $2.1 billion in Head Start funding will enable providers to improve the quality of Head Start programs, and states to better coordinate early childhood programs, while also expanding access to Early Head Start.

There are also things to be disappointed about. Congress could have used this opportunity to make significant new investments in school district and community-based early childhood facilities, improving access to quality early education while also creating new construction jobs. They didn't do that. They could have ensured that the State Fiscal Stabilization fund protect state early childhood investments from the budget chopping block. They didn't do that. And they could have provided more resources to help school districts close achievement gaps when the begin--in the preschool years--rather than waiting until kindergarten. They didn't do that.

But perhaps best thing about it the stimulus bill is something else that Congress didn't do: They didn't rush into making large, poorly thought-out new investments in expanding early childhood programs, which would have likely resulted in lower-quality and poorly managed programs.

The federal government should play a more aggressive role in supporting access to quality, aligned early education programs. But the stimulus was not the place for that, and given that, the overall results are probably about as good as early education supporters should have hoped for. This is not the only chance for new early education investments this Congress. There will be time in the future for more ambitious early education proposals.