20th Anniversary of the Child Care and Development Block Grant

Photos by Chris Smith

20th Anniversary of the Child Care and Development Block Grant

Washington, DC

October 19, 2010

Thank you, David, for that nice introduction.   I’m pleased to be here 

to help celebrate 20 years of the Child Care and Development Block Grant.  

Before I begin, I want to recognize some of the longstanding champions of 

families and children who worked so hard to see this program enacted. 

Marion Wright Edelman could not be here today, but her work as the 

founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund put child 

care on the national agenda. 

She had help from many great leaders including some who are 

here today like Helen Blank, Barbara Willer, and Abby Cohen.

Finally, I want to welcome the state and tribal child care administrators 

from across the country and everyone here this morning who works every 

day to improve child care in America.

Thanks to all of you, we’ve come a long way in the last 20 years.

I’ve seen this progress firsthand.  When I was first elected to the 

Kansas state legislature in 1986, many people hadn’t come to 

terms with the fact that most women were working outside the home – 

even though two-thirds of mothers were in the workforce, including me.  

Back then, there weren’t many women in state capitals or the U.S. 

Congress who could make the case for child care from personal experience. 

And the men in charge typically didn’t think much of so-called “women’s 

issues” like child care.

To them, child care wasn’t an employment issue like a 40-hour week or 

a pension. It was “babysitting.”  

And they thought babysitting was something “anyone” could do. 

They didn’t see the need for a trained provider or a low staff-child

 ratio. They thought serious health and safety standards were unnecessary.  

They didn’t understand why a child care provider needed a living wage.  

Some of them would have been fine sitting every child in America in 

front of a TV and stopping there.

But there were also women and men who believed children’s 

development was crucial.  And they believed that if you cared about 

child development, you needed to care about the quality of the environment 

where they spent time every day.

They knew that if we wanted children to develop emotionally and cognitively 

and grow up to become engaged citizens and productive workers, we needed 

to engage and nurture them during their early years.

And with their support, leaders in Congress like Senators Dodd, Hatch, and 

Kennedy worked in a bipartisan effort to make the Child Care and 

Development Block Grant a reality.

Over the years, the Child Care and Development Block Grant has supported 

child care for millions of low-income children.  It focused states, tribes, 

and territories’ attention on protecting children’s health and 

safety.  It provided dedicated resources to promote quality.  

As time has passed, we’ve learned that investing in the healthy 

development of our children is one of the best

investments we can make. Study after study has shown that 

children in high quality early learning and 

development programs have a solid foundation for success in 

school and life. 

The President and First Lady understand the importance of these early years.

That’s why over the last two years, we’ve undertaken an ambitious agenda 

to give our children a better start in life.

The reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program helped us 

sign up 2.6 million previously uninsured children for CHIP and Medicaid 

last year and made coverage available to more than 4 million additional children.  

The Recovery Act is investing over $4 billion in child care and early learning 

and supporting an estimated 220,000 child care slots to help families through 

the recession. 

The First Lady’s Let’s Move Campaign has set a goal of ending childhood 

obesity within a generation. 

The Affordable Care Act prohibits new plans from denying children 

coverage because of their preexisting medical conditions and requires 

them to cover the preventive treatments, screenings, and immunizations 

recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

And the President’s 2011 budget doubles the Child and Dependent Care 

Tax Credit for middle-class families, expands affordable, high-quality child 

care services for military families at centers in the U.S. and overseas, 

and increases funding for the Child Care and Development Fund by $1.6 billion.

Combined, these reforms and investments will provide critical support for 

children and families across the country.

But while resources are important, our focus goes well beyond dollars. 

Our vision is that all children should have access to affordable, 

high-quality early care and education that meets their educational, 

emotional, and developmental needs and helps prepare them for success 

in school and life.

Families aren’t one-size-fits-all and their child care and early education 

needs aren’t either. But whether children are supported by a subsidy or 

their parents pay for care out of pocket; whether they’re in a child 

care center, Head Start, a family child-care home, or a school; whether 

they need full-time care or part-day preschool – every one of them needs 

a high quality program.

Many of our children are already in high-quality programs that give them 

the nurturing and skills they need.  

But too many others are in programs that don’t meet the high standards 

for quality care.

That’s why we’ve undertaken an aggressive agenda to improve quality 

in Head Start.  These quality objectives are clearly expressed in the new 

proposed Head Start regulations we just released.  We believe that if a Head 

Start program doesn’t get results, it should have to reapply for grant money, 

whether it’s run by a nonprofit, a city, or a school district.  And we hope 

many of you will comment on this proposed rule, so we can make it 

as effective and fair as possible.

When it comes to child care, we need to keep that same focus on quality 

and effectiveness.

As you all know, the Child Care and Development Block Grant is due 

to be reauthorized.  If Congress takes up a reauthorization bill, it could 

provide an important opportunity to address health and safety requirements in 

child care, take overdue steps to improve quality standards, support the child 

care workforce, and reinforce our efforts to fight waste and fraud.

The 1.6 million children who get help from Child Care and Development Block 

Grant would benefit, and so would the over 10 million other children in child care.

But we can’t wait for a new law to pass.  In our department, we’re already 

moving ahead.

We’re helping states establish Quality Rating Improvement Systems that will 

give parents information about the quality of their child’s setting, 

and give providers information about best practices. 

We’re supporting improved workforce training.  Whether it’s the center 

director or a caregiver who is rocking your infant to sleep, skilled providers 

make all the difference when it comes to high quality care.

We’re asking states to measure their progress improving child care health 

and safety standards, early learning curricula, and provider training.  

Just as hospitals have reported for years on what they’re doing to 

meet quality benchmarks in Medicare and Medicaid, now states 

will report on their progress to improve child care every year. 

We’re also strengthening coordination across government. 

In August, Education Secretary Duncan and I launched an Interagency 

Policy Board so we can coordinate programs that we administer in 

our department like Head Start, Home Visiting, and the Child Care and 

Development Block Grant with Department of Education programs like 

preschool and infant-toddler special education.

We’ve joined forces with the Department of Defense to raise the quality 

of community child care programs that serve military families.  

This will bring high quality child care programs to neighborhoods across the 

country.

And we’ve already awarded Recovery Act funds to 45 states, DC, and 

territories, to establish early childhood education Advisory Councils.  

These councils are charged with creating one seamless early childhood system 

so Head Start, pre-K, and child care programs all work at the same high 

level—for example, in instruction, professional development, or 

identifying whether a child has special needs.

Finally, we’ve launched a new initiative, the Early Learning Communities, 

which documents and promotes the best ways to create uninterrupted 

services from before birth through age eight, track children’s well-being,

constantly improve quality, and make sure these steps carry forward 

when children start school.

We are committed to weaving together our programs into a seamless, 

high-quality early learning and development system, where every family 

can choose the setting that works best for their children and no 

family has to compromise on quality.

Just as high schools aim to prepare students for college, early childhood 

development programs should be designed with an eye towards the skills 

our children will need to succeed in their next step in life.  Quality 

child care is essential to helping our children succeed and to keeping 

our country competitive.

I look forward to working with Congress, states, parents, teachers, 

providers, and all of you to strengthen the Child Care and Development 

Block Grant and improve child across the country.  We’ve learned a lot in the 

last decades, and I’m committed to building on those successes and ensuring 

that the next decades are ones where we build brighter futures for all of our children.

Thank you.  And now, Joan, I’ll turn the program over to you.