Child Care and Early Education

Maryland, Virginia Score Big in Early Education

Posted on by Mariah Craven

state report cards“Exciting news about Maryland: not only did the state take the top spot in Education Week’s Quality Counts 2013 report, Maryland got especially high marks when it came to early care and education. Each year, the Quality Counts report card evaluates American education, assigning a grade and rank to each state and the District. “For 2013, the nation receives a C-plus when graded across the six distinct areas of policy and performance tracked by the report, marking a slight improvement since last year,” said Education Week.

This is the fifth year in a row that Maryland was named the top-ranked state. With an overall grade of B-plus (87.5), the state’s grades included an A (100) in early childhood education in the Transitions & Alignment category.

“Every year, there’s a challenge to sustain the big investment we’ve made in education,” Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley told The Washington Post. “But when you see the results and the greater numbers of kids graduating and taking AP courses and entering kindergarten ready to learn, those accomplishments make it a little easier to justify and defend the investment.”

Virginia ranked fourth in the country, with the overall grade B (82.9). The Commonwealth also received a score of 100 in early childhood education. DC ranked 45th, with an overall C-minus (71.5) and scored a B-minus (80) in early childhood education.

This news is particularly exciting for us at The Women’s Foundation because it further supports what we’ve long known: investments in early care and education (ECE) work. It’s telling that not only does Maryland score well in ECE, but the state received a high score (A-minus) in the college readiness category, too. By making sure that children have a high-quality educational foundation before they even begin elementary school, we’re setting them up to succeed beyond graduation.

In spite of these investments, access remains an issue. In our 2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area, we pointed out that just 14 percent of four-year-olds in Virginia, 35 percent in Maryland, and 40 percent in the District were enrolled in publicly-funded preschools. We also reported that high-quality preschools can be prohibitively expensive, especially for low-income single women raising children.

An affordable, high-quality early education helps lift families out of poverty and creates a more successful workforce for our region. Now that states like Maryland and Virginia have succeeded in creating good ECE programs, we need to make sure that every family has the opportunity to take advantage of them.

You can learn more about our investments in ECE by clicking here.

Image credit: edweek.org

Five Policies That Impacted Women & Their Families in 2012

Posted on by Mariah Craven

IMG_1244At The Women’s Foundation, we pay close attention to policies that affect women and their families throughout the year. Here are five that we’ve kept tabs on in 2012.

5. The Paycheck Fairness Act. In June, the Senate failed to move forward with legislation that would have helped ensure equal pay for both genders. The Paycheck Fairness Act would have required employers to demonstrate that gender does not play a role in salary differences between men and women performing the same work. The Senate fell eight votes short of advancing the bill, but – due to some political maneuvering – didn’t totally kill it. According to the Census Bureau, women’s median annual earnings are about 78 percent that of men’s. The gap is even greater for women of color.

4. 2012 Farm Bill. Food insecurity disproportionately impacts low-income women and children, who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. SNAP is part of the Farm Bill, which was up for renewal this year (it has to be renewed every five years). The bill expired in September and Congress was unable to pass a new version before the House adjourned last week. The future of the bill could be impacted before the end of the year by fiscal cliff negotiations or retroactive extensions. The biggest points of disagreement in the bill are farm subsidies and SNAP benefits. There are currently 47 million people enrolled in the food stamps program.

3. The 2012 Election. While the election itself is not a policy, the record number of women elected to Congress in 2012 will likely have a significant impact on future policy. In spite of the notable increase, women still only make up 17 percent of Congress – we have a long way to go. Higher political representation for women at the national, state and local levels increases the likelihood that laws and policies will reflect the needs and interests of women and children.

2. Affordable Care Act. In June, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, which will be an important tool in improving the health and economic security of low-income women and their children. Under the ACA, women will pay lower healthcare costs and can receive preventative care without co-pays. Medicaid coverage will also be expanded to cover more families who live above the poverty line but who are still economically insecure.

1. Resolving the “Fiscal Cliff.” This is still a work-in-progress… we hope. If there’s no compromise, experts say that the hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars in tax increases and spending cuts that will take place on January 1st will likely push the country into a recession. The impact on low-income women and children would be disproportionate and particularly devastating. The services and policies that could be affected include: the Earned Income Tax Credit, the child tax credit, Head Start and other child care programs, nutrition assistance and housing assistance. As negotiations continue, the President and Congress need to work together to keep the country from going over the cliff – and not at the expense of our most economically vulnerable families.

Closing Achievement Gap for Students Begins Before Kindergarten

Posted on by Shae Harris

IMG_6077
A growing number of states, including Virginia, are opting out of mandates set by the No Child Left Behind law and in the process creating new goals for students that are sparking great controversy. NPR reports that Virginia has set “new education goals that are higher for white and Asian kids than for blacks, Latinos and students with disabilities.”

According to Virginia’s board of education, the new standards are based on students’ previous test scores in reading and math. Historically, minority, disabled and impoverished students have scored lower than their white, Asian, and wealthier counterparts on standardized tests and thus will be held to a different standard. Proponents of the plan say it will give underperforming students a chance to catch up.  Critics argue that the practice will lower standards for minority students and won’t narrow the achievement gap.

Efforts to close the achievement gap need to happen long before students take their first test. According to researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 37 percent of children enter kindergarten without the skills necessary for learning. And once they get behind, it’s incredibly difficult for them to catch up. Research shows a correlation between quality early care and education (ECE) and high school completion. Some studies even track the benefits of ECE into adulthood.

Access to high-quality ECE for all children is an effective tool that Washington Area Women’s Foundation is using to help close the achievement gap and put our community’s youngest residents on a path to prosperity early in life. Nationwide, investments in ECE will help mitigate the need to lower the bar for some students in the future and make for a better prepared workforce in the long term.

To learn more about The Women’s Foundation’s investments, please visit our Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative pages by clicking here.