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Sep 26 '97 11:38
P.03/05
409.178 Child Care Partnership Act, findings and intent, grant,
limitation; rules.
(1) This section may be cited as the "Child Care Partnership
Act. "
(2) (a) The Legislature finds that when private employers provide
onsite child care or provide other child care benefits, they
benefit by improved recruitment and higher retention rates for
employees, lower absenteersm, and improved employee morale. The
Legislature also finds that there are many ways in which private
employers can provide child care assistance to employees:
information and referral, vouchering, employer contribution to
child care programs, and onsite care. Private employers can
offer child care as part of a menu of employee benefits. The
Legislature recognizes that flexible compensation programs
providing a child care option are beneficial to the private
employer through increased productivity, to the private employee
in knowing that his or her children are being cared for in a safe
and nurturing environment and to the state in more dollars being
available for purchasing power and investment.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature to promote
public/private partnerships to ensure that the children of the
state be provided safe and enriching child care at any time, but
especially while parents work to remain self-sufficient. It is
the intent of the Legislature that private employers be
encouraged to participate in the future of this state by
providing employee child care benefits. Further, it is the
intent of the Legislature to encourage private employers to
explore innovative ways to assist employees to obtain quality
child care.
(c) The Legislature further recognizes that many parents need
assistance in paying the full costs of quality child care. The
public and private sectors, by working in partnership, can
promote and improve access to quality child care and early
education for children of working families who need it.
Therefore, a more formal mechanism is necessary to stimulate the
establishment of public private partnerships. It is the intent of
the Legislature to expand the availability of scholarship options
for working families by providing incentives for employers to
contribute to meeting the needs of their employees' families
through matching public dollars available for child care.
(3) There is created a body politic and corporate known as the
Child Care Executive Partnership which shall establish and govern
the Child Care Partnership Program. The purpose of the Child Care
Partnership Program is to utilize state and federal funds as
incentives for matching local funds derived from local
governments, employers, charitable foundations, and other
sources, so that Florida communities may create local flexible
partnerships with employers. The Child Care Partnership Program
funds shall be used at the discretion of local communities to
meet the needs of local communities in addressing the child care
needs of working parents. A child care purchasing pool shall be
developed with the state, federal, and local funds to provide
Copyright 1997, Lawyers Cooperative Publishing
Sep 26 '97 11:38
P.04/05
subsidies to low-income working parents who are eligible for
subsidized child care with a dollar-for-dollar match from
employers, local government, and other matching contributors. The
funds used from the child care purchasing pool must be used to
supplement or extend the use of existing public or private funds
and may not be used to supplant the maintenance of effort
presently exerted by the employer or other participant in the
activity funded.
(4) The Child Care Executive Partnership, staffed by the
department, shall consist of:
(a) A representative of the Executive Office of the Governor.
(b) Nine members of the corporate or child care community,
appointed by the Governor, to be known hereafter as the "board."
(c) One representative from each of the 10 Child Care
Partnership Program pilot purchasing pool counties established by
the board, known hereafter as the "oversight group.
1. Members of the board shall serve for a period of 4 years.
2. Members of the oversight group and the representative of
the Executive Office of the Governor shall serve at the pleasure
of the Governor.
3. The Child Care Executive Partnership shall be chaired by
a member chosen by a majority vote of the board and shall meet at
least quarterly and at other times upon the call of the chair.
4.- Members shall serve without compensation, but may be
reimbursed for per diem and travel expenses in accordance with S.
112.061.
5:. The Child Care Executive Partnership shall have all the
powers and authority, not explicitly prohibited by statute,
necessary to carry out and effectuate the purposes of this
section, as well as the functions, duties, and responsibilities
of the partnership, including, but not limited to, the following:
a Assisting in the formulation and coordination of the
state's child care policy.
b. Adopting an official seal.
C. Soliciting, accepting, receiving, investing, and
expending funds from public or private sources.
d. Contracting with public or private entities as necessary.
e. Approving an annual budget.
f. Carrying forward any unexpended state appropriations into
succeeding fiscal years
g. Providing a report to the Governor, the Speaker of the
House of Representatives, and the President of the Senate, on or
before December 1 of each year.
(5) (a) The Legislature shall annually determine the amount of
state or federal low-income child care moneys which shall be used
to create Child Care Partnership Program child care purchasing
pools in counties chosen by the board of the Child Care Executive
Partnership through June 30, 1998, provided that at least two of
the counties have populations of no more than 300,000. After that
date, the Legislature shall review the effectiveness of the child
care purchasing pcol program and reevaluate the percentage of
Copyright 1997, Lawyers Cooperative Publishing
Sep 26 '97 11:39
P.05/05
additional state or federal funds, it any, that can be used for
the program's expansion.
(b) To ensure a seamless service delivery and ease of access
for families, the community coordinated child care agencies shall
administer the child care purchasing pool funds.
(c) The department shall issue a request for proposal for the
operation of the pilot child care purchasing pools. In order to
be considered, the community coordinated child care agency must
commit to:
1. Matching the state pilot purchasing pool funds on a
dollar-for-dollar basis; and
2:- Expending only those public funds which are matched by
employers, local government, and other matching contributors who
contribute to the pilot purchasing pool. Parents shall also pay a
fee, based upon the department's subsidized child care sliding
fee scale.
(d) Each community coordinated child care agency shall be
required to establish a community child care task force for each
pilot child care purchasing pool. The task force must be composed
of cmployers, parents, private child care providers, and one
representative each from the district interagency coordinating
council for children's services and the local children's services
council, if they exist in the area of the pilot purchasing pool.
The community coordinated child care agency is expected to
recruit the task force members from existing child care councils,
commissions, or task forces already operating in the area of a
pilot purchasing pool. A majority of the task force shall consist
of employers. Each task force shall develop a plan for the use
of child care purchasing pool funds. The plan must show how many
children will be served by the pilot purchasing pool, how many
will be new to receiving child care services, and how the
community coordinated child care agency intends to attract new
employers and their employees to the pilot project.
(6) The *1 Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services
shall adopt any rules necessary for the implementation and
administration of this section.
History.-
SS. 4, 5, ch. 88-337; S. 43, ch. 90-306; S. 85, ch. 96-175.
* Note.-
The Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services was
redesignated as the Department of Children and Family Services by
S. 5, ch. 96-403.
Copyright 1997, Lawyers Cooperative Publishing
THE GOVERNOR'S CHILD CARE
EXECUTIVE PARTNERSHIP BOARD
R
/
-
CHILDREN'S
FORUM
Maximizing Florida's Brain Power:
A New Vision for Early Care
and Education In Florida
GOVERNOR'S CHILD CARE EXECUTIVE PARTNERSHIP BOARD
Mission Statement
Through a partnership between government, the business community and parents, ensure that
all children, especially those who are disadvantaged, have access to affordable, quality early
care and education programs that accommodate parents' work schedules.
Goal 1 -- Fully fund Florida's Subsidized Child Care needs.
1. Support Governor Chiles' request for an $89 million increase to provide Subsidized Child
Care for WAGES participants making the transition from welfare to work, and a $49
million increase for the non-welfare working poor.
- The $89 million increase will fully fund the estimated 28,788 children of wages
participants required to move from welfare to work.
- The $49 million increase will fund 15,811 of the 30,852 children who were on the
waiting list as of December 31, 1996.
2. Increase the Child Care Purchasing Pool to at least $4 million in public funds to be
matched by $4 million in private sector funds.
- The $8 million will serve more than 2,700 children of low-income working parents.
3. Provide sufficient funding in 1998-99 to serve all remaining children on the Subsidized
Child Care waiting list.
Goal 2 - All publicly funded early care and education programs must promote "school
readiness" and offer a full-day, full-year option that makes it possible for parents to work.
1. All early care and education programs that receive state funds must meet specific
performance standards geared toward preparing children for school and be held
accountable by measurable standards.
2. Improve the quality of the Subsidized Child Care Program through well-planned
incremental changes and a tiered payment system that rewards quality.
- Implement the market rate for care that meets licensing standards. It is estimated
that would cost around $16 million.
- Reimburse providers that score 90 percent or better on the Department's Program
Assessment Tool at 5 percent above the market rate.
- Reimburse providers who meet Gold Seal accreditation standards at 10 percent
above the market rate.
- Reimburse providers that meet Prekindergarten Early Intervention Standards at
$5,000 per year ($20 per day/$2 per hour).
3. Through a combination of parent fees and public resources convert the Prekindergarten
program into a full-day, full year program without compromising the quality.
MAXIMIZING FLORIDA'S BRAIN POWER:
A New Vision For Early Care And Education In Florida
OVERVIEW
In the last six years the state has made fundamental changes in its workforce development and
welfare systems that took more than a half a century to create. In addition, the Department of
Education has pressed for numerous changes to promote educational accountability. And four
new state agencies - Department of Juvenile Justice, Department of Health, Department of
Children and Families, and the Agency for Health Care Administration - have been created to
overhaul the way services are delivered to children and families. If these major changes to
workforce development, welfare, and child and family services are to succeed, however, the
approach to address early childhood care and education must also be fundamentally altered.
The new approach must be objective, cost efficient and asset driven. It must be a business
approach with bottom line results. The findings and conclusions contained herein have been
enthusiastically endorsed by the Committee for Economic Development (CED) in its landmark
report, "The Unfinished Agenda: A New Vision for Child Development and Education."
CED is comprised of 250 Chief Executive Officers of America's largest corporate citizens,
including IBM, Coca-Cola, XEROX, and Texaco. These corporate icons, America's most
proficient problem solvers, have concluded:
The separation between early childhood education and child care is counterproductive.
Although preschool for disadvantaged three- and four- year old children is a critical, cost-
effective strategy for later school success, for a large portion of poor children, often this
intervention is too late. Even the most intensive program at this age fails to help at least
one-third of the children who participate.
The nation must redefine education as a process that begins at birth, one which recognizes
that the potential for learning begins even earlier, and encompasses the physical, social,
emotional and cognitive development of children.
The Governor's Child Care Executive Partnership Board, as representatives of the business
community in Florida, believes that any fundamental change to infrastructure must always
take into consideration the above conclusions. Consequently, all publicly funded early care
and education programs serving children birth to six must be considered "school readiness"
programs and be funded and held accountable accordingly. All early care and education
programs must offer a full-day, full-year option that makes it possible for parents to work.
To provide less than a "school readiness" program to children who are already at risk of
school failure is to waste the $272 million in tax dollars spent annually. To offer less than
a full-day, full-year program to children from very low-income families is to create a barrier
to working a 40-hour week and hence an obstacle to welfare reform.
Maximizing Florida's Brain Power: A New Vision For Early Care and Education in Florida
04/08/97
Page 1
A. IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY TO WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
Nearly two-thirds (60 percent) of the mothers under the age of 6 now work, up from 41
percent less than 20 years ago.
One-third of all employees have children who need child care.
By the year 2000, two-thirds of all job entrants will be women. and 75 percent will
become mothers.
Over half of the mothers of babies under age one are now in the workforce. With the
implementation of welfare reform this percentage will increase.
Parents often piece-meal programs together to meet the unique needs of school-age
children, summer vacation, holidays, etc.
Under the state's new Work and Gain Economic Self-Sufficiency (WAGES) welfare
reform law, mothers of children three months and older must work at least 20 hours per
week. It is estimated that more than 100,000 additional children will need Subsidized Child
Care as a result of WAGES.
B. IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Quality early care and education programs result in significant returns on investments
ranging from $3 to $6 for every $1 spent estimated at $150,000 per child over a lifetime.
These savings accrue as a result of reduced expenditures for special education, grade
retention, welfare, crime, and teen pregnancy.
As compared to children in lower quality settings, children in quality programs display:
- greater language ability;
- better math skills;
- advanced social skills;
- improved relationships with teachers and peers;
- higher self images;
- stronger parent-child relationships;
- increased likelihood of long-term school success;
- improved likelihood of long-term social and economic self-sufficiency.
These benefits are most dramatic with children from low-income families who are at a
greater risk of school failure.
The most comprehensive longitudinal study of quality early childhood programming ever
conducted in the United States shows that in later life, program participants had half as
many arrests, were twice as likely to own their own home and were 30% more likely to
graduate from high school. High school dropouts:
- earn about $237 billion less than high school graduates in their lifetimes;
- pay about $70 billion less in taxes;
- constitute more than 80% of American prisoners (cost per prisoner: $20,000
annually; cost of quality early care and education: $5,000 annually).
Poor quality care compounds the risk of school failure.
Maximizing Florida's Brain Power: A New Vision For Early Care and Education in Florida
04/08/97
Page 2
C. COMPONENTS OF QUALITY
Quality programs are comprehensive and address not only the cognitive needs of children
but also their social, emotional and physical development. Quality programs provide
family supports, which is particularly important to low-income families.
Universally accepted key elements of quality early care and education programs include:
- frequent interaction and conversation between children and adults;
- appropriate daily learning activities and materials;
- healthy and safe physical environments:
- program support services, including health, nutrition, social services;
- parental support and involvement;
- staff trained to work with young children;
- favorable staff-to-child ratio and small group size. (The standard recommended by
the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the
American Academy of Pediatrics is 1 staff person to every 10 four year old
children.)
D. THE NEW BRAIN RESEARCH
Scientists have learned more about the human brain in the last ten years than in all of
history.
At birth, a baby's brain is "hot wired" to breathe, pump blood through the body, and
perform other body functions. But the complex wiring necessary for good vision, hearing,
talking, and thinking is completed during the first years of life.
The brain uses the outside world to shape itself - wire itself - during crucial periods or
"windows" during which time brain cells must have certain kinds of stimulation to develop
such powers as vision, language, smell, muscle control and reasoning.
The brain research has shown:
- the brain's circuitry for math, in the brain's cortex, is largely wired during the first
years of life;
- by six months of age infants in English speaking homes already have different
auditory maps from children in homes where other languages are spoken;
- auditory cortex circuits, representing the sounds that form words, are wired by the
age 1;
- vision circuitry is wired by the age 2;
- if a person does not hear words by age 10, he/she will never speak a language;
- up to 50% of developmental disabilities can be eliminated with quality care;
- a child immobilized in a body cast until the age of four will eventually learn to
walk, but never smoothly;
- the brain of a child who has been subjected to abuse and neglect is wired by age 2
to chemically respond to "threat" in a "fight of flight" behavioral mode.
The critical importance of these windows of opportunity has been recognized by the
Committee for Economic Development.
Maximizing Florida's Brain Power: A New Vision For Early Care and Education in Florida
04/08/97
Page 3
E. QUALITY OF EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION IN FLORIDA
A major national study found "most child care is mediocre in quality, sufficiently poor to
interfere with the child's emotional and intellectual development."
In Florida the quality of care appears to be better. In recent years the number of preschool
children in growth enhancing early childhood programs has increased to approximately
42%. This is primarily due to legislation improving the staff-child ratio for infants and
requiring credentialed caregivers (a Child Development Associate -CDA- or the
equivalent) for every 20 children in care. This is an impressive accomplishment
considering that other community-based studies have found only 12 to 14 percent of the
children in child care are in arrangements that promote their growth and learning.
The legislature has taken a further step in recognizing the need to promote quality early
care and education programs by creating the Gold Seal Program, which recognizes centers
and homes accredited by nationally recognized associations. To date over 370 centers have
achieved accreditation, with more that 800 additional centers in the process.
Nevertheless, minimum state licensing standards for three and four year olds and staff
ratios remain twice the levels recommended by the NAEYC and the American Academy of
Pediatrics.
The state's most effective mechanism for gauging quality in Subsidized Child Care settings
is the Program Assessment Tool, which is modeled after the universally accepted key
elements of quality listed above. The Department of Education is planning to use the tool
for performance standards for the Prekindergarten Early Intervention Program.
Maximizing Florida's Brain Power: A New Vision For Early Care and Education in Florida
04/08/97
Page 4
G. RECOMMENDATIONS
I. Fully fund Florida's Subsidized Child Care needs.
1. Support Governor Chiles' request for an $89 million increase to provide Subsidized Child
Care for WAGES participants making the transition from welfare to work, and a $49
million increase for the non-welfare working poor.
- The $89 million increase will fully fund the estimated 28,788 children of wages
participants required to move from welfare to work.
- The $49 million increase will fund 15,811 of the 30,852 children who were on the
waiting list as of December 31, 1996.
2. Increase the Child Care Purchasing Pool to at least $4 million in public funds to be
matched by $4 million in private sector funds.
- The $8 million will serve more than 2,700 children of low-income working parents.
3. Provide sufficient funding in 1998-99 to serve all remaining children on the Subsidized
Child Care waiting list.
II. All publicly funded early care and education programs must promote "school
readiness" and offer a full-day, full-year option that makes it possible for parents to
work.
1. All early care and education programs that receive state funds must meet specific
performance standards geared toward preparing children for school and be held
accountable by measurable standards.
2. Improve the quality of the Subsidized Child Care Program through well-planned
incremental changes and a tiered payment system that rewards quality.
- Implement the market rate for care that meets licensing standards. It is estimated
that would cost around $16 million.
- Reimburse providers that score 90 percent or better on the Department's Program
Assessment Tool at 5 percent above the market rate.
- Reimburse providers who meet Gold Seal accreditation standards at 10 percent
above the market rate.
- Reimburse providers that meet Prekindergarten Early Intervention Standards at
$5,000 per year ($20 per day/$2 per hour).
3. Through a combination of parent fees and public resources convert the Prekindergarten
program into a full-day, full year program without compromising the quality.
Maximizing Florida's Brain Power: A New Vision For Early Care and Education in Florida
04/08/97
Page 6