Workforce development starts at the cradle. That’s the message the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children wants the Legislature and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to remember when designating funding for early childhood education programs.
“If the state cuts it anymore, it will just be devastating,” Melanie Bronfin, executive director of the institute, told the American Press editorial board.
Bronfin said her office is on a mission to see the School Readiness Tax Credits preserved and expanded, and the Child Care Assistance Program for children birth through age 3 restored.
“Both are critical to the infrastructure of and the quality of instruction in the child care system in Louisiana,” she said. “And if there was a place in Louisiana that would be impacted by the lack of available child care to enable its parents to enter the workforce, it would be Lake Charles.”
Bronfin said the tax credits, created in 2007, are one of the only state investments in the education of children birth through age 3, “which is the most critical time of brain development.”
“They serve as the state match for a federal block grant and without them, Louisiana stands to lose over $25 million in federal funds for child care programs statewide,” she said.
Bronfin said the CCAP enables parents of young children to stay in the workforce, attend job training or receive higher education by making good-quality child care more affordable.
“CCAP has been cut by almost 70 percent over the past eight years,” Bronfin said. “In a city like Lake Charles, where there is such a great need for skilled workers, the lack of child care options could easily be affecting local businesses’ efforts to hire, train and retain skilled workers from the area.”
She said funding for these programs has been jeopardized for years.
“Act 3 of 2012, which was part of Gov. Jindal’s education reform package, basically mandated an overhaul of every aspect of the early care and education system, from licensing regulations to the funding to the way it sets up a new accountability systems,” Bronfin said. “For the past three or four years, it’s just been massive policy change.
Bronfin said her grant donors have described the reform package as “a tsunami.”
“It was an unfunded mandate,” Bronfin said. “Already, this sector was so underfunded so that has been the huge challenge now to not be cut further.”
Bronfin said funding for the pre-K programs are not part of the school funding formula so the allocation of those funds have to be protected each year.
“We hear a lot about higher ed but the CCAP, which is the only program for early childhood education for children under age 4, has been cut by almost 70 percent in the last eight years to where we’re down to serving less than 15 percent of our at-risk kids under age 4.”
Bronfin said that number needs to be contrasted with the number of parents working.
“Most people don’t have maternity leave past three to six weeks so over 60 percent of infants in Louisiana have their moms going back to work in the first year,” Bronfin said. “But funding is less than 15 percent and child care costs now are almost the cost of college tuition.”
Bronfin said the institute’s fear is for those parents who can’t afford traditional child care, they’re turning to unlicensed, unregulated care.
“It’s so low-quality that our kids are now starting school behind,” she said. “Eighty percent of brain development is birth to 3 and at that time of life, wherever those kids are and whatever environment those kids are in is critical.”
Bronfin said in Calcasieu there are 1,683 at-risk students per age group in the birth to 3 range in need of care — based on the number of kindergartners today receiving free or reduced lunch — but only 53 publicly funded slots for infants, 97 for 1-year-olds, 130 for 2-year-olds and 98 slots for 3-year-olds. That’s a total gap of 6,053.
“The Lake Charles area has not understood this, it would seem to me,” she said. “Studies have been done on infrastructure and handling growth, plumbing, and this and that but they haven’t looked at child care. Parents need to work and they need child care to be able to work.”
Bronfin said she knows the state can’t serve them all, but she said they have to start somewhere.
“Return on investment in programs for children birth through age 4 can be up to $13 for every dollar invested, yet Louisiana is spending less than half of 1 percent of its state funds on early care and education,” she said. “The bottom line is we are paying for it one way or the other,” she said. “If you watch grade repetition, kids being referred to special education, you watch drop-out rates in high school, we’re paying for it. We either pay it now, or pay it later.”
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