In May 2020, the Illinois General Assembly approved the state’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget plan, and on June 10, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed the budget into law. See below for Start Early’s (formerly known as the Ounce) complete point of view on the state’s approved investments in children and families.

MAY 26, 2020

Over the weekend, the Illinois General Assembly approved the state’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget plan, which we anticipate Gov. J.B. Pritzker will sign into law. We applaud the legislature for passing a budget amid a global pandemic that sustains state funding for early childhood programs and provides the administration the authority to spend significant federal resources on the early care and education system.

The budget package includes:

• $7 million increase to the Early Intervention program at the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) to accommodate the state’s growing caseload
  Level-funding for the Child Care Assistance Program at IDHS
• The legislature increased the federal appropriation for the child care program by $138 million to allow for the spending of federal CCDBG and CARES Act funding in the current and upcoming fiscal year.
• Level-funding for evidence-based home visiting programs for expectant and new parents through Healthy Families and Parents Too Soon at IDHS
  Level-funding for the Early Childhood Block Grant at the Illinois State Board of Education

In addition, the legislature appropriated more than $500 million in federal CARES Act funding to the Coronavirus Business Interruption Grant Program (or BIG Program) to reimburse costs or losses incurred due to business interruption caused by required COVID-19-related closures. $260 million of that funding is to be directed toward a program for child care providers. These grants will help protect the health of the state’s early childhood mixed-delivery system.

Unfortunately, it will be challenging to implement this budget plan fully because of COVID-19’s impact on the state’s economy. The administration’s decision on how to proceed will depend on future federal relief packages and the state’s economic recovery. We will share more information as it becomes available.

But states cannot weather this storm alone, which is why we call on Congress to direct additional federal early childhood resources – through trusted programs like the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV) or the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) – to states like Illinois to protect the system we’ve spent years to build.

We thank the legislature for affirming the state’s commitment to the health and sustainability of the early care and education system despite our ongoing fiscal challenges. The recent crisis has exacerbated the needs of families, certainly among those already lacking equitable services and opportunity. It has also brought into sharp relief the essential nature of the work performed by professionals throughout the early childhood system – workers whose efforts are central to the well-being of children, families and communities.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic we’d hoped to see more state funding included in the FY 2021 budget for these core early care and education programs. However, given the dramatic changes of the past two months, the budget package approved by the legislature does provide much-needed stability to the state’s early childhood system.

Fast Facts

Sine Die
Under somber conditions, the Legislature adjourned “sine die” on Day 60, March 13. The increasing COVID-19 crisis dominated the Capitol campus, as expected. When the budget conference committee released the details of the operating budget on Wednesday, budget writers expressed concern for all Washingtonians, noting the ending fund balance was increased over the previous Senate and House budgets in recognition that the budget impacts of COVID-19 will likely exceed the $200 million allocated from the Budget Stabilization Account (otherwise known as the Rainy Day Fund) for the state’s response. Typically Sine Die is a celebratory event. This year, the Capitol campus emptied quickly upon conclusion of legislative business.

Status of Early Learning Bills

The bills listed below are on their way to the Governor’s desk for action. Each represents a great deal of work and compromise—congratulations to those who worked on them and a huge thanks to the legislative champions.

• ESHB 2455 related to eligibility for Working Connections Child Care for teenage mothers pursuing their high school diploma or GED.
• SHB 2456 related to extending the grace period to meet work requirements for families experiencing homelessness from four to twelve months.
• SHB 2556 related to developing community-based pathways for child care provider educational requirements.
• HB 2619 related to increasing child care access in rural communities.
• ESSB 6540 related to Working Connections Child Care 12-month authorization timing.

Supplemental Operating and Capital Budgets Adopted

Probably the most significant charge facing the Legislature was adoption of the supplemental budgets. There are three budgets—operating, capital and transportation.

In reviewing these investments, It is important to recognize the level of uncertainty we face given COVID-19. When presenting the conference report, Senate Ways and Means Chair Christine Rolfes commented about returning in January “or sooner.” Read the summary below of the early learning related items.

Read Summary

What's Next?

Attention Turns to the Governor

With the Legislature leaving Olympia, attention now shifts to Gov. Inslee as he reviews all of the bills passed this session. Bills delivered to the governor fewer than five days before adjourned have 20 days to be acted on by the governor. Here is where you can track the bill signing schedule.

How is the Coronavirus Impacting Bill Signings?

On Monday, the governor’s office announced he would not be holding public bill signings, in an attempt to promote “social distancing” to reduce the risk of the coronavirus. Instead, the bill’s sponsor plus one guest will be allowed at each bill signing and the signings will be carried on TVW.org.

Fast Facts

Legislative Process Marches On

After lengthy Saturday hearings and very late Monday sessions, the final fiscal cutoff was met. Action immediately shifted Tuesday morning to the House and Senate floors where the bodies debated and considered bills from the opposite chambers. The deadline for bills to be passed out of the opposite chamber is Friday, March 6th at 5:00 p.m. More often than not, there is bipartisan agreement on bills, but there are always hot-button bills that bring impassioned debate.

One of those hot button bills relates to Comprehensive Sexual Education and the House debated this measure until after 2:00 a.m. Thursday morning, spending more than six hours on one bill (it passed on a party line vote). Time can be one of the biggest threats to the success of a bill. Both bodies only have so much time before cutoff deadlines and must prioritize which bills they will hear. And because the Senate votes by voice, votes in that Chamber can take a long time, particularly when there are voice votes on amendments.

Status of Early Learning Bills

All of the active early learning bills are out of Rules and moving through the process. The time question mentioned above may be the biggest challenge. One bill where there are differing opinions between the House and Senate is SHB 2456 relating to the grace period for Working Connections Child Care for families experiencing homelessness. The House wants to see the current four-month grace period extended to 12-months, while the Senate prefers an extension from four-months to six-months.

One early learning bill that has received action in both bodies is HB 2619. Because that bill was not amended in the Senate (nor in the the House, which is rare), it will go straight to the Governor for action. Sponsored by Whatcom County’s Representative Shewmake, HB 2619 would make a number of actions, including allowing Working Connections Child Care subsidies to be equal or higher than private pay rates; requires DCYF to develop recommendations to improve rural child care access; and to create a pilot to create a dual license for foster care and child care.

Coronavirus Response

Not surprisingly, the evolving coronavirus (COVID-19) situation received a great deal of attention at the Capitol this week. On Monday, the Senate Ways and Means Committee heard an update from Department of Health Secretary Dr. John Wiesman and Jaime Bodden, the Managing Director of the Washington State Association of Local Public Health Officials.

At that hearing, Secretary Wiesman recommended Washington state invest $100 million to combat the virus at the state and local levels. On Tuesday, the House unanimously passed a bill that would remove $100 million from the state’s Rainy Day Fund to support the government’s response. The Senate followed suit on Wednesday and Gov. Inslee is expected to sign the bill in short order. If the full amount is not needed, it can be returned to the Rainy Day Fund.

As budget writers finalize the final budget, there is widespread speculation revenue projections may be adjusted downward in anticipation of the negative economic impacts of this public health incident.

What's Next?

It’s Nearly the Bottom of the Ninth…

At this time, all signs indicate an on-time completion on the scheduled date of March 12. We expect budget negotiators to release a compromise budget next week that will be voted on by both bodies and then sent to the Governor. Legislators will also be busy finalizing action on bills next week, concurring in the other body’s amendments or going to conference where there is disagreement on amendments made. Next week’s update will include a synopsis of final budget components.

In this blog post, Start Early vice president of translational research, Debra Pacchiano, highlights her recently published research on the importance of providing strong and nurturing leadership to early childhood teachers in order to improve child outcomes.

Recent early childhood research has confirmed that— if we want teachers to nourish children, we must first nourish teachers.

When a child begins their life-long learning journey, parents and families expect they will be cared for and taught in safe, positive, and effective environments. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. The quality of early learning programs varies tremendously with the highest quality programs disproportionately serving children from the most advantaged homes. By contrast, lower quality and less effective programs disproportionately serve children from under-resourced communities—the very children who stand to benefit most from top-notch early childhood education (Valentino 2017).

Teaching is complex work. In early childhood, teachers work with young children, often from vulnerable populations, who are in critical developmental stages. Variations in children’s early learning outcomes are often attributed to under-engaged teachers and low-quality teaching. Yet, all too often teachers face their complex work without needed sustained supports from leadership and their peers.

Start Early has worked at the intersection of research, practice, and policy for more than three decades, spearheading innovation and quality improvement in early childhood education. We activate creativity to design solutions rooted in research and applied science to address chronic issues in the field.

As part of this work, we spent time observing early childhood education programs, some that were high functioning and some that were not. We talked with leaders, teachers, staff, and families about what supports and what hinders their effectiveness advancing young children’s learning. Differences in their organizational mindsets and practices were unmistakable. Simply put, high-performing programs had organizational environments far more supportive of teaching, learning, and family engagement than lower-performing programs. In response, we built The Essential 0-5 Survey (formerly known as the Early Education Essentials), an organizationwide measurement system that elevates the voices of teachers, staff, and families in early childhood settings and empowers collective action towards improvement.

A recent Education Week study found substantial gaps between the perceived and real impacts of leadership on teachers. By highlighting teacher and staff perspectives on organizational strengths and weaknesses in key areas of climate and culture, The Essential 0-5 Survey can help close those gaps between the impacts leaders believe they have, and the impacts teachers and staff actually feel.

In a Young Children journal article, published by myself and other Start Early researchers, we highlight the positive impacts The Early Education Essentials can have on early childhood environments and teachers’ experiences. The article features the clear differences that were identified, through The Early Education Essentials, between organizations strong in the areas of effective instructional leaders, collaborative teachers, involved families, supportive environment, and ambitious instruction, and those that were weak in those areas. Listen to what one teacher in a strongly organized program had to say about her organizational culture:

I feel like it’s empowering [here]—it’s not just from the top down. It’s right here, and we believe in this stuff and I have something to share and it’s valued by our administrator. Then your co-teachers and your colleagues also buy in too, and you have that energy and you have that love. Then you have an administrator that pushes you in that way and supports you and guides you and nudges you a bit farther. I think it’s kind of what we try to do with our students too, now, even when they’re only 3. I think [the principal/ director] leads by example, for sure.

Strong organizational environments in early childhood education empower leaders, teachers and families to aspire to and realize higher-quality practices and better outcomes for young children.