 My name is Lisa Guernsey. I'm the director of the Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation, and it's my pleasure to welcome you here to what is the fourth in a series of events that David Gray and I have been putting together here at the New America Foundation to focus on the importance of improving child care and early learning for the sake of not just the children, but their parents and for the full family unit that we want to be making sure that we're thinking about when we talk about high quality as we will be today. So today's title is Putting Quality First. And I wanted to spend a few minutes setting the stage for why we thought that this was a really important piece to pull out and create an entire event around. As many of you all here know, the research on children's early years has been unequivocal on the point of quality. If infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are in high quality settings, they will be better off. One of the biggest and most recent studies was published a few years ago in the Journal of Child Development based on a nationwide study that tracked children's progress into their teen years. This study showed that higher quality care predicted higher cognitive achievement at age five. In fact, the positive effects escalated at even higher levels of quality with quality being measured in this particular study by professional observers who are watching how adults worked with the children in these settings. So given this knowledge, and that's just one of reams of studies out there that are showing us the importance of those interactions in children's early years, given this and given what we know about the large achievement gaps that are currently affecting whole generations of children in our country, it's incredibly distressing to see how many families still do not have access to high quality options for early learning programs. And notice that thinking proactively, I prefer to call child care programs all but early learning programs because essentially that's really what they are and can be. In the United States, about 90% of the cost of early learning is assumed by parents. Yes, subsidies exist, but for many families if they qualify for vouchers or subsidized programs, the revenue collected by those programs doesn't go very far, allowing for little to no improvements in the quality of the staff or in the materials available to the children. Last month, the National Institute for Early Education Research showed that per pupil funding for pre-kindergarten programs has actually dropped since a decade ago. And several states are sliding backwards on benchmarks of quality. Earlier this year, NACRA reported that child care based in providers' homes was especially weak, with weak training requirements, incomplete background checks, weak health and safety standards, and weak early learning standards. So how do we fix this? Can federal legislation help? I'm sure today we're going to be talking about CCDBG and ESEA, a Child Care and Development Block Grant and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We certainly have a lot that we can be learning from the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge that I'm sure will be a big part of the conversation today as well. But given the scarcity of funds and the looming possibility of even greater scarcity, depending on how budget negotiations shake out, could we be still putting more emphasis on channeling those scarce funds to high quality providers? What would that mean then for families that don't have access for whatever reason to those high quality providers? So how do we put quality first while also ensuring fairness? These are the very hard questions that our panelists will strive to answer. And before I turn the discussion over to them, let me raise one possibility that I believe should be part of this discussion. If good child care is early learning, and we know it is, then the education world needs to be part of the solution in these earliest years. This means breaking down the divide between school districts who often think of children as only their responsibility after age five, and the child care and early learning community that bristles at the idea often of being subsumed into an education agenda. We need to get past those divides. Schools, districts, and state education offices need to be seen and to see themselves as partners in building better experiences for young children. Yes, school officials are coping with funding shortfalls as well, though some states, like those that have raised the top grants, may have some additional leverage and are doing perhaps better than others. But until high quality early learning is imagined as part of a child's education, not to mention imagined as an opportunity for parents to find daily care for their children while they enroll in job training or continue growing in their careers, then we will be missing an important ingredient in building stronger experiences for young children. So I do hope that the education piece will be part of the conversation today. So now it is my great pleasure to turn the podium over to David Gray, our director of the Workforce and Family Program here at New America, who will moderate today's discussion. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lisa. Thanks for everyone who's here today and those who are watching as we broadcast, and many thanks to the Annie Casey Foundation for their support and leadership on this important topic. I think Lisa said, well, the compelling case that there is for the need for investments in quality in child care and early learning and also the challenge relating to it. And fortunately, we have a distinguished group of folks to help talk this issue with us and to have some dialogue and your questions at the end. Their full and distinguished biographies are available outside, but let me just briefly introduce Linda K. Smith, Deputy Assistant Secretary and Interdepartmental Liaison for Early Childhood Development at the US Department of Health and Human Services. Rolf Agrafalner, who is Assistant State Superintendent for the Maryland Department of Education. And Kate Jordan Downs, director of the Child Development Center at Easter Seals of Washington, DC. We are very fortunate and many thanks that you have taken your time to be with us today. Thank you. We'll have your questions, as I mentioned, at the end at a good dialogue, but we're pleased to begin with Linda Smith, and will you please join me in welcoming her to the podium. Linda? Well, first I want to thank Lisa and David and the New America Foundation for inviting me here today. This is without doubt my favorite subject in the whole world. So the question was posed to me about how to best improve the quality of child care. So what I'm going to do first is run through the status and link it to the recommendations that I will make. Those of you know me know I like lists, so don't worry by the end. I will give you my list of recommendations. As we all know, more than 11 million children in this country under the age of five are in some form of non-parental child care every week. They spend on average 36 hours in that care. Unlike most other developed countries that have experienced growth in terms of the number of working mothers, we still lack a universally accessible, comprehensive child care system that meets the needs of both children and working parents. Instead, we have a hodgepodge of formal and informal arrangements that parents cobble together and struggle to pay for. There are basically four kinds of child care in the United States, centers, family child care homes, relative care, and in-home care, such as nannies. And I note that for purposes of my discussion today, I'm going to focus my remarks on child care centers and family child care homes. There are approximately 119,000 centers and 233,000 family child care homes. All of the states, and I stress this, all of the states have at least one category of child care that is exempt from regulation. There are 1.8 million paid employees working in child care and preschools. Nearly all are women, 97%. They are poorly paid. Average hourly wage is $10 an hour, and that equates to $18,000 a year in wages. They are basically poorly trained. Between 13% and 20% of child care employees have a degree, and 9% to 12% of family child care providers have a degree. The turnover rate is over 30% annually, and it is held there for many, many decades now. In 28 states, workers and centers do not need any training before going to work in a classroom. And in 17 states, family child care providers need no training before caring for children. Leadership is a problem. No state requires an early childhood education degree to run a child care center, and only one state requires a degree of any kind for that particular position. And I would note on that one that I think this is a critical issue that often gets overlooked because leadership sets the tone for programs. And over my entire career, I've never seen a program with a good leader or a bad leader that has a good program because good teachers don't stay in those programs. So we really need to focus in on that leadership issue. State child care standards, both for programs and the workforce, vary widely with minimal requirements for entry-level workers and many facilities exempt from licensing standards altogether. Oversight of child care programs is weak. For example, in California, they inspect their child care centers once every five years and family child care homes once every seven. We also allow up to 13 children in a home in South Dakota before a license is required. And I think to California's credit, I should note that they are working on this, and they're giving a lot of thought to how they can restructure their licensing system. But that is really unacceptable, that a child can get from birth to kindergarten without being in a program that has ever been looked at. The quality of child care is mostly poor to mediocre, with only 10% of child care in this country estimated to be of high quality. And I don't need to cite the brain research to this community, nor do I need to go on about the impact of high quality on children. The research is pretty clear on this. It's been consistent over time, and it continues to mount in quantity. So there's no question that we need to take this on. There's also no question that the single biggest indicator of high quality programs for children is the quality of adult child interactions, and that the workforce is key. What is yet to be accepted in this country, whether we like it or not, and I think Lisa alluded to this, is that child care is where most of our children are getting their early education, and there's no question about that. Child care in the United States is based on parent choice, a concept that no one disputes is a good thing. However, parents are seldom given the information they need to make a good decision. Licensing and inspection data is only readily available in half of the states, and only half of the states have a quality rating improvement system. Parents are frequently ill-informed and make assumptions about the quality of care they are selecting. 85% of parents think that most child care providers have had a background check. Most parents, 73%, think child care providers have had training prior to caring for children. Most parents, 76%, think that the government regularly inspects child care programs, and a majority of parents, 78%, think child care programs are required to be licensed. So we have a big disconnect in this country between what parents assume and the reality of what we have going on. In the name of parent choice and a market-based model of child care, we have assumed that more choice is better choice. Also in the name of parent choice, we have allowed the states to use public funds for care that exempt from inequality or licensing requirements. All states exempt some child care, as I said. Despite low wages and low standards, the cost of care for parents is high, ranging from $4,500 a year to over $18,000 a year here in the District of Columbia. So to summarize, the quality of child care is low. The costs are high. There is poor oversight and accountability for public funds is lacking. The workforce is generally poorly paid and poorly trained. And finally, there are lots of children and families that expect and deserve better from a nation as advanced as ours. So now to the question, how can we best improve the quality of child care and is it even possible? I absolutely believe it's possible and that much can be done that is not necessarily expensive. What we need is the national will to do it. I would say that there is no silver bullet and more importantly, no single strategy, which I think over time, we have looked for one solution after another. It's either the workforce or the inspections or this or that. And it is more complicated than that and we're gonna have to deal with the fact that a single strategy isn't gonna get us there. So how do we do this? Number one, make quality child care a national priority and stop the debate over quality versus access. Putting poor children or any children for that matter and unsafe, unhealthy child care is a national embarrassment and needs to stop. Adopt a federal definition of child care. A person or, and this is one that came out of the race to the top guidance and I think it is the one that we need to move forward with as a nation, a person or program that regularly cares for two or more unrelated children on a regular basis for a fee. How hard is that? Yet we as a country have still not defined child care even for at the federal level. Develop, oh and by the way, I make the further make the recommendation that this definition should be used to guide the expenditure of all public funds especially federal funds. Develop minimum program and facility standards for childcare programs that align with Head Start and Pre-K. These standards must become the baseline for quality rating improvement systems. Develop a monitoring framework that holds all childcare programs accountable for basic health fire and safety and developmental programs and I mean basic on that. Ensure that information on quality is available to parents freely and easily. Ensure that state early learning guidelines apply to childcare. Make the workforce a priority by developing minimum training and education standards based on the knowledge and skills needed for the various age groups and settings. Ensure that all training is either CEU or credit bearing and leads to higher levels of credentialing and then education. It must be transferable from one location to another and I footnote that it must, as a part of this workforce preparation, we must require comprehensive background checks of our workforce. Require early childhood education for all center directors, education and training specialists and mentors. If we can't get education degrees for people in the classroom and childcare, we need to start with the leadership in the programs. Balance investments in quality of childcare while expanding access. And when I mean that, I mean in terms of the block grant in particular that Lisa mentioned that as we begin to add funding to the block grant that we do that in increments in increasing the quality set aside incrementally to cover the costs of some of these initiatives. And finally, increase and target investments in the infrastructure in low income and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods where high quality care is needed the most. And this should include support for family childcare systems and networks in those communities. In summary, what is necessary is the national will to make change. This administration is committed to this change, the investments in race to the top early learning challenge, the designation renewal system for the re-competition of Head Start programs, state advisory councils and the proposed 2013 budget increases in the childcare development block grant demonstrates a serious commitment to quality. What is needed now is the recognition of the problem by all of those in this room and a belief that the quality of childcare can be a national standard. And I think to accept anything less than quality as what we expect for our children is a national shame, it just is. So those are my remarks and recommendations and I'd be happy to take people's questions and comments. So do we go through all three and then we'll do a few. Linda, thank you very, very much. Yeah, maybe just go back to where you were. Ah, the screen is coming with us. Yeah, so we're gonna have Rolf and Kate will share thoughts and then we'll have an opportunity for dialogue between and among us. It's so interesting to think is building on as Linda talks about the quality rating and thinking about the interplay between the different levels of government. One thing we wanted to create today was an opportunity to hear from federal, state and local practitioners, officials, folks with insight on how the various levels of programs work together. And so next I'd like to invite Rolf to come forward here and to talk a bit his experience in Maryland. We've got his bio outside, but we'll look forward to your remarks Rolf and please join me in welcoming Rolf Grafnaldor to the podium please. All right. Well, all right, you got this here? Yeah, all right. Well, good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be part of it and squeezed between the federal and the local perspective. And I think a lot is happening at the state level. In fact, in Maryland we have been at this for the last 12 years to make sure that early care and education really is being improved and that the quality is being addressed primarily. I'm going to go over a few slides that I think will give you a sense of what we've been doing in Maryland. Speak to the race to the top and weave in some of the comments that Linda made because they were really enticing and it's wonderful to have such strong leadership with the feds. This is Maryland. You're probably familiar with it. You drive through it or you visit it occasionally or live in it. What's very important for us when we look at the special population is the Hispanic population has increased. When we looked at our reform efforts, 2000 we had about 8% of our children being Latino or Spanish speakers. The other breakdown that's of course related to that is the fact that we have a lot of English language learners in our program. That of course requires a somewhat different or an adjusted approach to address the needs of those children. This is something that I need to explain a little bit. In 2001, we started to track the incoming kindergarteners skills and abilities based on our learning standards and on an assessment which was a modified work sampling system. Kindergarten teachers assess children coming in after the first quarter of the year. The orange line indicates the score that indicates those children have met full readiness skills, meaning the skills for successful engagement in kindergarten assessment, I mean kindergarten curriculum. The blue line indicates the group of children that have somewhat uneven skills and the green line of the children with some considerable deficiencies. The trend lines work in our favor and I wanted to start out with that because this is in line with some of the investments that have been made in Maryland to get to this point and I can also speak to some other aspects that account for this trend line. In fact, when we were going through the legislative process in establishing this reform effort in 2001, the legislators basically said before we invest anything in early childhood education we wanna make sure we know how our children are doing over time and what kind of progress we're making and so that really required for us to work on the outcomes and these are the inputs. For the kindergarten, some of you may be familiar with that since 2007 in all elementary schools, this was a 50% upgrade from 2003. This was part of a Landmark School Eight bill in Maryland called the Bridge to Excellence in Education which is as we speak issue of our legislature's special session to make sure that the funding be maintained for that kind of effort. Part of that legislation was full day kindergarten as part of the implementation and an expansion and entitlement of all four year olds with economically disadvantaged backgrounds to access our public school-based brick and the garden programs. Then we have licensed programs. All our programs are licensed in Maryland with the exception of our religiously based programs that are exempted. But the nursery schools are licensed, our head start programs are licensed, the centers and family childcare are licensed. Maryland Infants and Toddlers Program is a school for education. We have about nine to 10% of our young children receiving special ed services, early intervention services, we call them for that age group. And then we have a unique effort to have intergenerational or dual generational program available for low income families with infants and toddlers. And that's basically an enhanced family literacy program in 26 centers across the state. In the state, and when we especially, I need to note that in 2005, the legislature moved all our early care and education functions into the Department of Education, created a division that's the highest level in the department for early childhood development. And really wanted to stress the focus on quality, wanted to make sure that the department is being not only adopting an education mandate from birth to grade 12, but also is involved in and engaged in improving the quality efforts. Program standards, we've had them for 10 years that are part of early childhood accreditation. This is an effort to bring programs that are this level to the high quality level that we would like to see them. We have close to 1,000 programs over the last 10 years that went through this effort, including Family Child Care and Child Care Centers, Head Start programs, Brick in the Garden and Kindergarten programs. Early learning standards, these are the standards that define what children should know and able to do at this young age. And of course done in a developmentally appropriate format, we link it up with the K to 12 standards. And so that's something that's on the way, has been on the way for many years, but now we are changing it again to align to the common core standards. Child Care Credentialing, this is an effort to bring the workforce up to certain levels of quality, I mean qualifications, so they can meet what we want to see in programs, the diverse population they're serving and having the ability to differentiate early learning to the extent to support each and every child. Quality Rating and Improvement System, this is the big focus in our Race to the Top application and we had a small version of this in place. Resource and Referral, we also want to address the behavioral needs of children. Head Start Collaboration, an early learning model with a heavy emphasis on professional development called the Maryland Model for School Readiness. 2D Center Partnerships, where you have Title I schools that collaborates and establishes formal relationship with all early childhood programs in the attendance area of the Title I school and we have 25 sites with impacting 40 Title I schools. And that's something that Linda mentioned, that we need to have an emphasis on getting to the programs in those low income neighborhoods. And our venue or our approach for the last few years of course was the Title I schools because that's where children end up after five years of either being in a care program or at home. Maryland Longer Tool and Data System is tied in to really track our progress and then special efforts with children with disabilities. I talked about the Covenant structure. It is now the State Board of Education that oversees our early care and education programs in Maryland. We've done a number of efforts to collaborate among all our agencies because the health, the family support and the education needs really come together at that level more so than in K to 12. And we've also figured out a way in how we measure our access in a number of fronts. And so I just gave you some data over the last few years, progress on the accredited programs, the measure of professional development and qualifications of our staff in the credentialing program. And here's more information if you like on our website. I wanted to mention just a few things that Linda brought up. I think from a federal perspective it becomes very complicated to set standards although it should probably be embraced and pursued. But a lot of it happens at the state level. In early care and education, the state level has really taken on some of the roles of efforts to improve the conditions, the early learning conditions of our young children. What's very important and I agree with Linda on this is the workforce but that it is a comprehensive effort that does not stop at workforce improvement but also provides the supports for programs and for families so that the efforts that you put in workforce development resonate throughout the families, resonates throughout the programs. And I think that's a very important aspect in improving the quality. The different strategies that I've seen and observed over the years across the country. There are efforts that relate to looking at a system and improving the system. Or there are efforts in the country in some states that are starting from the center, from the hub of the relationship between those that care for children and the children, the quality of that relationship. Maryland chose the latter perspective. We're basically taking the relationship of the providers and children and build the supports around it and it starts with professional development, program improvement, continuous improvement and then improve some of the aspects on a regulatory level that relate to early childhood education. And lastly I want to say that our race to the top application and we're very fortunate that we are part of nine states to move in that direction and that we are joined with five other states that we are now moving in the direction of addressing our school readiness gap that we have identified through our assessment in kindergarten and the way we do this because it's been a very chronic problem and very robust problem to crack. And so what we intend to do is put the resources of our race to the top funds behind supporting programs in low income neighborhoods where the children of high needs are mostly enrolled or being served and make sure that there's a strong collaboration with Title I schools that at the same time so our race to the top are being worked with and turning them around and become high quality schools, our effort is to use the early childhood race to the top to work with early childhood programs in those areas so that the children have a chance of school success as they move into public school setting. Thank you very much. As the parent of small children and Maryland early development centers, I'm very happy we're in good hands here. My kids are in good hands. The local perspective is very important as well and Kate Jordan Downs has both experience and passion in this space and we're very pleased that she's here to talk about the local perspective in the District of Columbia and elsewhere. So please join me in welcoming Kate to the podium. Kate. Good afternoon. I'm Kate Jordan Downs. I am the director at the Easter Seals Child Development Center located in Columbia Heights and we are a part of our regional affiliate which is the greater Washington Baltimore region of Easter Seals which is then part of a large national affiliate where the headquarters are located in Chicago and we are also a member of the Early Care and Education Consortium. I guess from my perspective I have to admit when I saw who was speaking on the panel I was a bit intimidated as I was wondering why the heck they want me to stand up here and talk to you about anything. But as I got to listen to both Linda and Ralph speak and kind of hear the federal and the state perspective it's very clear that a more finite local discussion about what's really happening in a center right now. I'm one of the 119,000 centers and I consider myself one of the 10% quality programs out there. I think it'll be beneficial to kind of tie everything together from a policy to a practical reality-based I guess understanding of quality programming and early childhood education. I wanted to give you I guess a little bit of information about my center specifically so you know who I serve and what the service lines are and then talk a little bit about how I am able with the support of many team members to make it quality and successful and then at the end address still the challenges that exist despite efforts and times that we've run into some certain challenges whether it's not only funding but also a philosophy or a perspective on the importance of early childhood education. So I apologize if I'm a little nervous up here but I hope at least I can shed some light on what's happening locally. So first of all we are located in Columbia Heights. We've been there since 1959 so we've been serving children for over 50 years. We are demographic, we have 88 children currently enrolled and of that 88 children about approximately 85% are receiving subsidized childcare vouchers. The other 15% are private pay parents. We also have a very diverse ethnic makeup of our center. About 40% of our children, 35 to 40%, it fluctuates from Spanish speaking homes, Latino backgrounds, which is very reflective of the community in which we're in. We also have about 30% African American and then a good 12% of multiracial families represented and about 10% of white. So it's an interesting and very colorful and exciting place to attend. Socioeconomically as I mentioned, we're diverse and also what's specific to Easter Seals and makes us unique as that we are an inclusive center. So 45% of the children that attend have some sort of special need. They receive some sort of therapeutic service and that kind of plays in to line as far as best practices being representing an inclusive model and how that translates to quality education in a child development center as well. So that's a little bit about the center that I am at currently. I wanted to take some time to talk about how we're making it work. What is happening right now that allows us to be successful with the current resources we have and the current state of the union, should we say. So first and foremost, and Linda touched on this and wanted to pull a couple of things in that she said is our staff. That is the backbone and the heart of what we do. We have 25 teachers, lead assistant teachers and floaters in my center. And as Linda mentioned, they are poorly paid and they are all women. In addition, some of them, I think Rolf was talking about the credentialing, some of them have bachelor's degrees, some of them have associate's degrees. Most of them have a child development accreditation or a CDA, which is something that is a 90 hour course that high school graduate can enroll in and then miraculously have a job the next day without a ton of experience at a child development center. So I appreciated you kind of pointing that out. Linda pointing that out because it is so much to the heart of where some of the challenges come within a child development center and providing quality programming is the people who are interfacing with these children every day, the interactions that are happening and the training and education and experience that they have to make those positive, healthy interactions. What are we doing to foster that and who is currently in our center right now? My teachers love their children. They thirst for more knowledge. We are able to use some local office of the state superintendent of education. So I'm gonna say Aussie from now on because that's a mouthful. That's our local DC government. They are able to, we are able to use some of their free trainings in order to broaden the scope of what our teachers are understanding as best practices or current strategies or theories that are coming out as far as early child education is concerned. And we also partner with Teach, which is an organization that provides scholarships for teachers within early childhood who'd like to get an associate's degree or get a bachelor's degree. And they cover about 80% actually of their entire educational costs and then the center and the professional split 10 in 10. So it's a good group effort and my teachers jump in that every time they can because they really do wanna give the best and want to know more and want to be valued as a professional within the world, this broad world of education which I think Lisa made a good point in the beginning and how do we make this connection and value early childhood educators as much as we value public school educators or charter school educators, how do we bridge that gap and let the rest of the world or the nation even understand that what we're doing right now is the most important work in order for them to be successful in the future. So I'll talk about that a little more as far as the challenges go. But I thought that was a really interesting point. So one way we're successful right now is our fantastic staff. The other way that we are able to be successful is we have to have creative financial solutions because there is not a ton of money floating around to fund our teachers or fund our programs. And so what we have learned is that you have to tap into every opportunity and every program that you can that will serve and meet the needs of the children in your center. So for example, at my center, I have a very diversified revenue streamline. We have through Aussie, we have childcare subsidized vouchers which is funded through the block grant. We have the DC Pre-K incentive program. We have the child adult care food program which allows us to be able to serve breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack to all of our children. So increasing their ability to receive good food or any food because a lot of our children do not have access to that on a regular basis. We also have private donors. We have grants. We try to find every possible way to tap into revenue sources that will allow us to serve the most amount of children of all abilities in the best possible way. And so I think that that's something that is a struggle for other places or other centers because we compartmentalize the type of children we serve and I think by broadening our perspectives and who we're willing and welcoming into our centers and researching and learning a little more about the local opportunities, you're not only serving a more diverse group of children but on a financial end which is very important to the business side of what I do, you're also bringing in a little more money which you're able to reinvest and then maybe pay your teachers a little more or buy that curriculum that you needed to offer good quality education. So every day I am thinking about new ways I can make money for my center even if it's charging for parking spaces that I have in my beautiful parking lot on Gerrard Street because it's just, it's not, it's something that we realize we can meet the basic needs but we don't wanna just meet their basic needs. We wanna provide quality above and beyond and in order to do that we have to come up with the money to fill that gap. We have to make the investment and figure out a way to fill the gap that's missing between meeting the basic needs which is covered by your subsidized vouchers and by your private pay and moving into a higher quality program. And then finally as far as just what we're doing to make it work currently we use an inclusive model of childcare and basically what that means is that our center accepts and instructs children of all abilities. 45, as I said, 45% of our center is made up of children with special needs in the early child education world instead of an IEP which is an individualized education plan we have IFSPs which is an individualized family service plan. Excuse me. So if children come to us with one of those or a prescription from their doctor we have therapists on site who are able to provide therapeutic services within our center in their natural environment so in the classroom, on the playground. And the reason that this is important to quality is because when we talk about serving children we're not talking about serving children who are just typically developing. We're talking about serving all children and a lot of times in the best practices model when children are segregated out and do not have exposures to other types of children from different backgrounds or different abilities or different socioeconomic statuses it poses a struggle for them when they are put into an integrated environment in the future. So what is fantastic when you walk into my center is that you get a slice of life from every perspective and the children have no idea what the difference is. They are completely loving, absorbent to all new ideas and creativity which instills a sense of self-esteem, confidence so that when they do leave not only are they educationally prepared but they're socially and emotionally prepared and able to enter into a school system and be more successful had they not had an opportunity to be in a center such as Easter Seals. What goes along with that is also investing in a curriculum that is something that you take, we use creative curriculum, it's one of the many curriculums out there for early childhood education and the reason that's important is because we need to be intentional with what we're doing in the classroom with these children. We're not just there to babysit them and hope that they make it through the day back to their parents. We are there to teach them and the divide that happens in many of the four areas that you spoke with, so centers, family care, home, and I'm sorry, I'm blanking on the other one. Thank you. Centers are typically the only one that utilizes a curriculum which is why you might see statistically that when they take the test that they do in Maryland they come out higher, children come out higher or more prepared if they've left a center-based environment. So it is for us what's key is not only having an inclusive best practices model that we follow but investing in a curriculum that will allow us to diversify lesson plans so that it's not just helping Johnny over here but it's helping Jenny over there and you have everybody meeting their same goals and developmental milestones in a way that is specific to their learning needs and specific to their abilities. So that is my nutshell of how we're making it work with what we have right now as far as challenges that we're facing in order to become higher quality because we don't wanna be stagnant. It's great to hear that you're doing a good job and your kids are leaving and they're successful and to get all those paths on the backs. However, we have to continue to grow as the industry changes, as education standards change, we have to be able to step up and meet those needs and prepare the children. And I will echo very much what Linda said as far as the staffing going with poorly paid and undereducated teachers. It's not because they want to be undereducated. I guess I wanna make that clear because I think there is a misconception of the early childhood education field and most of the women who I work with, I would say almost all of the women I work with want to be valued, want to be looked at as a valued member of the educational community, not the woman who taught your kid the colors but someone who fostered their development in a positive and appropriate way that allowed them to succeed in the future. And I think that goes along very much with the idea of it needs to be a national will to change. We need to, we have not only to change but to start viewing what I do, what these women do on a day-to-day basis, what therapists do as important, as a valued piece of a child's development. We kind of skip to kindergarten sometimes in our brains when we think about education and who are really the professionals and the teachers. And I think when that shift happens, when those, whether it's the funds that open up or the perspective that changes first or the educational background that changes first, when that shift happens, you will see the turnover rate go down. You will see the education go up because people will be compensated fairly, they will be respected as professionals in a way that a teacher, a second grade teacher or a 12th grade history teacher is respected. And I think it's a very, very important point, I guess, or challenge is just recruiting and retaining really quality staff who will stay with you after they get that degree and who won't leave you for the public schools because they get paid more. The other challenge is that we're not able to reach all families, meaning I am able to serve children through my subsidized vouchers system who are very low income. And I am able to serve children who come from families that are very wealthy, but the people in the middle do not have access to my program. I'll give you just a couple brief examples of the financials. For a family of three in Washington, D.C., the most, the absolute most a family of three can make to qualify for the voucher is $47,000. That could be one mom and two kids, that could be a mom and a dad and one kid, however you slice it. $47,000 is the most money someone can make to qualify for a voucher. On the flip side, my private pay rate for an infant room is $1,550 a month, which is $18,000 a year. My toddler room is $1,350 a month, which is $16,000 a year. So think about what you guys make in this room. Maybe some of you are welcome to come on in and be my private pay parents if you like, but think about that gap and who really can't access that care. That's one of our biggest challenges as far as making sure that we really can reach everybody. And then finally, that there just are not a lot of centers that are willing to make the investment like we are, or do not have the resources to make the investment like Easter Seals is able to. And within that, I think, Linda, I'm sorry to keep going back to you, but it's so interesting to me that a lot of the recommendations you made are on my list and to be in such different kind of scopes and worlds but have the exact same perspective on what the challenges are is comforting because it's not like nobody knows this at the top. So that's a comforting feeling. But you talked about the pre-K standards being integrated throughout like for infant and toddler rooms, making sure that we use those same models and standards for our babies just like we use them for our three-year-olds. That is a huge challenge as well. And unfortunately, all of those recommendations and challenges come back to financial support. So I hope I didn't talk too long. I appreciate the time to just be able to express my passion. I apologize for my jitters, but I get very excited about having a chance to really talk about what's going on in the real world and to let you know that the women and men who are in our field really do love and care for the children who are out there and want to be the best they can be, but we need support in order to do that. So thank you very much. I'll invite all three of our panelists to come in and prepare for questions here and just to take a seat if they would with many thanks and a real sense of how the levels of interaction go together and yes, as Kate mentioned, the consistency of some of the recommendations. We're gonna go into questions here. Do we have a New America mic somewhere yet that'll go around here? Well, great, okay. I'm gonna ask the first question. What we're gonna do is we're gonna pair up questions and as we get to the, I'll give maybe some, share some thoughts in just a second on how we might do that, but I'll ask the first two questions. So feel free for anyone to answer either one of these. The first is on the quality rating improvement system, how it's going, any thought on the future of it, what are the challenges of it and just thinking about the future of the quality rating system. And then secondly, the child care and development block grant as we know is being reauthorized, or at least there's a lot of discussions on it, it's always being reauthorized, but it's at least discussions on it. In the Senate, not so much in the House, but if there's a single thing that would improve quality if we were to reauthorize CCDBG, what would it be? And you could either take column A and say we're assuming a resource constrained environment and maybe what would improve it most is the quality set aside increase or some more licensing or background checks or something that would be inserted to improve the training of the workforce or you might reject the premise that this has got to be a resource constrained discussion and take column B and say if we're gonna do CCDBG, there's gotta be $5 billion more, there's gotta be a significant increase of resources. So my two questions are the future of the quality rating system or if there's a single thing that improves quality in the federal legislation from your perspective, what would it be? So any one of you or all three of you wanna tackle either of those questions? First hand, the first one to hit the buzzer gets to go first. Linda, you're ready to roll. Okay, well I would like to talk about both of those actually and I think that the first one is the quality rating improvement system and I think what we're learning from race to the top is gonna go a long ways to helping the rest of the country move forward with quality rating improvement systems. But one of the things I wanna caution people about too and it was one of my closing remarks is that there isn't a single strategy that's going to improve things in this country and that I think includes quality rating improvement systems. They are one piece of a really complex situation and I think one of the things and we're looking at this in the 2013 budget proposal that we put in, which is how do we begin to give people and like we were talking about the workforce, the ability to move within the rating system and we can build the infrastructure but if we don't have the support for the people in that infrastructure, we will have created a house of cards. So we're really interested in in the 2013 budget ensuring that we have support for programs and providers to move up and I think again it gets back to no single strategy is really gonna work and I'll let the other one people take a shot at that before I go on. Any thoughts on the quality rating? Rolf? Yeah, definitely. I think this is a good approach in general. What I've been proposing in the number of venues I had a chance to talk about is 37 states have put in a plan for the early learning challenge grant. They did it because I think had an intent to improve their system, not just because there was money out there. In fact, those states, many of the states that did not receive funds are moving ahead. I think that's a platform to work from and strive to have Department of Ed and HHS or ACF programs align with that with respect to the CCDBG, with respect to Head Start, with respect to any other early learning programs that might be funded under Department of Education. That's a wonderful platform and that means taking into account the comprehensive nature of what the criteria were for the early learning challenge fund. You looked at workforce development, you looked at program improvement and the quality of programs, you looked at standards, you looked at data systems, and you looked at ways in how you can improve your outreach to families and engage families to a greater extent. So there is a wonderful opportunity, I would think, with the CCDBG to have that tied in, make it part of the planning process and use the add-on quality piece that you had in mind, Linda, maybe as a way to support on a 50-state level some of the planning and some of the implementation of what they had in their plan originally. So there's, I think there was real interest and I think it was a breakthrough for the field. So that might come raw. Kate, do you have anything, any of those questions you wanna? I think for the quality rating system, my understanding for DC is that it's a tiered system. It's three tiers, bronze, silver and gold. Easter Seals went through that process about eight years ago moving from a bronze to a gold tier and my understanding is that it hinges on accreditation. So we chose to get accredited through NACI and that process is time consuming, intense and expensive. So I guess my only recommendation as far as how the grant could assist with the quality would be making available some funds to centers who do wanna take that next step, who do wanna get accredited, especially smaller centers who don't, being at Easter Seals, I am very fortunate to have the support of a regional center, a regional agency, but there are several centers that are very good centers in the city but don't have that financial or fiscal support behind them. And so how do you want them to get better if we don't make these funds available to them, whether it's money to just pay for the registration fee or to get a consultant to help them understand what changes in their policies need to be made in order to become accredited. So I guess for the quality piece, that's my perspective. As far as the grant in general, in DC, our rates, we receive daily rates for our subsidized vouchers and I've been at Easter Seals for five years. In the five years that I've been there, those rates have not increased at all. Of course, our expenses have increased. So I think that in one, if there could be more money available to increase the rates so that it can be reinvested into whether it's teacher salaries or any quality program voids that are missing, that would be fantastic. Thanks, that's very good. Before we open it up for full questions, Linda, did you wanna say something about reauthorization? Yeah, I actually do because I think one of the things that I was sort of interested in and wanted to actually ask Ralph to tag onto this because he said something in his remarks about Maryland and your legislature wanted to understand sort of where you were and what the status of and what you're gonna get for the money essentially is what legislatures are asking. And I think that same thing is true of Congress right now. And I don't think one of the things that I think we all need to be aware of in CCDBG reauthorization is that there needs to be and we need ideas for how we become more accountable for the money that we get. I keep saying to people, I don't think we're gonna get more to do the same thing. We have got to start showing results, changes and improvements. And so I think that there will be more accountability built into CCDBG and that is not necessarily a negative thing. It's time to take a look at that. How do we count movement towards quality in this country? And I think that that's where we're gonna have to focus some time. Ralph, did you, she, absolutely. Just set you up there. Do you wanna say anything about it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that's exactly what happened in our case and I think Congress on a bipartisan level will probably because we had that same issue. We had Republicans and the Democrats really standing behind it, although we have a majority of Democrats in our house and Senate, but we had a lot of strong Republican support for the notion that we invest more if we know what we're getting for the money. I mean, it's a simple idea and it has worked. And I think it's gonna be more complicated working with 50 states, but we had 24 local school districts and that was complicated, so probably a way. It's fascinating. I mean, I think they're really, it'll be a very interesting bipartisan, I mean, I'm kidding about, they're always reauthorizing CCDBG, but at some point they're gonna get close, and particularly in the Senate, and the issue of accountability really has some traction, I think. You just mentioned the bipartisan effort in Maryland as a model broadly for a national federal legislation reauthorization. All right, so let's open it up for broader questions. We've got the mic in the back, we'll start from the back then because that just happened to be where the mic is. As Claire comes forward, we're gonna do two questions and let our, we're gonna pile them and let our panel respond to them as they like. As you ask your question, just identify yourself if you would and ask a single question until we go through the line. Okay, any questions as we, raise your hand if you got a question. All right, let's just start coming by one. We'll go two at a time and then after two questions we'll have our panel respond, okay? Dave Ochster, a disability consortium and this is a question for Kate about those 45% of the children with special needs. In the federal legislation, they have an individual family service plan and I was wondering how that plays out with your kids and whether it makes a difference in outcomes. Okay, so let's hold that question for Kate and then a second question is Claire, as you come forward, Claire, just a lady right here. I'm from the administration on intellectual and developmental disabilities and I appreciated what Kate said about an inclusive environment in preschool and early care and education. I'm wondering if the other panelists can comment on plans, expectations to include children with disabilities in quality child care in the future as well. All right, great. Thank you very much. So let's start with Kate and the 45% the IFSP question and then we'll see if either Raul or Linda wants to talk about the inclusion question. Okay, Kate? So just to make sure I understand the question, you're asking what effect the taking children and working with children who have IFSP's has had on their outcomes within our center? The kids that have a plan are those that don't. Okay. Okay, sure. So are children who come to us with IFSP's have usually gone through the infants and toddlers with disabilities, I'm sorry, department in DC and they come to us for those of you who are not in the disability world at all. This plan is something that is outlined for children and families and any caregiver, whether it's grandma, the teacher or a therapist, what their goals are in order to reach certain developmental levels. So where their weaknesses are and what we need to do to support them and help them meet those developmental milestones. What that looks like in my center is when a child comes in with an IFSP, we take an inclusive approach from our adults. So our therapists, our administrators and the teachers as well as the parents all kind of discuss what we're going to be doing in the classroom to support the goals that are outlined in the plan. I guess in comparison to where they end up outcome-wise, I can say with full confidence that our children who come to us and receive therapeutic services in their natural environment are far and above where they would be had they received it outside of a center or away from their peers. For first of all, having access to not only child care so their parents can go to work and make a living but that they don't have to race their child all over the city to go to several different places to get their therapies and that they're able to receive it in a natural environment with their peers who are also little therapists themselves, sets them up to be successful and oftentimes discharged from therapy services altogether. Now, does every child meet those outcomes and become discharged? Certainly not because there are certain genetic disorders or disabilities that will never be 100, we will always need some sort of therapy for. But compared to the outcomes and how we measure that, we use our curriculum and we use a few developmental assessments, we use the ages and stages questionnaire and we also use the M chat in order to kind of do gradual six month assessments as to their progress and what we need to focus on in order to get them on level with their typically developing peers or to get them to the level that they are cognitively or developmentally able to reach. Does that answer? Thank you. Great. Yeah, Marilyn, just at the time when the transfer took place there was a big effort to make sure that children with disabilities have access to childcare services. There was a problem that we've been addressing over the years. It becomes our standard policy that children with disability have access and the support's available. What grew out of a special USDOE program and extended option five is B for three, I mean four and five year olds, is something that Maryland implemented as the only state in the country. That is an opportunity to have least restrictive environments for children with disability no matter where they are. And sort of the situation that Kate was explaining at the local level. That is to can have a child in a childcare center with disabilities and have the speech therapist come to that center, have the funding available or have the therapy services available at the center or at the family childcare home, wherever that child is and whatever setting has been determined. And that's been a huge effort. Unfortunately, they've got defunded and now we're sort of extending it through the race to the top in a number of jurisdictions. Inclusion is a big effort because early intervention and early education are sewn at the hip. They are basically the same aspect of supporting children. And early intervention isn't just reserved for children with disabilities with unidentified disabilities. Early intervention goes further in addressing the needs, especially with some of the kids too that have behavioral needs is being addressed. So I think the spectrum there is broad and wide. The capacity for programs to address the needs really depends in some instances on the disability but we have special funds available for that purpose. Well, I would take a little bit different, I guess, approach to this answer. And I think one of the things that I'd go back to is the points I made on the training and preparation of the workforce. And one of the things that my experience has shown me over time is that childcare people are ill-prepared to take care of children with special needs and in many cases, are afraid of them because they don't know what to do. So I think we need to get back to the issues around how do we train and prepare the workforce to take care of children so that we can write laws until the sun goes down and we still won't get there until we make the workforce comfortable with it because I think what we see happening is any excuse will do in terms of the reasons why we can't take them. And so I think we need to look again at the workforce and the training. You say that again. Sure. You just made me think, I totally agree that teachers are often very intimidated by the idea of being responsible for caring for a child who has special needs, specifically if they're medically fragile or they're not a child who can function without a lot of support in the classroom. What I have found to be the most successful component to getting past that barrier is that the leadership of that organization or the director, for example me, happens, is on board 100% and is there to support them because you can have a degree in special education, you can have a nursing degree for all intensive purposes. However, each child is so different and their experiences in the classroom are so different that all of us who are in the disabilities field and working with children who have disabilities learn so much more through our experiences and it's just being willing to take that first step with that first child and realize that it's not quite as intense as we have in our mind. The stereotypes or the concerns that we have are valid at times but not something that should debilitate us from serving those children. So I think that there certainly needs to be a commitment from the leadership of whatever center it is because if I'm not committed, no one else is going to care or be committed and if I act scared or afraid, that's the message that all of my teachers are gonna have. Very good. Let's keep coming down the line here. We've got a question here and a question in the front. My name is Kimberly Cook and I work with School Readiness Consulting. This year we're doing a universal evaluation of the pre-K classrooms in DC looking at teacher interactions and also child outcomes using progress monitoring. I live in Virginia and I've also worked on education issues in Maryland and I'm just intrigued by the disparate opportunities we have here in the DC metro area for our little ones and I wonder what will it take for more states to integrate early childhood education in their K-12 curriculum beyond just rhetoric but in action. Okay, very good. That's a good question. All right, and the lady in the front. My name's Lee Young. I live in Montgomery County, Maryland and previously I submitted some material for the education secretary. And she's, she's no longer with us, but yeah. But she received a warm. My real concern is whether it's in the childcare or in the family setting got to be an educational, loving, nourishing environment. The problem now is that whether it's in the education department or in a department of social services, they abuse of their power or what they call mental facilities or adult protectors. They take away the care of their parents or grandparents. So that is automatically affected children or kids emotional. And besides, there are resources they take away. And they divide as parents or grandparents to the mental hospital and they cause a lot. So there will be a lot of burden for the family. So I wonder if you can address this type of issues, make the government effort really on this type of situation. So government resources will be used in the right way rather than the long way. Very good. Okay. So we've got the two questions, the integration question here and then Hal will help in the particular example that you raise is either of those two questions strike you as ones that, that you'd be something you contribute to. Linda. Yeah. Well, I do think that there's, there's serious questions that you raise about the disparities between the states. And I wanted to, and it jogged my memory in terms of one of the things that Ralph said and if you noticed in my remarks, I didn't, when I said we need standards, I didn't say federal. And I, you know, I've been around a long time and I don't think that we're gonna get federal standards in certain areas. I think that that is just off the table. But one of the things that I do think that we need is for states like we have here to come together and begin, I think we need to begin the process of states agreeing on basic standards. But that needs to come from the states as opposed to coming from the federal. And I think maybe there will be more palatability to states like, you know, some that drag their feet on this if they are participating in the development and the process. And it's just a thought, I bet I've been giving this a lot of thought because we do need those minimum standards, as I said, for childcare and for the workforce. And I just am not sure we're ever gonna get those kinds, the program standards are what I think we're not gonna get. I think we can get the other ones and I'd be interested in people's thoughts on that. But, and I think, you know, Ralph, you alluded to that, that in his remarks, and I think he's right on on that. I remember in 2004 or three, the office of childcare made it a requirement for states to develop early learning standards. And in return for receiving the CCDF, what we call childcare development fund. I found this to be a bold move and I think it was the right one, the states really were moving in that direction because at that time the states were very disparate on this issue as to whether the establishing states, I mean, any standards. And that really did bring in a sector within our state that had not thought of standards before. That was our childcare community. And that was really, I think, an effort. So I think there are some tools, administrative tools, if you will, that may get us in that direction and it's great to have minimum standards and some other means to address the issue of setting state quality standards across the states. The shifting of government resources, if I understand your question correctly, is that there is a part of money that's reserved, if you see, for children and families and that there's been a major shift, if I understand it correctly, into a particular area within programs, supporting programs, supporting the quality of programs and other resources that may be needed for families are under-resourced. Do you get this right? Yeah, let's, yeah, let's hold, in fact, yeah, let's dialogue for it afterwards for just a second here. Do you, anything to say on the integration piece? Okay, we'll come back to this piece a second. Any other questions as we go down the line here for a second? All right, let's get a clarification. Clarify the question, would you? In the government agencies, whether there's, I mean, in the government agencies, they abuse of the Department of Education or the Department of Health and Human Services or even law enforcement. They abuse of the power, they arrest the people or their parents or grandparents and divide them or send them to the mental hospital. So that means they have to charge to the parents or grandparents their resources or many government, many care resources. So instead of abuse of those who waste and abuse, why don't we just say and eliminate those abuse and really focus on the environment of the children or youngsters, education and knowledge environment? Oh, definitely agree with that approach, yeah, sure. It's a good comment here. I see a question in the front here. Lisa, would you? I'm happy to see others having, I just was wondering if we might be able to take a moment to push on what I thought was one of the really compelling comments. Actually, all three of you in a way have touched on it, but Kate, when you were talking about the middle not having access, I think that that's a really key point that we need to really grapple with here because I think when we have Head Start and we certainly are pulling up on the childcare quality piece through, whether it's the quality improvement systems and some of the new standards that are coming into place, we're still not helping those families who are making $50,000 a year who may have two young kids and there's no way they can afford even $10,000 a year, let alone $18,000 for their children. So how do we make sure that those families are not, their only options are very, very low quality program? How do we help them find high quality? And I don't think it's gonna be an easy one to answer, obviously, but I'm wondering where all three of you you fit in terms of some solutions on that. That's good, let's hold that question here. Any other hands go up here? Let's take a question over here. I'm Connie McKenna, I'm with the American Federation of Teachers and of course we're very focused on the workforce aspect of quality. And I was interested to hear in DC that the NAC accreditation process is the avenue to QRIS and that it is a very difficult process. Do you think specifically looking at that but just more generally looking at actual financial resources for building the workforce as we get more accustomed to quality standards, are you seeing, especially in this difficult economic time, any awareness in our legislative bodies that it really is about the money? And about the focus of money on workforce, along with all these sort of more abstract standards that people love to discuss and point to, but actually will not connect to the people who do the work. Is there any kind of a shift? Or are we really under the burden of a bad economy? That's interesting. Well, we're gonna go down the line here and just we'll conclude, so start with Kate and conclude with Linda for the last word for our panel today. Lifting up Lisa's question around right the middle, if you make too much to afford a voucher, but it's super expensive, what do you do? Very good question here in terms of resources. I keep thinking about the quality, what should the quality set aside number be and how what progress should we attempt to make as it relates to resources that need to be put aside specifically for quality. But in dealing with the two questions or just concluding comments, Kate, why don't you start, Rolf, and then Linda? This is a very interesting question because it really does come up every so often when you start talking about what difference does it make for a schoolteacher to go through a four-year degree program, go through a certification to be qualified to work in a school? That includes pre-kindergarten in our state versus somebody who is not investing that much into post-secondary education and the state or the federal government through funding stepping in to compensate for that difference. For instance, TEACH is a scholarship program. We have a scholarship program with 19 institutions of higher education in Maryland. We have a couple hundred people going through that system. In the regulatory framework of a school system, you wouldn't have that investment at the state or at the federal level because it's done by those that want to qualify for teaching. In early childhood education, you have a different workforce and so the state and the federal government step in to compensate for that. So then the question is, can we switch and do it through a regulatory change? Can we make it a requirement for all of our teachers and childcare programs to have at least an AA degree in early childhood education? Well, the implications will be huge because you would start to, but because you're dealing with a market-driven system, you suddenly drive your programs out of the market for the constituencies or for the customers to serve to a great extent. And it isn't programs like CATE's. CATE's probably will survive in an environment like that but not programs that have 60 children enrolled operate on a shoestring budget. It's gonna take them out of business. Then you have the number of children that would need the care or families are looking for care. So then you have a situation where children may not have access to programs anymore, they're licensed because they might be out of business. And then you get into the situation where you have, yes, you have high standards on workforce, you got far less programs that you have to license now, but you got this huge unlicensed market of care that's gonna take over. And so it would be interesting to really look at what, you know, how you can calibrate it and make it work. But I think the scaffolding of QRIS might get us to the point where you can look at some of the economic impact of a regulatory system that requires higher qualifications for folks to start in child care. I like it. The scaffolding of QRIS, I'm gonna go with that. Oh, it says there. I like it. Okay. I guess to go off what Rolf just mentioned as far as teacher credentialing, two things. One, just for everyone's awareness with NACI, which is our accreditation that helps us reach school tier and improve our quality. The current standard for certifications of teachers in early childhood education, 75% of my lead teachers are required to have an associate's degree or be enrolled in a program. And 50% of my assistant teachers are required to have the child development accreditation. However, in 2014, that is going to 100% for both lead and assistant teachers. And it's not in process anymore, it is completed. So those regulations are set for NACI and at least from my local perspective for DC. What we're doing to get there is using Teach to help our current employees access monies in order to get these degrees so they don't lose their jobs because come 2014, whatever the date is, they will not be employed with Easter Seals anymore because they do not meet the requirements. So that is kind of in motion. As far as the financial question you asked, I have no idea, because I don't get that high up, unfortunately. But what Lisa had mentioned, in which I feel pretty passionately about as well because I fall within it, is this echo of what we all already know within our political climate right now is what's happening to the middle class. And I guess my recommendation or my heartfelt hope is that that disparity of service to that group of people, which is really the majority of the country, will be recognized, A, and that some sort of, I guess maybe, I don't know, I hate to always go back to finance, but that's really what it comes down to. Some sort of financial opportunities will become available to not subsidize and give them free childcare, but to have some sort of scholarship program or have some sort of fund where you can maybe charge them 75% of what, or 50% of what is usually expected so that they do have access to what's available out there. I don't know the answer to that question because I can't find that program to serve those people. I would love to do it, but that's, yeah. It's definitely something that weighs heavy on us because I've had to turn people away because of it. All right, whoever meets the road there. All right, the last word, Linda. Okay, just one. No, those are two big subjects and I can't do that in one. I wanted to respond to sort of your reference to the quality set aside. And I think that we do have some models in this country that we should look at in terms of what the quality set aside ultimately needs to be. And I think we've seen the progress of Head Start over the years going from increasing the quality set aside in Head Start and how much of that was used and also the military's use of their funds. And I think we have lessons to be learned from that and I wish I had an hour to give a little lecture on that. But I do think that one of the things that on the quality set aside is that we have got to and it gets to the questions about financing. And I think what we have to figure out is in a market-based system that Rolf talked about, what is the appropriate mix of funds to go into the demand side, which is essentially the vouchers in this country and the supply side, which is the quality. And I don't think we've really figured out how much the quality side of this is gonna cost us in a way that gets to your point of making it the services accessible and available to middle income families. And I think that's where we still struggle in this country. I think in order to make this work, we do have to look at these models and we've got to figure out what is the cost, not just what do we have right now, but what is the real cost to produce the services by age of child and setting? Because I think until we know what it costs, it's hard to understand what share belongs to whom and how do we begin to build a system that parents can have access at all income levels, not just the lowest income. And we don't know that yet. And I think we're beginning to get an understanding that that's where we need to go with this. We're not there and it's gonna take some more time. And why do I say that? Because it is tied up in the cost of care is tied up in the personnel and the staff. We all know that, that's the cost driver. And I think what we still have yet to figure out, and this is from my experience again with the Defense Department model, is what is the right mix of training and education to get the job done? And I alluded to that in my remarks because we really need to understand the knowledge and skills it takes to do the job. And does it take a degree to provide infant care? Yes or no? And I think what we've got to struggle with here is once we know the skills and abilities, then how do we get the training and how much does that cost? Then we know when we go to Congress or anywhere else asking for funding, what we're asking for. And I think we're not there yet. And I know this is getting awfully deep, but I do think about this an awful lot. So then that's number one, what does it cost? And then how do we get the money into the programs? Because I think that is also a piece. We've learned some from the teach model and the wages model and other models, but I heard you saying you piece it together. And you're constantly, constantly trying to do that and stay one step ahead of keeping enough money to pay your staff. So we've got to figure out how to get the money into these programs in a way that stabilizes the staff and allows her to keep paying higher wages and not worry that tomorrow the voucher's gone and therefore I can't pay the staff anymore. So I think it's that combination of what does it cost? Then what's the fair share between the public and private responsibility and then how do we get the money into the programs in a way that gets us where we wanna go? So I think we've got a ways to go. I think there are people working on the financing issues right now and we are getting closer and I think we're getting closer because we recognize that we have to do that hard work now. So I think that is there, in answer to the question whoever asked that you asked the question about any change in the mood in Washington. I do, despite all of the struggles with the economy and the budget here in Washington, we'll tell you that our guidance from our leadership was that any, and the reason we got the 300 million in the budget for 2013 was is any funding that we had in excess in our discretionary funds was to go to quality. So I think that is a real change in terms of the leadership, the mindset, we wanna get something done caviating that by saying that we need to measure it. We need to be able to know what that money is buying us. So I do see a change in Washington around this issue and lots and lots and lots of questions around it. I think what we've gotta do as I said before and I'm beating this drum again is that we gotta go to Congress, to our legislatures with real proposals where we're accountable for the funds that we're asking for and again, more of the same is just not gonna work and it's not gonna work here in Washington. Pragmatic but very hopeful way to end, I like it. Will you please join me in giving thanks, joining Lisa and me in giving thanks to Kate and Rolf and Linda. Thank you so much for being here. And thanks to the Casey Foundation, all of you for being here and for watching.