Early Education and Care in Federal Spending Bill

The U.S. Congress has passed a year-end omnibus spending bill that contains some encouraging news for early education. The New America Foundation’s Early Ed Watch blog has published a chart with the various line items affecting early education and care. And CLASP offers this summary:

“A final 2012 funding bill clearing Congress contains much-needed increases in child care and early education funding, including:

• A $424 million increase for Head Start and Early Head Start to maintain the enrollment of children currently served into next school year.
• A $60 million increase for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG).
• A $60 million increase for Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
• $550 million for Race to The Top. Accompanying report language indicates that Congress expects this program to have a robust early childhood component, so it appears there may be a second RTT-ELC [Early Learning Challenge] competition to come.”