March 15, 2002

Good morning, and thank you all for joining us here this morning.

We have invited you to talk about one of our most basic of issues - the care of our children, the well-being of our children. Children are 20 percent of our population, but 100 percent of our future.

Today, 78 percent of mothers with school-age children are working. 65 percent of mothers with children under 6 are working. And, more than half of mothers with infants are working.

Most parents are simply not home full-time anymore. Many would like to be. For those who are, I introduced the first legislation in the Senate to provide a tax credit for stay-at-home parents. Because they, too, deserve support in their efforts to raise their children.

But most families don't have a choice. If the kids are going to eat, go to school, and have a roof over their heads, both parents must work. I don't know of any working parents who think that balancing work and family is easy. It's not.

Since 1996, the number of families receiving child care assistance has grown dramatically to about 2 million children today. But, for as many children who receive assistance, available child care funds reach only one out of seven eligible children.

As you know all too well, child care in too many communities is not affordable. And in too many more, it's not available, or, even worse, of dubious quality.

About 14 million children under the age of 6 are in some type of child care arrangement every day. This includes about 6 million infants. The cost of care averages between $4,000 and $10,000 a year - more than the cost of tuition at any state university.

Far too many of Americas parents are left with far too little choice.

Nearly 20 states currently have waiting lists for child care assistance. Every state has difficulty meeting child care needs. No state serves every eligible child.

While waiting lists show that there is a demand for a service, they are certainly only part of the picture. Wyoming, for instance, does not have a waiting list. But if you earn over $18,800 - which is barely above poverty level for a family of three and probably below poverty level for a family of four - then you can't obtain any child care assistance whatsoever.

In some of these states with long waiting lists, parents throw up their hands and don't bother getting on the list. Let me ask you - if you went to Blockbuster to rent a movie and were told you that you can get on the list but there were already thousands on the list ahead of you and it would probably be years before it's your turn, would you bother?

More than 30 states require families at 150 percent of the poverty level to pay more than 7 percent of their income in child care fees, or do not even allow a family at this low income level to qualify for child care assistance.

Other families who are eligible for assistance have difficulty finding child care in their community because subsidies are too low.

Most people think of child care as work support for working families. But it is also about children. It is time to focus attention on the needs of children who spend many hours a week in child care, to make certain they obtain the intellectual stimulation necessary to hone the learning skills they so desperately require in those formative years.

As part of the education bill recently signed into law, children will now be tested beginning in third grade. These tests will be used to hold schools accountable for educational achievement.

Yet, 46 percent of kindergarten teachers have reported that more than half of their students are not ready for kindergarten. The learning gap does not begin in kindergarten, it is first noticed in kindergarten. Strengthening the quality of care around the country is one of the keys to shrinking this gap.

Quality child care is a major factor in school readiness. In addition to meeting a child's cognitive, physical, social, and emotional needs, quality child care should include preliteracy and oral language as well. Too many child care settings are deficient in these areas.

I am currently working with Senator Snowe and others to introduce legislation to re-authorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant, that will address the early development needs of children.

75 percent of children under five with working parents are spending time in child care. If these kids are to enter kindergarten ready to learn, we need to strengthen the child care that they receive.

In our re-authorization bill, we will set-aside a specific portion of the Child Care andDevelopment Block Grant to strengthen the child care workforce. It' s a crime that child care workers, on average, earn around $16,000 a year. It's no wonder that the turnover rate among child care teachers is among the highest of any career.

And it's a crime that cab-drivers, hair stylists, and window-washers all need training and certification, but the people we entrust to care for America's young children, for the most part, require no certification whatsoever.

If we are to expect better outcomes for children, then we must first work to strengthen the child care workforce. Last year I introduced the FOCUS bill to provide grants to states to increase child care teacher compensation and provide scholarships for those who want to improve their training or education. Many of the FOCUS bill provisions will be included in the Child Care re-authorization bill.

In addition, the education bill that was recently enacted included my amendment to provide professional development for early childhood educators to promote children's school readiness.

We know that under the best of circumstances, in a growing economy over the last several years, we have not been able to meet the need or demand for child care assistance. Today, in a tough economy, that task is even harder.

To compound matters, I am very concerned about the Administration's welfare re-authorization plan submitted to Congress last month. The plan calls for an enormous increase in the number of parents who will be required to work under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, or TANF, as we call it.

Not only will the overall number of parents required to work increase, but the number of hours each parent would be required to work each week would also increase - from 30 hours a week to 40 hours a week.

Yet the Administration requested no additional child care funding. In fact, the Administration requested a 5 year freeze on child care funding .

Does that mean a freeze on child care pay for 5 years? A freeze on reimbursement rates? A freeze on eligibility rules? A freeze on helping working poor families?

It goes without saying that we must be certain there are sufficient child care funds to assist families transitioning from welfare to work - particularly if the government is going to require them to work. I am concerned that the Administration's plan will result in a raid of child care assistance from the working poor to pay for those families transitioning from welfare. We need to do both. Welfare reform cannot succeed in the long run without sufficient funding for child care. And, the working poor cannot get by without child care help.

Leading studies have found that early investments in children can reduce the likelihood of being held back in school, reduce the need for special education, reduce the dropout rate of high school students, and reduce juvenile crime arrest rates.

If we don't improve the quality of child care that our children now spend so much time in, we will be in danger of missing the boat on a whole generation of children.

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