The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
A state agency and an Ohio State University research center have received a $2 million grant to study child care quality as part of a federal initiative.
The Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy at OSU and Ohio’s Department of Children and Youth announced the award, the first of its kind for the state, as part of a federal Child Care Policy Research Partnerships (CCPRP) initiative to “study child care quality, access and child outcomes,” according to a press release on the funding.
“Our project enables us to provide real-time information to our partners at DCY, and to learn from research partners in other states who have similar goals of improving child care quality and access,” said Dr. Kelly Purtell, co-principal investigator on the project and Crane Center faculty associate.
The project will run for five years, during which researchers plan to analyze recent changes to Ohio’s child care quality rating and improvement system (called Step Up to Quality), along with subsidies for child care providers in the Publicly Funded Child Care system.
“There is much to learn in Ohio and nationally about how states can best support, regulate and incentivize quality so that more young children are in quality learning environments,” said DCY Director Kara Wente in the press release.
Kindergarten outcomes will also be studied, the entities stated.
The grant is funded through the federal Administration for Children and Families, and the CCPRP grants “support new research and evaluation occurring through cooperative partnerships between research organizations and Child Care and Development Fund lead agencies.”
The funding comes as several bills that aim to address the child care system in Ohio are awaiting committee and chamber consideration in the Ohio General Assembly.
The Senate Finance Committee has the bipartisan Strong Foundations Act, House Bill 7, which would appropriate $34 million over two fiscal years to fund pregnancy resources, child care costs, child poverty and homelessness, and other issues that directly impact infant and maternal outcomes.
During a November hearing on the bill, committee member Sen. Louis Blessing III, R-Colerain Twp., suggested a provision be added to the bill to increase eligibility for Ohio’s Publicly Funded Child Care program to 200% of the federal poverty line, something the sponsors of the bill agreed would be beneficial.
Studies and child care advocates have consistently expressed concern over the rising costs of child care and the struggling system of child care providers, rife with understaffing and underpayment. The lack of affordability and access in the state system could do significant damage to the economy, according to experts.
A second bill, the Thriving Families Tax Credit, would create a credit of up to $1,000 per child aged 0 to 5 and up to $500 for children age 6 to 17, with full benefits for households making annual incomes up to $65,000. The House Ways and Means Committee has that bill, but the GOP supermajority means trouble for a bill with only Democratic sponsors.
Another Democrat-led bill, House Bill 570, seeks to give publicly-funded child care to the staff members who work at those child care facilities, regardless of family income. Eligible Ohioans would include employees of child care centers and some family child care homes, but would exclude child day camp workers and child care facility owners.
Sponsors introduced the bill in May, but it only saw its first hearing in the House Finance Committee Tuesday.
One bill that hasn’t seen much action despite being a GOP-led bill is Senate Bill 273, which seeks to establish a employer-employee partnership, splitting child care costs between employees, employers and the DCY.
“It has become clear that urgent legislative action is needed to address the affordability and availability of child care in Ohio,” S.B. 273 sponsor state Sen. Michele Reynolds, R-Canal Winchester, said in a press conference on the bill back in May when it was introduced.
The bill had its second hearing in mid-November in the Senate Workforce and Higher Education Committee.
Because the GA is reaching its final month, should the measures not receive approval before the end of December, they would have to be reintroduced next year.
