Senator Gardner, members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to address early childhood and public education issues on behalf of Ohio’s most vulnerable citizens. I am Eileen Cooper Reed, Executive Director of Children's Defense Fund-Ohio. The Children's Defense Fund exists to Leave No Child Behind® and to ensure that every Ohio child has a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a moral start and a safe start and safe passage to adulthood with caring families and communities. We do not accept government funds and are a not-for-profit organization.

Ohio has a proud history of being number one in the nation in providing state-funded Head Start to our most poor and vulnerable children. Ohio has also been a leader in developing partnerships between local Head Start agencies and child care providers. These partnerships provide children with the benefits of Head Start’s educational programming and comprehensive services while also providing full-day/full-year care that keeps parents working.

The Governor has proposed, and the House supported, a program called Head Start Plus. This proposal causes us two primary concerns:

1. All providers agree that a full-day, full year program costs more than the $8,000 per child proposed.
2. The Head Start Plus proposal would add an additional layer of bureaucracy by requiring County Departments of Job and Family services to determine eligibility when they have never before been involved.

We agree with the language in House Bill 95 that calls for the Legislative Office of Education Oversight to conduct a review of the partnership agreements between a Head Start provider and a provider of child care or day care services. This review process should be completed before any significant changes are made to the state Head Start program.

We also request that Ohio pilot recognized best practices before full implementation of any Head Start Plus changes; maintain performance standards in order to clearly define what comprehensive services are necessary for the program; and adequately monitor program performance.

We applaud efforts by the Departments of Education and Jobs and Family Services to create a seamless early childhood system and to improve our state-funded Head Start program. However, we should not do so in the midst of a state budget process already complicated by huge deficits.

If Ohio values early care and education as a state imperative, the State ought to do what business and other disciplines and fields have done routinely; acknowledge the importance of long-term planning and develop incremental strategies aligned to the long-term plan. Stated differently, it is having a dream and developing sequentially and systematically the process to achieve it.

Developing individual programs is not sufficient to address the multiple needs of young children and their families. Ohio can develop the infrastructure, resources, and leadership necessary to create a coordinated system of services and supports to address these needs. There are long-term planning efforts underway in Ohio that are moving in this direction.

I had the honor of serving on the Ohio State Board of Education’s Achievement Gap Task Force. The Task Force put forward a number of recommendations designed to address the disparate rate of passage on the Ohio Proficiency Tests among different groups of students. The Task Force recognized that education reform is short-sighted if it does not reform early childhood education.

High-quality early care and education prepares a child to enter school ready to learn, but to close achievement gaps, teachers must be ready to teach and school administrators must be ready to lead. Classroom instruction and school leadership are absolutely critical in improving student achievement.

Unfortunately, not every school and district in Ohio is staffed with highly-skilled teachers and administrators. Districts with the greatest disparities in achievement often have the most difficult time attracting and retaining highly-qualified staff. Improving teachers’ and administrators’ knowledge and skills to raise the academic performance of all students will require dedicated and targeted professional development. We urge you to fully restore the funding for professional development to the levels recommended in the Governor’s proposal.

In addition, we applaud the House’s intent to hold school districts accountable for student attendance and subsequent achievement. However, shifting the basic funding formula from one using Average Daily Membership to Average Daily Attendance and adjusting the amount received by school districts on a monthly basis would be disastrous to the operation of any school system.

The basic aid provided by the State largely funds fixed costs. School employees are hired on an annual basis. School buildings are open and maintained through the entire school year. Textbooks are purchased and distributed to enrolled students whether those students attend every day or not.

Any reduction in the basic funding formula, such as the one arising from the move from ADM to ADA, would make the interventions and recommendations proposed by the Achievement Gap Task Force largely undoable. We respectfully request, then, that Ohio maintain Average Daily Membership until the Governor’s proposed Blue Ribbon Panel on Financing Student Success is able to study a variety of attendance and funding models and make an informed recommendation to the legislature.

As you well know, Ohio’s constitution requires a balanced state budget. We believe that investments in both high-quality early care and education and K-12 public education are appropriate and imperative for this State. The Governor’s revenue proposals took a significant step toward reforming the state tax code. Unfortunately, the House’s revenue proposals are insufficient to resolve Ohio’s structural deficit and continue the trend of shifting Ohio’s tax burden from corporations to middle and income taxpayers. We ask that you reconsider the Governor’s tax proposals and take action to raise revenues in a fair and equitable manner that invests in our most precious commodity – our children and their families.

In closing, Children’s Defense Fund Ohio will continue to advocate for the interests of children and parents in our state. We welcome any opportunity to work with the legislature to help ensure the integrity and accessibility to quality Head Start/child care partnerships and to ensure that every child in Ohio has an opportunity to achieve academic success. Thank you for this opportunity to testify before the Committee. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

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