[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 85 (Monday, June 24, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5958-S5959]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. EDWARDS for (himself, Mr. DeWine, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Dodd, 
        Ms. Collins, and Mrs. Clinton):
  S. 2671. A bill to amend the Child Care and Development Block Grant 
Act of 1990 to provide for child care quality improvements for children 
with disabilities or other special needs, and for other purposes; to 
the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. EDWARDS. Madam President, I rise today to join with my colleague 
and friend, Senator Mike DeWine, to announce the introduction of 
legislation that will meaningfully improve the lives and well-being of 
children with disabilities and other special needs, their parents, and 
the child care providers who care for them.
  In recent years our commitment to helping working families afford 
child care has grown significantly through discretionary and 
nondiscretionary allocations under the Child Care and Development Fund, 
CCDF, and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF, program. 
From a total Federal outlay of $2.5 billion in 1997, spending on child 
care through CCDF and TANF grew to $6.5 billion in 2000. When added to 
state spending, total Federal and State investments in child care 
assistance reached $9.0 billion in 2000. This figure represents a 
historic commitment to affordable, high quality child care in America, 
and I applaud all of my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, whose 
support made the current levels of child care assistance possible. But 
the past, as they say, is behind us, reauthorization for CCDF and TANF 
is looming. It is vitally important for us to understand what our 
federal and state investments have bought us as we undertake the 
difficult job of renewing this legislation.
  Sadly, despite our historic Federal investments in world-class child 
care, the services available for too many hard-working families are 
neither affordable nor of very high quality. Though 1.8 million 
children received assistance in 1999, the Department of Health and 
Human Services estimated that 14.75 million children were eligible.
  Let me repeat that, in 1999, a little under 13 million children were 
living in working families poor enough to qualify for assistance under 
CCDF but got no help because no funds were available. Put another way, 
only 12 percent of eligible children received assistance. And that 12 
percent figure reflects 1999 data at the height of a historic economic 
expansion that is now long past. The numbers of eligible families have 
undoubtedly grown, our commitments have not. We need to put the full 
effect of what we're talking about in context. The average cost of 
child care in America exceeds $4,000 per year. That's often more than 
the cost of tuition at many of our state colleges. $4,000 per year. For 
the working families with kids who are eligible, whose family income 
falls somewhere under 85 percent of the state median income level, but 
who never receive assistance, how in the world do we expect them to 
cope? For

[[Page S5959]]

most of my constituents, $4,000 is a lot of money. When I talk to 
parents in North Carolina about the challenges they face, I can assure 
you, affordable child care is an issue parents worry a lot about.
  Finally, what does ``affordable'' child care look like? By that, I 
mean the child care that working parents can actually afford. The data 
on child care quality is daunting--85 percent of child care in America 
is rated as poor to mediocre. I invite my colleagues to think about a 
single young child, someone under 5, say, who they know personally. 
Perhaps someone in their family.
  Would anyone in this body willingly permit a child to spend even one 
minute in a care setting described as ``poor to mediocre''? Think about 
what that means for a healthy, growing infant or toddler. Young brains 
are developing, synaptic connections forming. The child's verbal and 
motor skills are actively expanding, growing, testing limits. 
Scientists tell us that there is a fairly direct and crucial 
relationship between the time and quality of interaction with adult 
caregivers and the healthy social and psychological development of a 
young child. Enriched early learning is not a luxury. A child who 
spends its critical early years in ``poor to mediocre'' care is like a 
runner who starts the race 20 yards behind the block. For the rest of 
his or her life, that child will be trying to catch up. And that's not 
fair. Now imagine if that same child had a disability. If he or she had 
cerebral palsy, or a sight impairment, or a learning disorder, or 
autism. A healthy child might be able to overcome a poor to mediocre 
start in life, but some of our most vulnerable children may not.
  As you might expect, it is more costly for child care providers to 
serve children with disabilities or other special needs. But often, 
states are under pressure to serve the record numbers of families who 
need child care assistance, and additional resources for children with 
disabilities or other special needs are not available. In many 
instances, providers simply are not able or willing to take on the 
unique challenges of caring for a disabled child. Children's advocates 
and parents of children with disabilities have reported significant 
shortages of affordable, high quality child care for children with 
disabilities and other special needs. These findings have been affirmed 
by the General Accounting Office, the Institute of Medicine, and the 
National Research Council.
  Low-income children are particularly at risk. Children in low-income 
families are more likely to be disabled than children in higher income 
families. Children who are poor are twice as likely to have a 
significant disability than their middle and upper income counterparts. 
A 2000 report based on interviews with California welfare recipients in 
1992 and 1996 found that almost 20 percent of the families had at least 
one child who has a disability or illness. Low-income children also 
tend to live in poorer neighborhoods, compounding their lack of 
resources with the lack of readily available child care for special 
needs populations. As the GAO reported in 2001, ``low-income 
neighborhoods tend to have less overall child care supply as well as 
less supply for [special needs kids] than do higher-income 
neighborhoods.''
  Finally, many child care providers require additional training and 
other resources necessary to deliver appropriate care, or to understand 
or comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, or other 
applicable state or Federal standards.
  The Nurturing Special Kids Act of 2002 would: set aside additional 
CCDF funding, after the Quality Set-Aside is funded, to expand access 
to affordable, high-quality child care for children with disabilities 
or other special needs; support child care programs that accept 
children with disabilities or other special needs; provide higher 
reimbursement rates to child care providers that reflect the additional 
cost of specialized care in the State; fund consultations by providers 
with licensed professionals to improve identification of children with 
disabilities or other special needs, and strengthen providers' ability 
to care for children with disabilities or other special needs; provide 
a comprehensive system of training and technical assistance to enable 
child care providers to better care for children with disabilities or 
other special needs, including compliance with ADA and other regulatory 
requirements; provide grants for recruitment and retention of qualified 
staff; and provide grant funding for public agencies and private non-
profits for projects that increase the availability of inclusive child 
care programs, up to 50 percent special needs kids.
  Most of us were elected to the Senate for one purpose: to stand for 
the vulnerable and for the defenseless when we make decisions that 
shape our society's future. To ensure that, whatever we do, we secure 
for all Americans, no matter their physical or mental disability or 
other impairment, the capacity to grow and succeed to the limits of 
their potential.
  I join with my friend, Senator DeWine, in introducing the Nurturing 
Special Kids Act of 2002, and I invite my colleagues to share this 
responsibility in support of affordable, high quality child care for 
children with disabilities or other special needs.
  Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, I rise today with my colleague and 
friend from North Carolina, Senator Edwards, to introduce the Nurturing 
Special Kids Act of 2002. Our bill would expand access to affordable, 
high quality childcare for children with disabilities or other special 
needs.
  We need this bill, because the reality is that children from low-
income families are more likely to have disabilities or other special 
needs. They are twice as likely as children from higher-income families 
to have a significant disability, nearly twice as likely to have 
serious mental or physical disabilities, and 1.3 times as likely to 
have learning disabilities.
  Parents and the disability community continually report significant 
shortages in affordable, high quality specialized childcare for 
children with disabilities and other unique needs. Specialized 
childcare is costly to deliver and often requires additional training 
for caregivers. Furthermore, many childcare centers simply cannot 
afford to create a setting that is accessible for disabled children or 
equipped to meet the physical or emotional challenges of these 
children.
  Our legislation would help remedy this by providing technical 
assistance to help families locate specialized care. Additionally, the 
bill sets aside a portion of the Childcare and Development Block Grant 
funds specifically for special needs care. This funding could be used 
to increase a special needs child voucher, or enable states to provide 
specialized training to better understand a child's disability, provide 
proper care, or set up centers designed to provide specialized care to 
children with particular conditions, like autism, Down Syndrome, or 
Cerebral Palsy. Additionally, our bill help disabled children, but it 
also would help all children with special needs by providing technical 
assistance to help families locate specialized care.
  No one can replace a parent, but parents who work outside the home 
need to feel confident that the people caring for their children are 
giving them the same type of love and support that they would provide. 
In the case of a disabled child, parents also want to make sure that 
the caretakers of their children are trained to deal with special 
needs.
  This bill is necessary to ensure that when parents work, they have 
access to quality care. I urge my colleagues to join us in support.
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