Speaker 1: The trip Cast is brought to you by members of
Speaker 1: the Texas Tribune. Hello and welcome to the Texas Tribune
Speaker 1: trip Cast for December second, twenty twenty five. I am
Speaker 1: Matthew Watkins, editor in chief of the Texts Tribune, joined
Speaker 1: as usual by Eleanor Klibanoff Law and Politics reporter.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I got a little bit. I'm sure that I got
Speaker 1: through yah. We are joined this week by K through
Speaker 1: twelve reporter Jaden Edison.
Speaker 3: Hey, Jaden Greens. Hello, how are y'all?
Speaker 2: We were discussing in the newsroom. How great this sweatshirt looks.
Speaker 1: On It is a sweater trip cast.
Speaker 3: You're not watching on YouTube?
Speaker 4: This is one to watch on you.
Speaker 3: We look so cozy.
Speaker 5: Anybody in Texas just waiting on his weather so we
Speaker 5: can put out our winter fits?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Also joining us and also in a sweater, is David Fagan,
Speaker 1: director of Early Learning policy with Texans Care for Children.
Speaker 4: Hello, David, Hey, good to see y'all, and I was
Speaker 4: delighted to see you all also in sweaters. I didn't
Speaker 4: know how I was gonna dress for this, but I
Speaker 4: feel good, I feel welcome, and I feel cozy, So
Speaker 4: I need to.
Speaker 1: Talk David, the first Trip Cast guest to have played
Speaker 1: basketball with me.
Speaker 3: Oh wow wow. On five and five.
Speaker 1: It was an old game back in the day again,
Speaker 1: started by former Texas reporter now for the New York Times,
Speaker 1: Brian Rosenthal. We would play a weekly Saturday game Sunday game.
Speaker 1: Games still going on, although David David left us quit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know, the invite stopped coming. I think
Speaker 4: maybe I played too well or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the standard is too high.
Speaker 3: I love it, I get it.
Speaker 4: I don't want to embarrass anybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, we'll move on.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe someday we'll have robbed down in on
Speaker 1: the show and we talk about my vicious block of
Speaker 1: him and the one toy he played in that game too.
Speaker 3: He still talks about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why he left the Texas Tribune.
Speaker 3: It is, yes, because I kept bringing it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, but that's not what we're talking about today,
Speaker 1: although maybe we can talk.
Speaker 3: A little bit more about it.
Speaker 1: Of the conversation tapes and said we were going to
Speaker 1: talk about early childhood care early learning, a topic near
Speaker 1: and dear to the hearts of many working parents such
Speaker 1: as myself and David as we were talking about earlier
Speaker 1: before we started on. If you are a parent in
Speaker 1: Texas where both parents work, you know about the challenges
Speaker 1: of finding adequate care for your children. I remember when
Speaker 1: I was in Dallas when we had our first kid.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the first things you are told
Speaker 1: is a soon to be parent, is you better get
Speaker 1: on a childcare wait list as soon as possible. Many
Speaker 1: of the places in Dallas at the time the wait
Speaker 1: list was more than nine months, So you actually needed
Speaker 1: to get onto the wait list when you were thinking
Speaker 1: about having a kid, not even when you found out
Speaker 1: you were going to have a kid. The problem even
Speaker 1: worse in rural areas or for low income Texans. I
Speaker 1: am going to cite a stat that is from David
Speaker 1: that says that eighty eight percent of working families with
Speaker 1: low incomes live in childcare deserts, where demand is three
Speaker 1: times greater than the availability of high quality childcare seats.
Speaker 1: Two notable things happened this legislative session in this regard,
Speaker 1: the first one being the legislature approved one hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars toward childcare scholarships in an effort to shrink the
Speaker 1: nearly ninety five thousand member waiting list for those scholarships.
Speaker 1: The money was spent, the waiting list did not shrink,
Speaker 1: thanks in large part to increased childcare costs. We'll get
Speaker 1: into that here in a little bit. Second, the state
Speaker 1: voted a little bit more not under the radar politically,
Speaker 1: but under the radar toward this issue to approve a
Speaker 1: one billion dollar school voucher program. It was designed and
Speaker 1: touted as a way to use state dollars to help
Speaker 1: kids pay for their private school tuition. But what was
Speaker 1: not discussed as much was that the vouchers can also
Speaker 1: be used for private pre k something that the comptroller
Speaker 1: confirmed last week, so that could be a major change.
Speaker 1: But I want to start first with you, David, on
Speaker 1: this scholarship issue. Lay out for me, first of all,
Speaker 1: just what this program was and how it works. Just
Speaker 1: you know how it has worked over the years.
Speaker 4: So the Childcare Services program is managed by the Texas
Speaker 4: Workforce Commission, and it does so because it helps parents
Speaker 4: go to work. And the Workforce Commission is proud to
Speaker 4: have this as the largest line item of its budget
Speaker 4: is supporting this program. It provides financial aid, also known
Speaker 4: as scholarships or subsidies to eligible families who meet work
Speaker 4: and income requirements have a child under the age of thirteen.
Speaker 4: It gives them financial assistance so that they can go
Speaker 4: to work and their children can thrive in really high
Speaker 4: quality childcare programs. There's about thirty thousand Texas employers right
Speaker 4: now who have somebody working there who's there because they
Speaker 4: have access to one of these scholarships. So we know
Speaker 4: this is a really important program for the Texas economy
Speaker 4: and for Texas families. The funding has primarily come from
Speaker 4: the federal government the Childcare and Development Block Grant the
Speaker 4: Congress provides, but states around the country have infused additional
Speaker 4: dollars to serve more families. Prior to last session, Texas
Speaker 4: was not one of those states. Texas took the federal money,
Speaker 4: spent it, but did not add in any state dollars
Speaker 4: to serve more parents. We were excited that last session
Speaker 4: that changed, and as you said, one hundred million new
Speaker 4: dollars got invested into this program to serve more families,
Speaker 4: and we're excited that win happened, that it was bipartisan,
Speaker 4: But as we'll talk about, there's a lot more work
Speaker 4: to do to actually serve more families and bring down
Speaker 4: the very long wait list for that program, which sits
Speaker 4: at around one hundred thousand kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you talk a little bit about just the
Speaker 1: discussion about this during the legislative session. I mean, I
Speaker 1: gave sort of my own personal experience at the top
Speaker 1: of the show. But you know, was it a reflection
Speaker 1: of the childcare problems in Texas that led to this
Speaker 1: larger infusion of cash and how was that problem discussed
Speaker 1: among lawmakers and people who came to the capital to
Speaker 1: advocate for this.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I have been working on this issue
Speaker 4: in Earnest really since two thousand and seventeen or so,
Speaker 4: and I've sort of watched the journey of this in
Speaker 4: the Texas legislature where back then the conversation around childcare
Speaker 4: was almost exclusively on ensuring minimum health and safety standards
Speaker 4: were met by childcare programs. It was you guys might
Speaker 4: recall a big expose that was done by the Austin
Speaker 4: American statesmen around you know, children who had died in
Speaker 4: childcare programs, and that led to a series of reforms
Speaker 4: to try to crack down on unlicensed care. You know,
Speaker 4: there was some efforts to improve the nutrition standards in
Speaker 4: childcare but over the last few years there's really been
Speaker 4: a shift where lawmakers have understood, you know, we have
Speaker 4: a role too and actually ensuring families can afford high
Speaker 4: quality childcare, that the childcare that they can afford is
Speaker 4: not just safe, but supporting children's school readiness. And so
Speaker 4: going into session for really the first time, it was
Speaker 4: very clear that childcare was on the agenda. Both the
Speaker 4: House and Senate held interim hearings trying to tackle ways
Speaker 4: in which we can address this during the session. In
Speaker 4: my time, the Senate had never had a hearing on
Speaker 4: this topic during the interim, and so we knew that
Speaker 4: it was going to be a big priority. We didn't
Speaker 4: know how that would manifest, and you know, we worked
Speaker 4: with partners to really bring up this issue of the
Speaker 4: wait list, that there's children who are eligible for this
Speaker 4: program but are waiting for six months to two years
Speaker 4: because they're the lack of funds. This is not a
Speaker 4: program where every child who's eligible gets served. There's a
Speaker 4: certain number of scholarships we fund, and after that you
Speaker 4: have to wait for somebody to come off the program.
Speaker 4: And so there are families waiting because we don't have
Speaker 4: enough funds. You know, we told the stories not just
Speaker 4: of families who were struggling, but the families who actually
Speaker 4: benefited from this program. You know, we talked to a
Speaker 4: mom who was literally homeless before she got access to
Speaker 4: one of these scholarships. She was able to work a
Speaker 4: couple hours a week cleaning houses with her baby strapped
Speaker 4: to her because she had no childcare. She eventually got
Speaker 4: a scholarship. Now she's working full time, she's housed, and
Speaker 4: her child is in a really high quality program here
Speaker 4: in Austin. And we were able to tell stories like
Speaker 4: that and say, look at all of this program is achieving.
Speaker 4: Don't we want to see more Texas families benefit in
Speaker 4: the ways that these parents have. And so, you know,
Speaker 4: we also told the stories of frankly, lots of Republican
Speaker 4: led states around the country who to Texas and was
Speaker 4: really investing. And so between that, I think we were
Speaker 4: able to make a winning case that investing in this
Speaker 4: program is research based, it's popular, it's it's something we
Speaker 4: can do very simply in serving more parents. And so
Speaker 4: we were able to get that win. And I will
Speaker 4: say that the leadership of Representative Armando Wally was really key,
Speaker 4: as well as the speaker of the House and you know,
Speaker 4: the Appropriations Center finance chair chair women, chairwoman, and chairman.
Speaker 4: So it was a big bipartisan win for sure.
Speaker 2: Two things I sort of want to get your your
Speaker 2: read on is like what shifted this conversation and move
Speaker 2: childcare into the more like mainstream political conversation here. Yeah,
Speaker 2: one being you know, the thing I covered for a
Speaker 2: long time, which was the you know, ban on abortion
Speaker 2: and sort of this attention that Republican lawmakers sort of
Speaker 2: felt called to address, you know, women's health issues, supporting families,
Speaker 2: sort of making good on some of these promises that
Speaker 2: they brought to bear, which sort of I've searched seen
Speaker 2: that play out of the last couple of years. The
Speaker 2: other one being, though that I'm not as clear on,
Speaker 2: is like the COVID pandemic and the way that that
Speaker 2: sort of felt like suddenly we were all talking about
Speaker 2: childcare in a way we hadn't been before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're totally right. I mean it's not just in Texas.
Speaker 4: There was you know, we wrote a policy brief around
Speaker 4: as I mentioned, how different Republican led states have addressed
Speaker 4: this issue, and what you'll find is a lot of
Speaker 4: their big investments came right on the heels of you know,
Speaker 4: right after the pandemics sort of began in twenty one
Speaker 4: or in twenty twenty three, and so there has been
Speaker 4: an explosion of attention on this. I think there's a
Speaker 4: few reasons. One is the need for childcare became quite
Speaker 4: clear to people, many of whom were home with their
Speaker 4: kids all day. If their childcare program had to close,
Speaker 4: or you know, they had to take time off work
Speaker 4: to be with their kids at home, I think the
Speaker 4: need for childcare became very visible. The other thing that
Speaker 4: I think was really important was the federal government, under
Speaker 4: both the Trump administration and the Biden administrations, invested significant
Speaker 4: federal dollars into states to stabilize childcare. And what we
Speaker 4: found was that worked. It turned out that spending a
Speaker 4: lot of money to ensure that programs can retain staff,
Speaker 4: that they can receive funding so they don't have to
Speaker 4: rt increase costs on parents, that that's a very popular
Speaker 4: and effective way to help families go to work. So
Speaker 4: a lot of states saw once those federal dollars ran out,
Speaker 4: said what can we do to fill the gaps? And
Speaker 4: I think that it essentially served as an unintentional pilot
Speaker 4: program where states got to see, hey, if we invest
Speaker 4: money into these programs, we can get really good returns.
Speaker 4: And I think that's essentially opened the valve of investments
Speaker 4: that we're now seeing across the country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think also worth at least making the
Speaker 1: point that there has been a political shift, there's been
Speaker 1: a willingness to invest more money on this. You know,
Speaker 1: it was one hundred million dollars, which is a big investment.
Speaker 1: You know, the state did spend fifty one billion dollars
Speaker 1: on reducing property taxes this year, so there's there's something
Speaker 1: about the priorities there. But it's also worth pointing out
Speaker 1: that as your report on this, David noted that this
Speaker 1: money was you know, not actually state money that was
Speaker 1: being added to this. It was unspent federal dollars from
Speaker 1: the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. That basically there
Speaker 1: was this pot of money that Texas had that had
Speaker 1: sort of decided not to spend, not to find a
Speaker 1: use for, and then they kind of decided, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: we should use it to boost this scholarship program.
Speaker 4: That's right. Yeah, it took quite a journey. The House
Speaker 4: passed in its budget one hundred million of state dollars
Speaker 4: that it evolved into, as you say, these unexpended tan
Speaker 4: OF funds. Our opinion on this, frankly is that the
Speaker 4: parents who will benefit won't really know the difference that
Speaker 4: it came from an unspent tantiff pot or an unspent
Speaker 4: general revenue pot. I think that the point is lawmakers
Speaker 4: found a way to make this investment, and we know that,
Speaker 4: you know, states across the country are using TANAF dollars
Speaker 4: for this purpose, so it's not a stretch to say
Speaker 4: that this is a really valid use of those dollars
Speaker 4: when we have them. I think that moving forward, we
Speaker 4: should look at that uninspent tant IF pot as a
Speaker 4: way to fund this program, but also state general revenue
Speaker 4: and continue to explore other revenue streams because this problem
Speaker 4: is significant. This is not something that is a one
Speaker 4: session fix or a even one funding stream strategy. We
Speaker 4: have to figure out how to make investments at the
Speaker 4: state level, the local level. Philanthropy is going to continue
Speaker 4: to play a role. It's going to take a lot
Speaker 4: of resources to really get this problem addressed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're sort of addressing what was going to be
Speaker 1: my next question. Which is how much of the need
Speaker 1: is this filling, how how much of this is moving
Speaker 1: the needle in terms of the childcare challenges in the state.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you talk about a wait list
Speaker 1: of ninety five thousand kids, I would imagine there's a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot, a lot more families that you know are
Speaker 1: struggling to pay for childcare in Texas.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no question. I mean, you know, maybe I'm burying
Speaker 4: the lead a little that, you know, we hoped that
Speaker 4: this investment, because of estimates that were provided by the
Speaker 4: Texas Workforce Commission during the legislative session, would essentially allow
Speaker 4: us to serve around ten thousand more children in the program.
Speaker 4: That was their estimates during the legislative session. However, after
Speaker 4: the legislative session, the Workforce Commission partners with the University
Speaker 4: of Texas, who conducts a survey to essentially figure out
Speaker 4: how much each of these scholarships costs, and that's based
Speaker 4: on the market rate of childcare. And what they unfortunately
Speaker 4: found was childcare costs are continuing to skyrocket and what
Speaker 4: that means is that the cost of scholarships skyrockets. And
Speaker 4: it's a simple math equation if each scholarship costs more,
Speaker 4: you can you know, you can't provide as many without
Speaker 4: increasing the amount of funds. So this hundred million dollars
Speaker 4: was just as essential as we thought it would be. Unfortunately, though,
Speaker 4: it was to prevent a reduction of the number of
Speaker 4: scholarships rather than to serve more families. So in fact,
Speaker 4: the urgency was actually even greater than maybe we presented
Speaker 4: during the legislative session, that we were actually at risk
Speaker 4: of having to serve fewer children in this program. Fortunately
Speaker 4: lawmakers came together to make this investment, but it's a
Speaker 4: reminder that we have so much more work to do
Speaker 4: to actually serve more parents in the program.
Speaker 2: So if one hundred million dollars sort of held the
Speaker 2: line or prevented, you know, this program from taking a
Speaker 2: step back. Is there like a dollar amount you guys
Speaker 2: see that would like what would it cost to make
Speaker 2: that weightless zero?
Speaker 4: You know, our goal has not been to make the
Speaker 4: weightless zero. I think that you know, even during the
Speaker 4: legislative session, we really tried to convey that the goal
Speaker 4: is to serve more families. You know, we can increase
Speaker 4: the wait lists just by doing a better marketing campaign, right,
Speaker 4: and that doesn't necessarily, but if we're serving more families,
Speaker 4: I think that's really the goal. So for us, I
Speaker 4: think we need to take this, you know, one step
Speaker 4: at a time and understand that it's going to take
Speaker 4: a number of years, a number of it's gonna take
Speaker 4: the state level, the federal level, the local level to
Speaker 4: really address this problem. In earnest, it's going to take
Speaker 4: us providing more funding for scholarships, but also doing more
Speaker 4: to bring down the cost of childcare so that this
Speaker 4: cost for scholarships doesn't continue to rise. You know, childcare
Speaker 4: programs are facing increased costs across the board, and parents
Speaker 4: are bearing the brunt of that right now. So we
Speaker 4: need to be able to tackle this one step at
Speaker 4: a time. I think we made good progress this legislative session,
Speaker 4: but lawmakers, I hope we're getting used to talking about
Speaker 4: this issue because it's not a one session conversation. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: there's a lot more work to do.
Speaker 3: Before we move on.
Speaker 1: Can you just clarify, just to make sure I understand
Speaker 1: it correctly, who's eligible for this program?
Speaker 3: How do you get it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's based on income. It's essentially eighty five
Speaker 4: percent of state median income, right, and you have to
Speaker 4: have a child under the age of thirteen. You have
Speaker 4: to be working or in job training, so there are
Speaker 4: work requirements in their income requirements. We also prioritize scholarships
Speaker 4: based on a number of factors, including if you have
Speaker 4: a child with a disability, or The legislature also passed
Speaker 4: to build a session that actually, if you're a child
Speaker 4: of a childcare educator, that you're part of this priority list.
Speaker 4: So we have priorities among those eligible children. But eighty
Speaker 4: five percent of state median income is what that main
Speaker 4: eligibility is. So a lot of families are eligible, but
Speaker 4: unfortunately the number of scholarships does not meet the demand.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine there's a lot of families that
Speaker 1: don't even know that this programming exists.
Speaker 2: Said you could double the weight list, probably with a
Speaker 2: good marketing campaign.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, exactly.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's pause for a second to hear from our sponsors.
Speaker 1: Then I want to bring Jaden in to talk about
Speaker 1: the school voucher angle to this. You can give every
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Speaker 3: Right, Jaden.
Speaker 1: So we talked about one hundred million dollars toward these
Speaker 1: scholarships through the Texas Workforce Commission. Of course, ten times
Speaker 1: that amount was allocated toward school vouchers. The big brunt
Speaker 1: of that conversation, the big conversation among lawmakers advocates of
Speaker 1: this was that this is needed for you know, parents
Speaker 1: who have their kids in public schools, you know, over
Speaker 1: the age of five, who maybe are unhappy or not
Speaker 1: being served well by those schools, wanting to get state
Speaker 1: help to go to private schools. Less discussed was the
Speaker 1: issue that has now come up since the state Controller
Speaker 1: has been in charge of setting the rules for how
Speaker 1: this money will be dispersed, and that is money that
Speaker 1: goes to three and four year rolds to go to
Speaker 1: PreK programs, particularly private PreK programs that you know are
Speaker 1: run you know, all all across the state. Tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about that discussion and where the state
Speaker 1: landed on the issue.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I think it's important to understand kind of
Speaker 5: the process and the way things have played out. Right,
Speaker 5: So the law passes, which obviously says to framework for
Speaker 5: kind of how this is supposed to work. Now the comptroller,
Speaker 5: you know, Texas chief financial officers tasked with, hey, here's
Speaker 5: the law, here's the framework, now put this into action.
Speaker 5: Design kind of a set of basically rules that will
Speaker 5: allow you know, parents to be able to understand, for example,
Speaker 5: what kind of documentation you need to submit, how certain
Speaker 5: processes will work, things that it kind of gets into
Speaker 5: the details in the way that the law doesn't, right.
Speaker 5: And so what we've seen since the passage of the
Speaker 5: law was very much that process.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: There was the introduction of proposed rules and also a
Speaker 5: public comment period for people Texans all across you know,
Speaker 5: to you know, for their insight and say hey, here's
Speaker 5: what we like, what we don't like, what you should change,
Speaker 5: what you shouldn't. And so what's happened in that process
Speaker 5: is that during the public coming period, they were about
Speaker 5: roughly two hundred to three hundred comments, right, and we reviewed.
Speaker 5: We were all the ones we could get right with
Speaker 5: about two hundreds. So and what we kept seeing was
Speaker 5: the overwhelming majority of those comments seemed to be from
Speaker 5: private pre K providers who were saying, hey, comtroller, you
Speaker 5: seem to have made a mistake, right, And what we're
Speaker 5: seeing in the rules that you proposed, was that private
Speaker 5: pre K you know families or you know pre K
Speaker 5: families in general, you kind of allocated and put them
Speaker 5: in the bucket of two thousand dollars per student, which
Speaker 5: under the law is actually designated for homeschool students. And
Speaker 5: what the argument was is that, hey, the law is
Speaker 5: pretty clear, you know, pre K students are eligible for
Speaker 5: the full roughly ten thousand dollars amounts that you set
Speaker 5: aside for everybody else outside of homeschool. And so basically
Speaker 5: it went through that process and we arrived at you
Speaker 5: know where we did and the most in last week basically,
Speaker 5: which was the comtroller, you know, after going through the process,
Speaker 5: you know, going through the law and honestly hearing from
Speaker 5: the bill authors as well, basically setting in stone that hey,
Speaker 5: you guys are right. It is the full ten thousand
Speaker 5: dollars amount and as long as students kind of meet
Speaker 5: what are currently the free public pre K requirements, they
Speaker 5: are they're eligible for the full ten thousand dollars amount now.
Speaker 5: And just for clarification, for free public pre K, it's
Speaker 5: more of kind of a you know, for students for example,
Speaker 5: who are on free and reduced lunch students who you
Speaker 5: know are not fluent in English per se. If you're
Speaker 5: a child of a public school teacher or you know
Speaker 5: someone in the military, right, you be eligible. So there
Speaker 5: is a more kind of type framework around that. But
Speaker 5: basically that's kind of how we landed at where we
Speaker 5: are now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I remember being a parent right and
Speaker 1: Zeomike daycare and being sort of shocked at the idea
Speaker 1: of I'm paying more in daycare tuition then I would
Speaker 1: be paying to send my kid for tuition to go
Speaker 1: to a state university in the state, right, Like, this
Speaker 1: is a massive cost. And I think this idea, I
Speaker 1: can certainly see why a lot of daycares, a lot
Speaker 1: of people would be saying, like, if you can make
Speaker 1: this ten thousand dollars available to us imediately, you know,
Speaker 1: pre K is a only a couple of years in
Speaker 1: that pre to five year you know, kindergarten time, that's
Speaker 1: that's a major benefit opportunity for families, you know, upper
Speaker 1: middle class families at but especially lower income families and
Speaker 1: things like that.
Speaker 3: What was the argument.
Speaker 1: Did they explain why they initially proposed spending less for
Speaker 1: those parents?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know what, It's interesting because there was a
Speaker 5: lot of conversations about this. I really don't think it
Speaker 5: was anything like intentional per se, right. I think what
Speaker 5: happened was and that's why you kind of have the
Speaker 5: rule making process was that you know, this was their interpretation.
Speaker 5: And really, when you go back and look the law, like,
Speaker 5: if you're looking for it, it is clear to say, right
Speaker 5: pre k ten k. But if you were, you know,
Speaker 5: to the average person just kind of glancing through, unless
Speaker 5: you were specifically looking for that, it maybe wouldn't be
Speaker 5: something that's the most apparent. And so in the controller
Speaker 5: has been very clear Acting Controller Kelly Hancock, you know,
Speaker 5: he said publicly right like, we're going to follow the
Speaker 5: intent of the law. And so it wasn't necessarily surprising
Speaker 5: to me that they changed it to the full ten thousand.
Speaker 5: I always expect that that would be the case, and
Speaker 5: I just think that this was just a situation where
Speaker 5: you go through the rule making process and you know,
Speaker 5: you had Representative Brad Buckley and then former Senator Creighton's
Speaker 5: now Texas Tech chancellor who submitted written as someone to said, hey,
Speaker 5: here's kind of just to clear up many confusion, here's
Speaker 5: what we were intending with this and then throughout the process,
Speaker 5: you know, they made the adjustment. And so again I
Speaker 5: don't think it was anything that was like intentionally we
Speaker 5: wanted to be this. It just seemed to be more
Speaker 5: again from my perspective that there are so many aspects
Speaker 5: of the law, and so the rule making process allowed
Speaker 5: them to kind of get it right as intended.
Speaker 2: There's always sort of that period. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: it comes up of like more and controversial ways than this,
Speaker 2: But where the you know, what the legislators wrote into
Speaker 2: the law and how the people on the ground actually
Speaker 2: have to enact it. Sometimes it's like they're not necessarily
Speaker 2: seeing all of the potential roadblocks and then putting into action.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, okay, you like not change the law,
Speaker 2: but look at the what the intent was at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you.
Speaker 5: I mean that was the one thing I was looking
Speaker 5: at with the rules, right, was how much will the
Speaker 5: controller on any issue right deviate from what the law
Speaker 5: says right?
Speaker 3: The law shits a foundation.
Speaker 5: Is the controller in a way going to go above
Speaker 5: and beyond kind of what that says?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: And so that's why I kind of land at the
Speaker 5: conclusion that I have because really on a number of
Speaker 5: issues the controller make clear and the way they actually structure,
Speaker 5: you know, the final rules. The office offered like actually
Speaker 5: like detailed commentary to almost like each comment submitted and
Speaker 5: explained its rationale for hey, here's why we're going to
Speaker 5: decline or accept this suggestion, and again it it. You know,
Speaker 5: I think it was pretty clear they you know, they
Speaker 5: made it clear that hey, here's you know what, here's
Speaker 5: what the law says. Is what the bill author says,
Speaker 5: so you know we'll follow that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just so struck when I learned about
Speaker 1: this kind of pre K option, about this and my reaction.
Speaker 1: I had a few different reactions. I'm going to sort
Speaker 1: of like throw them out there to y'all to get
Speaker 1: you to react to. The first one was just why
Speaker 1: didn't they talk about this when they were passing the bill?
Speaker 1: Because when this the knowing that it's available for private
Speaker 1: pre K, it feels to me like it opens up
Speaker 1: the pool of people who could benefit from this so
Speaker 1: much larger than it was before.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I'll just again bring my own experience in this. My
Speaker 1: kids go to public school. We're happy with our public school.
Speaker 1: We don't have any intentions of pulling them out of
Speaker 1: their public school. But my kids went to private pre K, right,
Speaker 1: and we would have been thrilled to join that. I
Speaker 1: would imagine that there's a lot of parents in that
Speaker 1: position now who maybe have no plans on sending their
Speaker 1: kids to private school, but are going to send their
Speaker 1: kids to the church down the street, or you know,
Speaker 1: some other kind of private you know, not associated with
Speaker 1: the school's system for pre K, who now might get
Speaker 1: significant help from this. So a just a little bit
Speaker 1: of confusion. Coalition, Yeah, why didn't you get those people
Speaker 1: on your side when you're advocating for this bill? But
Speaker 1: then also does this not create any concerns for the
Speaker 1: people who were advocating for this of we just dramatically
Speaker 1: increased the number of people who are going to want
Speaker 1: to have access to this program in a way that
Speaker 1: it's going to be a lot more competitive. And that
Speaker 1: one billion dollars we already knew was going to disappear
Speaker 1: pretty quickly, now maybe it will disappear.
Speaker 3: Even quicker than that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I think if that were to have in
Speaker 5: this state, would totally welcome that outcome, right in terms
Speaker 5: of the demand, and I think, you know, the expectation
Speaker 5: is that you know, demand forward will go above what
Speaker 5: the appropriations are and so the different priorities of KI
Speaker 5: can and things of that nature.
Speaker 3: Men.
Speaker 5: I will say, the one thing with the way they
Speaker 5: struggle it is that like it's not you know, just
Speaker 5: a you know, a mom and pop kind of PreK
Speaker 5: provider can can pop up, right, it does require that
Speaker 5: you know, what are called education service providers. So in
Speaker 5: this case, whoever the pre K provider is right, does
Speaker 5: kind of follow the existing requirements for private PreK providers,
Speaker 5: which could be for example, I think think it's accreditation
Speaker 5: with the state that or had wrote a couple down
Speaker 5: as well, it's like good standing with the Department of
Speaker 5: Family and Protective Services, you know, different partnerships with you
Speaker 5: know a lot of them have existing partnerships with districts
Speaker 5: and things of that nature. So the framework that already
Speaker 5: exists for private PreK providers is also the framework that
Speaker 5: you know, those who you know want to you know,
Speaker 5: take part in this program are also going to have
Speaker 5: to follow. But it's also to your point, it is interesting.
Speaker 5: I don't have the magic answer as to as to
Speaker 5: why they didn't talk about it as much. I mean,
Speaker 5: there were so many different aspects, and you would think too,
Speaker 5: it would have been a talking point given like a
Speaker 5: lot of the talk about public school pre K funding, right,
Speaker 5: which is a whole that's a whole other conversation, you
Speaker 5: know that we could have, you know, you could have
Speaker 5: a whole hour long discussion you know about that. But yeah,
Speaker 5: it was interesting, and again it was one of those
Speaker 5: things that unless you were specifically looking forward in the law,
Speaker 5: it wouldn't have been apparent to you because I think
Speaker 5: a lot of the focus from lawmakers was on homeschool students.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: It was two categories, right, you're you know, you're you're
Speaker 5: the average student who's going to get the average kind
Speaker 5: of ten thousand dollars or the up to thirty thousand
Speaker 5: if you know you're a student with the IEP, you know,
Speaker 5: student with a disability, and then the separate bucket for
Speaker 5: homeschool students. And so it wasn't kind of apparent again
Speaker 5: until you know, you go through two hundred and three
Speaker 5: hundred comments and literally clearly the private pre cab bodies
Speaker 5: knew about this because and they all copied and pasted
Speaker 5: the same messaging across the board. So clearly it was
Speaker 5: a very coordinated effort, and everybody kind of was in
Speaker 5: the know one kind of what was happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the other thing. My other reaction to this was Wow,
Speaker 1: this this has sort of stealthily become the biggest state
Speaker 1: investment in you know, these childcareage topics that we've seen.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, David, what your reaction to my reaction to
Speaker 1: that is, Like, am I right in thinking that that's
Speaker 1: possibly the case? How do you feel about this scenario?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's going to be really interesting because and
Speaker 4: you know, you asked the question of why this wasn't
Speaker 4: a bigger topic during the session, And I do think
Speaker 4: this is something we run into in early childood education
Speaker 4: all the time, which is anytime it's a K through
Speaker 4: twelve discussion and pre K has implications. These sorts of
Speaker 4: issues pop up because the way we govern our pre
Speaker 4: K program. If you're a parent of a child of
Speaker 4: a four year old, your access points to education are
Speaker 4: very different than when you're a parent of a five
Speaker 4: year old. When you're a parent of a five year old,
Speaker 4: you have access to a universal kindergarten program that is
Speaker 4: available in every corner of the state for free. If
Speaker 4: you have a four year old. There are some families
Speaker 4: eligible for free pre K, but many families are on
Speaker 4: their own and they are looking at private options because
Speaker 4: there's not a public option available to them. I think
Speaker 4: it's really worth re emphasizing what Jayden said, which is
Speaker 4: the ESA program is universal, but for pre K it's not.
Speaker 4: It's still only those families who are eligible for public
Speaker 4: pre K, those who are on free and reduced lunch
Speaker 4: or meet one of the other eligibility criteria. So there's
Speaker 4: going to be a lot of parents who are parents
Speaker 4: of four year old who think great, I have access
Speaker 4: to financial aid for pre K, which these families really
Speaker 4: need because they don't necessarily have a public school option
Speaker 4: right now, but they're not going to be eligible for this.
Speaker 4: It's just those who are part of existing pre K eligibility.
Speaker 4: So I think we really need to watch and see
Speaker 4: how many families actually are able to navigate that. Because
Speaker 4: these other grades don't have the as restrictive of eligibility criteria,
Speaker 4: there's going to be a lot of implementation questions here.
Speaker 4: You know, one of the ways that you can be
Speaker 4: eligible for free pre K is to be a child
Speaker 4: who's homelandanguage is not English. That's done through a home
Speaker 4: language survey by the school district. How's that going to
Speaker 4: be done with an essay? We don't know yet. We
Speaker 4: haven't seen guidance on that yet. So I think that
Speaker 4: there's a lot of questions about how many children actually
Speaker 4: will ultimately end up being served that are for year
Speaker 4: olds and three year olds. I think that the demand
Speaker 4: is certainly significant, as we've seen from the Childcare Services Program,
Speaker 4: a lot of parents want access to financial aid for
Speaker 4: early childhood education. I think we don't know how many
Speaker 4: of them are going to end up with the essays,
Speaker 4: but I would remind folks that the Childcare Services Program
Speaker 4: is a financial aid program for parents to access childcare
Speaker 4: as well, and it has a much more generous eligibility
Speaker 4: than the essays do. So we're gonna have to see
Speaker 4: how all these puzzle pieces fit together, but we're curious
Speaker 4: to see how many families benefit.
Speaker 5: I would say to add to I think the free
Speaker 5: public pre K requirements also limits it to three year olds, right,
Speaker 5: so you actually won't have the four year olds in
Speaker 5: the category as well, which is interesting. But it made
Speaker 5: me think something that David was saying earlier. We're talking
Speaker 5: about the scholarship right in and sort of the awareness
Speaker 5: right anytime. I think we all know this right when
Speaker 5: you're you've seen kind of these, you know, big programs
Speaker 5: that specifically target you know, low income families. One of
Speaker 5: the big hurdles, as was acknowledged here is the awareness component,
Speaker 5: and it'll be interesting to see it if that changes
Speaker 5: at all here, right. I think one of the things
Speaker 5: that voucher advocates had talked about, you know, one of
Speaker 5: the benefits they saw in this program was that hey,
Speaker 5: we actually have a whole year to get the word
Speaker 5: out about all the different benefits of it in ways
Speaker 5: that a state like Tennessee, for example, they passed their
Speaker 5: law and they were ready to roll you know soon after. Again,
Speaker 5: I don't know how much it's going to change. I
Speaker 5: think ultimately what you'll see is what we see, you know,
Speaker 5: with these huge universal programs, is that especially in these
Speaker 5: early years, you're going to see those like for example,
Speaker 5: look at for example, you had all these private pre
Speaker 5: K providers who had who had testified and said hey,
Speaker 5: this isn't right. Those are probably going to be the
Speaker 5: providers who go to families who will qualify and say hey,
Speaker 5: if you don't know about this. Hey, this is a
Speaker 5: benefit you can have, right, so initially you probably see
Speaker 5: you know, the students who ultimately benefit from it will
Speaker 5: be those who already in some way are connected to
Speaker 5: people who are kind of in the know, and it'll
Speaker 5: be a challenge for the state over time with the
Speaker 5: entire program, with the awareness component, like we see with
Speaker 5: all these other programs as well.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Okay, I want to test one more reaction with
Speaker 1: with you, David, which.
Speaker 2: Is one may not have another kid to try to
Speaker 2: get this right.
Speaker 3: That's question.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, don't worry. That is that is not my
Speaker 1: reaction at all. Yes, you know, one thing we haven't
Speaker 1: talked about much lately is this. We've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about the financial struggle for parents. We haven't talked as
Speaker 1: much about the financial struggle for these actual daycare centers. Again,
Speaker 1: citing your report, childcare programs are operating on barely sustainable
Speaker 1: profit margins you say, typically less than one percent, which
Speaker 1: puts them at considerable risk of closure. That is, even
Speaker 1: though childcare educators are paid on average around twelve dollars
Speaker 1: per hour with little to know benefits. The challenge here,
Speaker 1: one of the issues that I have heard about as
Speaker 1: I have been an interested person in this subject, is
Speaker 1: the idea of the battle for three and four year olds.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: One of the things that happens is in day care facilities,
Speaker 1: it's much more expensive to care for the infants than
Speaker 1: it is to care for the three and four year
Speaker 1: olds because the infants need more attention, they're less able
Speaker 1: to sort of, you know, obviously take care of themselves.
Speaker 1: You need more adults per child in that area. There
Speaker 1: has been a push, a very well intentioned push to
Speaker 1: get more three and four year olds into public pre k.
Speaker 1: But what that does is it takes away the sort
Speaker 1: of profit generators for the daycare operators and leaves them
Speaker 1: having to care for, you know, or care for a
Speaker 1: higher percentage of infants compared to three or four year olds,
Speaker 1: which either forces them to lose revenue, go out of business,
Speaker 1: or increase their prices for the infants and everything like that.
Speaker 1: Does this create a situation where maybe you can pull
Speaker 1: some of those three and four year olds back into
Speaker 1: these private daycare providers, which can make them more financially
Speaker 1: sustainable or allow them to make infant care more affordable
Speaker 1: for you know, the general population. What do you think
Speaker 1: about that possibility.
Speaker 4: David, Yeah, I mean, I do want to just speak
Speaker 4: quickly about you know, your point about the struggle that
Speaker 4: truck care providers are facing, because it is significant. Again,
Speaker 4: that is why the scholarship costs are going up. You know,
Speaker 4: they're facing rising labor costs. They're paying around twelve dollars
Speaker 4: per hour, but they're losing staff to BUCkies and Amazon
Speaker 4: and all sorts of places, so they have to try
Speaker 4: to compete, which means those costs go up, and that
Speaker 4: means parents pay more. They're rising food costs if childcare
Speaker 4: program provides food. We all can look at our grocery
Speaker 4: bill and see that that's going to affect childcare providers.
Speaker 4: Insurance is crushing right now, so childcare programs are facing
Speaker 4: rising insurance costs, rent property taxes they face that as well,
Speaker 4: and parents are bearing the brunt of all of those increases,
Speaker 4: right And so, just like we would never rely on
Speaker 4: tolls to pay for our entire highway system, relying on
Speaker 4: just parents to pay for the full brunt of early
Speaker 4: care and education leads to these really unfortunate outcomes that
Speaker 4: we see. And so I understand deeply the pain that
Speaker 4: childcare providers are feeling and the hope that these these
Speaker 4: opportunities give. I would say about just you know, the
Speaker 4: idea that we need to consider pulling you know, folks
Speaker 4: from these public settings and ensure that they return to
Speaker 4: private settings. First of all, I think it's important to
Speaker 4: remind us why they choose these public settings, which is
Speaker 4: that they can afford them. And I think we want
Speaker 4: to make sure that families can afford high quality options
Speaker 4: in a variety of settings, whether that be a head
Speaker 4: start program, a childcare program, a for profit nonprofit. We
Speaker 4: also want to make sure parents, if they want to
Speaker 4: keep their kid at home, have the resources to do that,
Speaker 4: and the public schools in many cases a good option
Speaker 4: for them. I also think it's important to remember that
Speaker 4: only about half of four year olds in our state
Speaker 4: are enrolled in public pre K, so there are plenty
Speaker 4: of four year olds to go around, and I think
Speaker 4: we should make sure that they can afford and access
Speaker 4: these high quality programs, and many of them will choose
Speaker 4: private options if they have the ability to. And for
Speaker 4: three year olds, I will say it's even less. It's
Speaker 4: only around eleven percent of three year olds are enrolled
Speaker 4: in public schools, so there's plenty of children. I don't
Speaker 4: think it has to be a competition between these settings.
Speaker 4: I think we can do more to make childcare and
Speaker 4: preschool more affordable, more high quality across settings, and I
Speaker 4: think the legislator took some promising steps, but yeah, we
Speaker 4: have a lot more work to do.
Speaker 5: Can I ask one good question that David, I'm curious
Speaker 5: like to you. And one of the things I've heard
Speaker 5: though about the pre k thing is is just a
Speaker 5: general concern. It's something like an optic conversation right where
Speaker 5: it's like, even after this legislative session, the state still
Speaker 5: isn't funding public pre k at a full day level, right,
Speaker 5: which I know has been some of the concern of
Speaker 5: advocates and whatnot. And so you're going to have some
Speaker 5: who come out and say, well, clearly, if the will
Speaker 5: is there, you can get it done because you've set
Speaker 5: aside money now for private PreK providers you know, to
Speaker 5: be able to benefit from this. How do you look
Speaker 5: at that kind of argument and that kind of debate
Speaker 5: that folks will have Avialy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think that there there's a lot
Speaker 4: of rea. Like I said, I think from a parent's perspective,
Speaker 4: the way we do things doesn't seem to make a
Speaker 4: lot of sense. If you have a four year old,
Speaker 4: you are lost in trying to figure out what is
Speaker 4: an option for you and your family. You're trying to
Speaker 4: figure out how to cut costs to or this. Do
Speaker 4: you quit just one of you quit your job so
Speaker 4: that you can just stay at home with your kid
Speaker 4: because the costs for care are so expensive. But then
Speaker 4: the moment your child turns five, it's like, Okay, great,
Speaker 4: now I have a universal program that I can enroll in.
Speaker 4: I think that a parent of a four year old
Speaker 4: and a parent of a five year old feel like
Speaker 4: their needs are similar, but the way the state responds
Speaker 4: is quite different, whether they be in public schools or not.
Speaker 4: So I think whether you're a superintendent or a childcare
Speaker 4: program director, you have a lot to say that, hey,
Speaker 4: the state needs to do way more than we're doing,
Speaker 4: and we are ready to play a role in helping
Speaker 4: provide those high quality options for families because I just
Speaker 4: I really just don't think that. I think the competition
Speaker 4: that gets presented between these sites is really missing the mark.
Speaker 4: Like I think everybody struggling to meet the needs of
Speaker 4: these families because we're not investing enough in famili's ability
Speaker 4: to access these programs. So our perspective at Texans Care
Speaker 4: for Children it is that we want families to be
Speaker 4: able to afford an access private settings, public settings, and
Speaker 4: we want them to have the resources to figure out
Speaker 4: what best meets their families' needs.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we found the solution here.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that you know, the employees can get better
Speaker 1: wages at BUCkies, and I think we just need to
Speaker 1: put childcare and all the BUCkies. Yeah right, they're in
Speaker 1: rural areas.
Speaker 3: Right, they're everywhere, very popular. Yeah, building new ones every day, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3: All right, great job everybody. Yeah, solved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I think thank you so much David for
Speaker 1: I think what has been a really informative discussion. Thank
Speaker 1: you as well to Jaden and Eleanor. Thank you to
Speaker 1: our producers, Rob and Chris, and thank you to our sponsors,
Speaker 1: the Texas Tribune Membership program Texas Tribune dot org slash
Speaker 1: donate to keep this podcast and all of our journalism
Speaker 1: free and available to anyone who wants to access it.
Speaker 3: We'll be back next week.
Speaker 4: Yeah,