Secretaries Duncan and Sebelius Stakeholder Call

02-04-14/3:45 pm ET

Page 1

**Transcript of Stakeholder Call**

**U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan**

**and**

**U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius**

**Moderator: Assistant Secretary for OESE Deb Delisle**

**February 4, 2014**

**3:45 pm ET**

Coordinator:Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation we’ll conduct a question and answer session.

To ask a question, please press Star and then 1. This call is being recorded. If you have any objections you may disconnect at this point.

Now I’ll turn the meeting over to Ms. Deb Delisle. Ma’am you may begin. Thank you.

Deb Delisle:Thank you operator. Good afternoon to everyone. And for those in Alaska, Hawaii and some of the territories, good morning to you and we apologize for the technological problems that we’ve been experiencing that’s delayed this call.

We’re really thrilled to have you join us today for important early learning updates from Education Secretary Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius.

My name is Deb Delisle, and I serve as the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. I’m really excited and we couldn’t be any prouder that this administration has created the Office of Early Learning which actually resides within our Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.

As a former teacher, elementary school principal, and state superintendent I’m an absolute believer in high quality early childhood education as the foundation for success.

I’ll be moderating the call today and then facilitating your questions.

I’m pleased to have with us Deputy Assistant Secretary Linda Smith from Health and Human Services and Libby Doggett from the Department of Ed as well as their team.

And we also are delighted today to have two secretaries who really have championed the importance of high quality early learning and development.

At the Department of Education, I don’t think you could find a more sincere and passionate advocate for children, youth and for my boss Secretary Arne Duncan. I’m going to ask him to now step into the conversation. Secretary Duncan?

Secretary Duncan:I’d like to thank all of you for your hard work and your patience since the start of the call. I’ll be relatively brief.

Secretary Sebelius is walking off a plane in the next moment or two so she’ll either follow me or we’ll go directly to questions and have her join as soon as she’s available.

But I just want to thank you for your passionate leadership and...

Secretary Sebelius:I’m here.

Secretary Duncan:Kathy, fantastic. So I’ll be - I’ll kick it to you in a moment. And Kathleen, andLinda and their teammates just have  been remarkable, remarkable partners.

And to hear a President talk about this in State of the Union this year following on last year it’s been a pretty extraordinary year, but everyone on this call knows how much more work we have to do.

In the real world, outside of Washington, this has become the ultimate bipartisan issue. Governors across the country left, right, republican, and democrat are investing scarce resources and in tough economic times, because they know this is the right thing to do.

We had a flurry of press talking about, you know, how preschool got hot which is fantastic. And the real question is, can we help to unstick Congress here?

We’ve made some progress. As everyone here knows we had a bipartisan bill introduced late last year. But to go from introducing the bill to having it pass, clearly some very significant work ahead of us.

We’re going to move forward on what I would describe as a three-fold strategy. First, we want to maximize our existing resources.

In the current budget, we have an additional $250 billion - $250 million for a Race to the Top early learning challenge.

We’re going to continue to be joined at the hip with HHS. And we’ll be coming out to you in the not-too-distant future to get your views on the best way to use those resources.

You may not know that over the past couple years we’ve invested north of $1 billion to increase access to early learning opportunities. So we feel great about that and want to do everything we can with those dollars.

Secondly, we will continue to work with Congress. And I actually spoke with Senator Murray who’s a former early childhood educator who’s just a great, great leader, spoke with her earlier today. And she continues to try and find those partners in the Senate, her republican friends who will step forward on this. And she’s absolutely committed to trying to do that.

But third, is the President has said repeatedly, including the State of the Union, we’re just not going to sit around and wait for Congress.

And we will use our resources; we will try and partner directly with the philanthropic in the private sector. We will partner directly with governors and mayors and community leaders.

We’re serious about closing what I call the opportunity gap and making sure that young people have a chance to be successful.

So some very encouraging progress, but at the end of the day I think all of us on this call feel this huge sense of urgency.

And my two final points is obviously the unmet need across the country is pretty staggering as many as a million young children who don’t have access to high quality early learning opportunities.

That lack of access translates and you - translates. And you may have seen earlier this week in a state like Kentucky, where 51%- the majority of 5 year olds entering kindergarten- that state found to be not ready for kindergarten, which for me is just absolutely unacceptable.

So I want to thank all of you for your hard work. I want to thank you for your leadership, your courage, your partnership with us for challenging us, some real significant progress this past year.

But the President, Kathleen and I and our teams have a very, very ambitious agenda for this year and want to continue to partner with you and to work with you to make sure not tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands of additional children around the country get access to their learning opportunities they need.

It is now my pleasure to turn it over to just a good, good friend and a fantastic champion Kathy Sebelius who has provided leadership from her days as a governor, provided leadership today in her official capacity, provided leadership as a recent grandma. And this is something that’s very personal to her. And Kathleen thank you so much for being an amazing partner.

Secretary Sebelius:Well thank you so much Arne. And I don’t think I need to say this, but I will anyway to the folks on the phone.

As Deb has already said, there is an integrated champion for the children of this country in Arne Duncan. And he is a great secretary and a great friend.

And the sense of urgency that you hear around this phone call is something I think he brings to this job each and every day and is tenacious, both with the private sector and with our friends on the Hill, trying to make sure we don’t miss this historic opportunity.

So what we’re doing as most of you know, is working really on a birth to school agenda with Department of Education and Health and Human Services linked together.

And I think that it’s clearly supported by President Obama who believes that every child needs to have the tools to succeed in school and eventually the workplace.

And he reiterated that call again in his State of the Union. He made sure there are resources available in the recently passed 2014 budget. And I think we’re still working out the details of 2015. But there continues to be a huge emphasis on this area.

I do want to remind folks that in the community we’re talking about, the early childhood community, one of the things that’s making me travel around the country more these days is the open enrollment opportunities for new health insurance options.

What we know is that too many teachers and staff who work with our youngest children not only don’t get paid enough money, but they often don’t have affordable health care.

So there is an eight week opportunity between now and the 31st of March to help get that message out, help reach out to the parents whose children are in childcare or early education centers, but also to the teachers and staff members knowing that they often are not in fully ensured programs.

So anything you all could do to help us between now and the 31st of March to make sure that people visit the Web site at healthcare.gov or use the call center or go to help in our local community, because that will help stabilize and make financially secure many of our best trained and most talented folks.

At HHS we’ve been focusing on home visiting, Head Start, Early Head Start and childcare as our pieces of this early puzzle.

And so we’re making new investments to develop social, emotional, and educational skills for that youngest generation.

Now we are very focused on the call to have high quality pre-K education available to every 4-year-old. And unfortunately there is no way to do that without some new resources and without congressional involvement and engagement.

As Arne said, we see this happening now in states around the country with mayors, with governors- republicans and democrats- with the private sector, with philanthropic institutions, and we have not at all lost hope that Congress will indeed take this up.

We have seen that we have more than a billion additional dollars for Head Start through the 2014 appropriations bill. And that is a big step forward that will make sure those children will continue in high quality care.

And it will allow us to invest $500 million in the President’s Early Head Start childcare partnerships, which is a proposal to connect both new and existing Head Start initiatives with local childcare centers and family childcare providers bringing the best of the Early Head Start program into settings with far more children and that serve a lot of low income infants and toddlers.

So those funds will be awarded competitively through the Early Head Start grant process.

Any agency eligible to apply for Early Head Start funds can also apply for partnership competition grants.

It includes tribes and territories, community organizations, non-profit organizations, for-profit organizations, state and local governments.

Now the appropriations bill also increases the childcare and development block grant by $154 million.

That not only fully restores the sequestration cuts, but provides a slight increase. And with that investment the total block grant funding has been brought to $5.25 billion.

So we are seeing not enough progress on this front, but certainly making advances along the way.

And then as Secretary Duncan has already mentioned, the Department of Education and Health and Human Services, are going to jointly administer the additional $250 million of Race to the Top funding.

So you’re continued advocacy help and support have already paid dividends in making sure that these early learning programs from birth through school have resources, have additional slots, have quality measures and move the bar forward.

And we just look forward to continuing to work with you as we look toward the big opportunity for universal pre-K.

If you have the capacity to provide high quality infant and toddler care, we hope you’ll consider applying for partnership grants.

If you have expertise in infant and childhood care and/or Early Head Start, we hope you would step forward and consider being a reviewer, because we need hundreds of reviewers to make sure that we panel grant applications and get the best possible program.

And finally if you have expertise in training, philanthropy or other relevant disciplines or if you’re able to offer in-kind services, we hope you’ll take a look at the high quality providers in your community and help them access the funds.

What we know is that sometimes the most talented people who work with our children and families aren’t necessarily the best grant writers, may not necessarily be able to access these funds.

But you on the phone have those skills. And having some wrap-around help, so we make sure that the best possible quality programs actually can expand and grow and we take advantage of their expertise could be terrific.

So again, thank you for what you’re doing. Arne and I look forward to continuing this huge momentum. This is actually a grassroots effort. It is starting in communities across this country. And eventually the tsunami will hit Washington, and we want to be here to take advantage of that.

So I’m going to turn the call back over to Deb with that and look forward to working with all of you.

Deb Delisle:Thank you so much and thank you Secretary Sebelius. As Arne mentioned you’ve been a great partner with the Department of Ed.

So operator we’d like to open it up for questions and as you do we would like the callers to please identify themselves as well as their affiliation. (Dick) are you there?

Coordinator:Yes ma’am. One moment. We’ll now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star 1 and please record your name clearly when prompted.

Your name is required to introduce your question and to cancel your request Press Star 2. One moment please, for the first question.

Our first question is coming from Miss (Becky). Ma’am, you have an open line now, thank you. Miss (Becky) you have an open line now.

Ma’am?

(Becky):Yes? Actually, I hit the wrong button. I didn’t really have any questions.

Coordinator:Okay, one moment. Okay one moment for the next question. Okay and our first question is coming from (Jenny Christopher). Ma’am, you have an open line.

(Jenny Christopher):Hello. I work with the Confederated Sioux and Kootenai Tribes on the Flathead Reservation in Montana.

And I work closely with school systems. At this juncture, regarding our 4-year-olds and those turning 5 and going on to kindergarten, we meet and we discuss how children are prepared for kindergarten and how - what scores they get. And so we’ve been working really hard on school readiness.

So when the transition takes place and when there is universal pre-school, what will the schools, the public schools have to do to increase their AYP or their Annual Yearly Progress? What kinds of thresholds will they have to meet?

Secretary Duncan:Well, that’s a good question. We could have a long way to go before we get to universal access. So I don’t think we’ve crossed that bridge yet. But thank you so much for your commitment and hard work every single day.

What we have seen is states around the country raise standards. About 46 states have now had college and career ready standards which are much more demanding.

And it’s great to have high standards, but folks are working really hard on the implementation of those standards and providing better support to teachers and training for principals and talking to parents and talking to students.

And so I think that they’re not waiting for universal (teaching), not waiting anything else. They’ve just shown tremendous courage in raising the bar. We think that is the right thing.

But again, with so many children already entering kindergarten behind, the best way I think we can do together to hit that high a bar, is to have a heck of a lot more of our 5 year olds entering kindergarten ready to be successful. And that’s why this collective effort is so important.

Operator, next question please.

((Crosstalk))

Coordinator:(Unintelligible) and yes sir. Our next question is coming from Miss Emily Sheketoff. Ma’am, you have an open line.

Emily Sheketoff:Hi. My name is Emily Sheketoff. I’m with the American Library Association. And as Secretary Duncan talked about maximizing existing resources I’d like to make a plea for you in your discussions with people, especially local policy makers in the congress, to remember that the public library is standing ready to help children birth to 5.

As you know, we have all sorts of programs both for the children and for their parents and caregivers to make sure that children do enter kindergarten ready.

So please, when you’re talking about this remember libraries.

Secretary Duncan:That’s a great point. We will absolutely do that. And to be very clear to everyone on the phone, when we talked about some of these opportunities, yes we were talking about school systems, but not at all exclusively.

We’re talking about a mixed delivery system. We’re talking about, you know, faith-based institutions and non-profits and YMCAs including Girl’s Clubs. Libraries do an amazing job with babies and with their parents as you said.

This has to be a community-wide effort to expand access. And we want to work with  everyoneregardless of what sector they’re in -- public private -- whatever, non-profit who want to experience providing high quality early learning opportunities.

And libraries have - will always and have done a fantastic job in the (region) and appreciate your leadership and support.

Deb Delisle:Next question operator?

Coordinator:Okay, thank you. And our next question’s coming from Ms. (Mariam Murling). Ma’am, you have an open line.

(Mariam Murling):Yes first of all, obviously thank you to both Secretaries of Education and HHS. You’re amazing leaders on this.

Linda Smith and Libby Doggett and all of your teammates are doing such a wonderful job of moving this forward. Thank you so much.

In terms of the path forward, I know the home visiting piece of this kind of gets a little less attention sometimes. Obviously many of us have been talking quite a bit about the preschool piece.

And I just wanted to see if, you know, there’s some hope for moving forward the home visiting renewal perhaps even through legislation pending now like the (doc fix) just wanted to see if there’s any update or anything that all the folks on the phone can do to help make that happen?

Linda Smith:Yes this is Linda Smith over at HHS. And thank you (Mariam) for the call and for the remarks.

We are working very hard on reauthorization of home visitation. It is as both secretaries have said, a critical component of the early learning initiative that we have put forward.

We view it as the entry point into the ultimate early childhood system in this country, so that families can get those services prenatally and be  in the home.

So we are working on that. This is something again, that the community on this call can help us with that we do need to get the legislation reauthorized this year. And we will need your support to do that.

It - it’s a very critical piece of what we’re trying to do. Enough good things can’t be said about it.

So I would encourage everyone on the call to pitch in and help make the necessity of reauthorization known to your particular members of Congress.

Deb Delisle:Thank you. Operator - oh I’m sorry.

Coordinator:All right thank you ma’am. And our next question is coming from Ms. (Carla Hertz). Ma’am, you have an open line. Thank you.

(Ellie Hirsch):Hello. This is (Ellie Hirsch). I’m calling from the US Virgin Islands. And I’m calling, because I’m concerned the smaller territories have been left out of the Race to the Top in the Early Learning Challenge Program.

And I was wondering with new legislation, is there any way to have discretionary funds that apply so the territories can participate, so we too can improve the quality of education for our youngest children? Thank you.

Secretary Duncan:Yes,  that’s a great question and we struggle on this. We basically can only spend money in a way that the congress authorizes us to do so. And to date we haven’t got congressional authorization.

Obviously, this is something we would welcome and support. And anything we can do to work with congress to give us that latitude, that authority, we always welcome it.

Linda Smith:And I’d like to jump in on that if I may. This is Linda Smith again. And in the Early Head Start Child Care partnerships that we are going to be putting out applications for this summer probably, I just wanted to let you know that the tribes, territories and the migrant populations are included and will have a competition for those particular communities.

Libby Doggett:Hi. This is Libby Doggett at Department of Education. I just want to remind people that Title I is great - (unintelligible) is early education for those (folks).

And our technical assistance for Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Fund is open to all 50 states and the territories.

So we’d love to work with you on how to get access to those peer to peer learning groups and Webinars because we think they’re a great resource and want all states to have access.

(Ellie Hirsch):Thank you.

Deb Delisle:Next caller operator.

Coordinator:Yes ma’am. And our next question is coming from Ms. (Barb Saber). Ma’am you have an open line.

(Barb Saber):Hello. This is (Barb Saber) and I’m from the White Earth Ojibwa nation in Minnesota with the National Indian Childcare Association.

And I want to thank all of you for all your hard work and our President for all his hard work on early childhood.

It’s very refreshing to be in the early childhood field these days because that’s where everything is happening right now. And the school I’m in is a huge piece of that.

What I - what my question is or my comment is that just to encourage across the board outreach to tribal childcare programs, tribal PCDF, tribal Head Start, programs when states are looking, non-tribal program are looking at collaboration.

Secretary Duncan:Thank you so much. Please continue to push us and challenge us on that. That is so important. Children across the country especially meeting this early opportunity, but no one needs them more or deserves them more than our native children.

And if we want to give them a real chance in life we have to do a much better job. So whether it’s in this space, whether it’s in the K to 12 opportunities, they’re increasing access to higher Ed we have a lot of hard work for our native children and want to be the best partner possible.

Deb Delisle:Next caller operator.

Coordinator:Okay ma’am. And our next question is coming from (Lynnette Krieger). Ma’am you have an open line.

(Lynette Krieger):Yes I am a kindergarten and early childhood teacher here in Kansas, so I have great fondness for Kathleen Sebelius and all she’s done here in the state.

I am asking that, listening to President Obama’s State of the Union address and reading the invitation that you sent to us for the phone call today, you put together in this coalition US educators.

It is stated that you will pull together a coalition of elected official business leaders and philanthropists. But both in the State of the Union address and in the invitation, you have left out educators and people who work directly with the children.

Early childhood is critical and we need advocates that promote developmentally appropriate curriculum for our youngest children.

Secretary Duncan:We will absolutely do that. And again, we’ll be putting out information shortly that we hope everyone will give us good feedback on our potential best uses for the $250 million in the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge this year. We look forward to your advice and comments.

And it’s again a very significant investment. While it’s not as, you know, as much as any of us would like, there’s a chance to do a lot of good and we want to maximize every single resource there.

And your ideas and the ideas of our educators around the country  are going to be so important to us as we move forward.

So we look for that coming from both our departments in the not too distant future.

Coordinator:All right. Thank you. And our next question is coming from Ms. (Janice Haggar). Ma’am, you have an open line.

(Janice Haggar):Thank you. This is (Janice Haggar). I am the Head Start state collaboration officer at the - for the state of Georgia.

We are already looking at how we can leverage all the dollars for the most needy children in Georgia by working with the Department of Early Care and Learning Head Start childcare home visitation, which also includes quality rated.

And one thing that this opportunity gives us is a way to really look at leveraging those dollars.

A question that I really have to ask, has to do with the nonfederal match and looking at what  we will be given in terms of guidance -- my question is twofold -- guidance on what we can use as the nonfederal match?

And secondly, we have this great opportunity in Georgia from our lottery dollars that funds Hope scholarships. And that would include teachers in early childhood education.

I’m wondering if that - those funds would be a nonfederal match?

Secretary Duncan:I’ll start and turn it over to Libby Doggett. But I just want to say we’re just really proud of what folks in Georgia are doing.

I’ve spent significant time there with the governor and others. And you guys are one of many states that are working hard to increase both quality and access on the early learning side, I just appreciate the collective leadership there. But Libby will answer your question specifically.

(Janice Haggar):Thank you.

Libby Doggett:Thanks for your question. We do want input on the preschool development grants. But many of the - most of the decisions have not been made. In fact Linda and I have a call after this to have a discussion.

But we - you will have an opportunity to comment on all the particulars and specifics of that grant program.

We know we have $250 million  that will go out to states. But how that goes out, what kind of match is required -- all of that is up in the air and will be decided based on the Department of Education, HHS and most importantly by your input. So stay tuned.

(Janice Haggar):Oh great. Thank you.

Coordinator:Okay thank you ma’am. And our next question is coming from (Myrna Valencia). Ma’am, you have an open line.

(Myrna Valencia):Yes. Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to engage in a dialogue with you.

I am curious, I’m from California and I am curious about the possibility of expansion for existing grantees that already have Early Head start center based and home-based.

What is the possibility of expansion in this endeavor?

Linda Smith:I think our priorities -- and that’s a really great question -- and of course we really want to encourage, you know, more building of more capacity and a higher quality capacity.

Expansion would be an option on this. I will just comment that in the language that accompanied the appropriations bill, it did direct us to give priority to partnerships.

So if the expansion includes partnerships then, that would certainly be a high priority as well as two programs that develop a continuum of services for families, so that the children are receiving a similar type of and quality of care between Early Head Start, childcare, pre-K and the school so that would also be a priority.

So it sounds like you’re already doing some of what we are envisioning with the Early Head Start partnerships. So I would say that probably what you’re describing would qualify.

(Myrna Valencia):Thank you very much.

Deb Delisle:Operator next call please.

Coordinator:All right. And our next question is coming from Ms. (Janice Hodge). Ma’am, you have an open line.

(Janice Hodge):Thank you so much. I am so grateful to talk to Mr. Arne Duncan and Secretary Sibelius. I am calling from Chicago Hyde Park. And I would like to say as a certified pastoral psychotherapist and licensed clinical professional counselor I am developing a camp for early childhood ed.

And this comes from my work as a teacher in early childhood. I think I heard you both say that you will be partnering with the community in specialized programs.

And if you would just kind of say yes I did say that, I’ll be so happy.

Secretary Duncan:Thank you and please say hello to everyone back in Hyde Park, I miss you guys.

But to answer your question directly, as we move forward in trying to increase access and quality for early learning opportunities we have always said that we want a mixed delivery system.

And the best way to deliver this we will never know here in Washington. That would frankly be the height of arrogance. The best ideas are obviously going to come at the community level.

So whether that’s the school systems, whether it’s nonprofits, whether it’s faith-based institutions, you know, social service agencies we just want to work with folks who are serious about expanding both assets of equality and we’ll - that will always be our philosophy our strategy.

(Janice Hodge):Thank you both tremendously.

Coordinator:Thank you.

Deb Delisle:Next caller.

Coordinator:Okay. Ma’am, our next question is coming from (Sharon Little). You have an open line.

(Sharon Little):Good afternoon everyone and thank you so much for this opportunity. I’m calling from the state of North Carolina. I am a program coordinator for an early childhood program at community college so I’m very excited about this.

Just wanted to know your take on how you feel the community college system can interweave into what’s going on. What can we do to help the educators of young children?

Secretary Duncan:I’ll start and anyone else can jump in. Obviously, we want to make sure we are training extraordinary professionals to do this very, very important work.

And candidly that training in different places around the country has been somewhat uneven. And whatever you can do to help to build that pipeline of future educators, early childhood educators if we’re as successful as we hope to be in expanding assets we’re going to need a lot more early childhood educators than we have today. And we want to make sure they’re of the highest quality.

So partnering with high schools or partnering with four year institutions, helping to provide that pre-service training as well as ongoing professional development for existing early childhood educators we need, we desperately need community colleges to play a lead role in this space.

Coordinator:Thank you. All right thank you ma’am. And our next question is coming from Evelyn Cherow. Ma’am, you have an open line.

Evelyn Cherow:Thank you. Very much appreciate this opportunity. In Bethesda, Maryland I’m CEO of Global Partners United and participating on an early childhood development task force as part of the global partnership on children with disabilities.

So I have two questions. Wondering if there will be funding that could be used for connecting our training institutions as well as practice clinically and school-wise if agencies with countries that are working on their national disability plans under the UN treaty on the rights of people with disabilities?

And secondly, if you see a role for tele-practices both in workforce development as well as in practices in areas where there’s such a scarcity of appropriate personnel to provide this critical early identification early learning initiative. Thank you so much.

Libby Doggett:Thank you. This is Libby Doggett. Thank you so much for your good question and your good work not only here but around the world.

The preschool development grants will be focused pretty much on the United States. Obviously, as we learn things and have Webinars and all of our Web sites, all those great resources are open to anyone around the world. So we hope you’ll help us make sure people in other countries can use them.

Oh and then tele-practice, that’s a great idea. And I haven’t seen a lot of it going on in early childhood. But certainly if someone, if a state comes in with a really good idea on that we’d love to consider it.

And obviously I think it’s very much needed, because as the secretary said we really need to expand the work force out there and get a lot more trained teachers when we get this new money eventually.

Evelyn Cherow:Thank you.

Deb Delisle:Next call operator.

Coordinator:All right. Thank you ma’am. Okay and now a - the next question coming from Joel Packer. Sir you have an open line.

Joel Packer:Hi. This is Joel Packer from the Raben Group representing First Five LA. How are you Mr. Secretary, appreciate all your leadership on this.

My question is I know you all said that you’re going to be putting out a request for all sorts of comments soon.

But I was wondering if you could just maybe sketch out a little more the timeline of when you would actually expect to put out a competition and when you would expect to actually issue grants?

Steven Hicks:Thanks Joel. This is Steven Hicks in OESE at the Department of Ed. We would like to use the same kind of public comment generation that we used before in our Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge competition and used a blog format where we have the comments publicly available for everyone to see, very transparent, solicit ideas.

Take those ideas, possibly having some public testimony as well, get all this input, form an executive summary and then go back and get more comments, more input.

We really want our stakeholders to be part of shaping this new program, this exciting program that we see as a down payment on the President’s initiative for preschool for all 4-year-olds in the country.

And then as far as the timeline we’re going to work as quickly as as possible to take all those comments and put together a notice inviting applications.

We expect to have something out on the street by late summer or early fall and give the maximum amount of time we can for states to write those applications. And then we have to make awards by December 31.

Joel Packer:Okay thank you, very helpful.

Coordinator:Thank you sir. And our next question is coming from Ms. Jennifer Ramey. Ma’am, you have an open line.

Jennifer Ramey:Hello. I’m a Head Start Director for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. And I’ve been doing this since 1973.

And I guess one of my comments or questions is, you know, we talk about increasing the services but why not expand the existing Head Start services from where they’re at and especially in tribal areas instead of reinventing the wheel and doing the pre-K program?

The pre-K programs are not held to the same standard that Head Start is for one thing. And we’d really like to see more - if we want comprehensive services for these children we need to support our Head Start program and give them the funds that they need to meet these unfunded mandates that we’ve been required to do being able to meet the needs of the really at risk and high needs handicapped children.

So I’d really like to - you to consider this. When we talk about the money that is being restored from sequestration and when we get the money back, that’s money that hadn’t had an increase in five years.

And so I think we need to start thinking about the fact that oh gosh we’re getting the money back, but the money was not that great and we had it before we lost it.

And so I really want to make those comments and talk about what can we do to improve or to shore up the existing programs for the early childhood portion, not the - not necessarily that - I’m not against the first  through three, but what are we going to do for those three and four populations that are going into the public school system?

And like the lady said earlier about the transitions into the schools like in Montana and that align with the state standards in North Dakota.

And what are the school systems doing to be prepared for our children and how are they willing to look at - it takes more than children being able to count and do their letters and know their shapes to be able to learn.

And I think the public schools have missed that point for a long time.

Secretary Duncan:Linda, I want to turn to you in a second to talk specifically on the Head Start piece. But I want to say a couple things quickly.

First of all, thank you for four decades of service  for children  in the communities that need these opportunities. So at a personal level I really, really appreciate it.

Two quick thoughts and then I’ll go to you Linda. One is, what we’re trying to do across the early childhood community is do less pitting Peter against Paul.

And we need to expand Head Start. We need to expand Early Head Start. We need to expand home visiting opportunities. We need to expand access to pre-K. And we have to be one team here and all work together, because it has to be a birth through five continuum.

Secretary Sebelius talked about, you know, from birth to the start of school. I think historically the early childhood community frankly has been a little bit fractured and that fighting, that pitting one against the other, that to me at the end of the day children don’t win there and a rising tide here lifts all boats.

Secondly, the last point that a couple of folks have raised about the school system alignment, I just again want to challenge everyone on the call to do less pointing of fingers and more reaching out to K to 12 institutions, to community colleges.

This - that’s not something frankly that we can do well or easily from Washington. And it’s so important that local leaders, you know, in North Dakota or wherever it might be start to sit around the table work through these things together.

At the end of the day all these children are the entire community’s children. They are not Head Start’s children. They are not the K-12 system children. They’re your collective children.

And we have to get past the isolation. We have to get past the silos and have those honest and frank conversations. Be good teammates. Be good partners, but challenge each other.

And if you’re waiting  fora mandate or waiting for something from Washington, I think frankly that’s the wrong strategy. I would strongly, strongly urge you to sit down with those, you know, kindergarten teachers and principals and school superintendents there and really work through this transition.

And whether it’s a transition from Head Start to kindergarten, whether it’s a transition from 12th grade to college, again all of us have to move outside our silos and start to have those very frank conversations.

Linda...

((Crosstalk))

Jennifer Ramey:(Unintelligible) very clear sir in that we have had transition meetings since the 80s or before. And we do transition all our children, not just our special needs children.

And we have eight receiving schools and we do have these conversations. We are not in a silo. This is not something that is new to us. And we sir, you know, this is not a new thing.

But what I’m saying is, that we need to have the funds to shore up to get the teachers with the - to train our teachers to have the four year degrees.

We need to be able to retrain them. We need to be able to provide that quality service. And we can’t do it just on the money we had before the sequestration took place.

So you need to look at it as a case by case basis. And tribal communities, we have 65% unemployment. We don’t have anybody that we can go to and say, "Hey will Bill Gates or will somebody give us, you know, $2 million in the private sector to help us?"

We don’t have those resources and we don’t have that kind of money. And when you’re looking at tribal communities, you need to stop and think of that.

And the big idea is is if there’s a casino in anywhere in your community that you have you’re rolling in clover. Our casino just pays the bills for the people who work there.

We are a 6 x 12 reservation that has the highest density in the United States. We do not have those resources.

If Head Start could do something or the Office of Head Start could do something about funding Head Start at 100% instead of 80% that would go a bit long way in trying to take care of some of the issues we have. Thank you.

Secretary Duncan:You got it: we really appreciate your clarity and the leadership there in trying to build those coalitions. But Linda sorry, you want to take a specific question?

Linda Doggett:No. I was just going to say that, you know, we hear your pain here. And we - I don’t want to sound anything less than genuine when I say we have been trying our level best, both at the Department of Education and Health and Human Services, to show that and demonstrate the need for higher levels of funding across the early childhood spectrum starting with home visitation and moving on through the Head Start, Early Head Start childcare and into the schools.

I think we recognize that there is a very desperate need for more money to fund these programs. And I don’t think that anyone here is kidding themselves that this is a total answer to the problem.

However, that said we - the partnerships that we are trying to build both between early Head Start and childcare and looking at pre-K as an alternative and as the secretary said stop competing for the same kids, but figure out how we begin to use what limited resources we have more wisely. I think that those are some other things that we’re looking at.

The other piece -- and I don’t mean to speak for the Department of Education -- but we as a nation need to be thinking more clearly about how we’re going to finance in its entirety the early childhood system.

We’re trying to do that. We identified the tobacco tax as an option. We’re looking for other alternatives.

I think that we are - we welcome suggestions from people. But in a time when the budget is so tight here in Washington it is a, you know, a hard - it is a hard fight.

I want to on that - that being said, I want to recognize what Congress did do for us, because I think early childhood programs collectively between the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services got over - we got well over $1 billion which is unheard of in this budgetary climate back here.

So I think there’s a recognition-- and I’ll stop here--a recognition that this is an important issue. But the solution isn’t going to happen overnight and it certainly is going to be one that we need to continue to work through, you know, the strong start bill and other initiatives that we have back here in Washington.

Deb Delisle:Thank you operator. I believe we have one minute or excuse me, one more question depending on its length.

So if the next caller can shorten the question so we can have - get a response and provide closure.

Coordinator:All right, okay. So our next question’s coming from Barbara Sawyer. Ma’am, you have an open line.

Barbara Sawyer:Well I know I have heard both secretaries respond to my question a little bit, but I want to expand.

I’m with the National Association for Family Child Care, providers who care for small groups of young children in their own home.

And you both have mentioned mixed delivery systems; you’ve identified the partners in those delivery systems.

But I’m wondering how we can get that message out in a more focused way? Very often when people talk about pre-K, about universal kindergarten, those things they do see only the public school system.

I hope that you’re - the materials you’re developing will really emphasize the mixed delivery system.

But are there other ways that we can expand on that or have you clarified in language, in conversations, what can we do to make sure that people understand it is a mixed delivery system?

Libby Doggett:Hi. This is Libby Doggett. Thank you so much for your question and for your good work in your home caring for kids. We appreciate the amazing work that’s done every day throughout the country.

You can help us, because we are going to put out a blog and you’re going to have an opportunity to write on that blog, you know, don’t forget family childcare.

And we know that the community-based system is very, very important. It’s very much part of our thinking, but you can help us by reminding us.

And then as Steven said, after the blog, we will look at those requests and we will be putting out a more specific request for you to respond to so you’ll have another opportunity.

We will also be having some opportunities for you to give us testimony. So be sure to be alert and aware. It doesn’t have to be formal. It can be handwritten. It can be typed up. It can be emailed in, but we need to hear from you regarding this, because we think it’s an important part of what we want to do going forward.

Barbara Sawyer:Thank you.

Deb Delisle:Thank you. Thank you so much. In closing, I want to thank everyone for spending time with us today. I’d like to apologize for the delay at the very beginning.

We received a notice from our provider that there was a system freeze which happens when the system becomes overloaded.

We had over 1100 people join the call today. So clearly there’s an incredible momentum happening in our states and our local communities. So thank you all for your commitment.

It’s really an historic time for children and families. So we look forward to hearing from you as we shape the Early Head Start child care partnerships and the new preschool programs. Thank you and have a wonderful rest of the day. Thank you operator.

Coordinator:Thank you ma’am. And that concludes today’s conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

END