CLASP
The Center for Law and Social Policy
This statement can be attributed to Rricha deCant, director of legislative affairs at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
April 10, 2025, Washington, D.C. – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a budget resolution bill by a vote of 216-214 that was passed by the Senate last week. Its passage highlights the willingness of Congressional leaders to fund tax breaks for the rich and corporations and drive up the deficit through massive Medicaid cuts of $880 billion and SNAP cuts of $230 billion.
The proposal would also slash other public benefit programs that people with low incomes rely on. Instead of passing a budget resolution that would help families grapple with rising costs in an already chaotic economy, Congressional leaders are making it more difficult for families, children, and workers to have access to health care, food, and other essentials.
This measure now opens the door for Congress to write a budget reconciliation bill that could have far-reaching impacts on the lives of millions of Americans for decades to come.
Updated April 2, 2025 by Priya Pandey
Originally published in 2019 by Rebecca Ullrich and updated in February 2022 by Alejandra Londono Gomez
Early childhood programs play an important role in the lives of young children and their families. But in our current political climate, families across the country are questioning whether it’s safe to attend or enroll.
In January 2025, the Trump Administration rescinded the Biden Administration’s guidelines for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection enforcement actions in certain “protected areas.” Immigration enforcement actions had previously been restricted at or near these locations, which include early childhood programs such as licensed child care, preschool, pre-kindergarten, and Head Start programs.
In response, we have updated “A Guide to Creating ‘Safe Space’ Policies for Early Childhood Programs,” which gives practitioners, advocates, and policymakers information and resources to design and implement “safe space” policies that safeguard early childhood programs against immigration enforcement, as well as protect families’ safety and privacy. The guide also includes sample policy text that early childhood providers can adapt for their programs.
On Friday May 2 Wendy Cervantes will be speaking at the 2025 Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Biennial Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota for a panel titled, “The Role of Research in Immigration Advocacy: How Science Can Support the Well-Being of Immigrant Children.”
Find out more information by visiting srcd.org.
This statement can be attributed to Cemeré James, interim executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Washington, D.C., March 21, 2025 – Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order to follow other recent administrative actions meant to decimate the Department of Education (ED) under the veil of “returning power to states.” His action will disrupt the ability of schools to provide the learning opportunities students need. States already hold the primary responsibility and authority for education, while the ED manages and distributes funds, collects essential data, conducts valuable research, and ensures equity in access to public education. Closing ED will disproportionately harm students of color and children with disabilities, instill fear in immigrant students, and reverse decades of progress in enhancing civil rights protections for all students. This order is also consistent with the administration’s stated goal to undo the progress made through Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility efforts that improve and expand educational opportunities.
Closing the Department of Education (ED) will negatively impact students of all races and economic backgrounds. The department plays a crucial role in supporting and holding schools accountable to ensure children with disabilities receive the services they need to succeed, and that young children have access to high-quality early learning. ED also ensures that students receive an education free from harassment and intimidation, and that they are prepared to attend college, universities, and other post-secondary institutions. The withdrawal of federal funds from institutions that do not align with the political values of the Trump Administration will reduce access to education. Ultimately, these actions will deny young children and students from marginalized communities the same educational opportunities, support services, and protections as their peers.
Contrary to language in the Executive Order that ED has failed children, teachers, and families, the department has long defended students’ civil rights to equal education and ensured educational accessibility for students in every state. Eliminating ED deprives immigrant students, students of color, and students with disabilities of federal oversight to shield them from openly discriminatory state governments. Trump’s actions only serve the purpose of resegregating American education along the lines of race and class.
Executive orders are not laws. Trump’s attempt to enact his education policy agenda outside of existing legal parameters is unconstitutional. The order explicitly acknowledges that ED can’t be closed without the approval of Congress, which is an open admission that the administration is undertaking a shameless effort to violate the separation of powers doctrine upon which our government was founded. CLASP stands ready to fight for the educational rights of all students.
We call on federal and state policymakers to oppose these reckless actions and take steps to slow down and mitigate the harm while also supporting children, families, and educators at risk. In addition, we call on our partners in the education and children’s advocacy spaces to join the effort to push back against these harmful attacks, which are an affront to our collective goals to build a more just and equitable country.
This statement can be attributed to Cemeré James, interim executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Washington, DC, March 12, 2025—Yesterday, the Trump Administration slashed half of the U.S. Department of Education’s workforce when it laid off approximately 1,300 career staff and 600 probationary employees. A nation’s strength is built on the strength of its public education system, and these actions purposely weaken not only American education but America itself. Mass layoffs also undermine the economy and, if left unchecked, will lead to higher unemployment.
For 46 years, the Department of Education (ED) has helped advance and protect equitable educational opportunities for all students seeking to learn in the United States. The Trump Administration’s “final mission” for the department is to intentionally dismantle it, disregarding both its importance to the nation and the profound unpopularity of shuttering the ED. Allowing Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to operate the federal government like a private equity firm and unilaterally strip federal agencies of valuable people and resources will be ruinous to students, families, communities, and the economy.
Yesterday’s action is particularly concerning because of the impact on marginalized and vulnerable student populations. Public school systems that rely on federal spending will face increased difficulty in continuing to educate students. With a greatly reduced staff, the ED’s Office of Civil Rights cannot fulfill its obligation to vigilantly enforce federal civil rights laws in schools and among other recipients of ED funding. Researchers will struggle to analyze educational outcomes produced by various federal programs after the elimination of the National Center for Education Studies. Postsecondary students will be unable to begin or continue their educational pathways with the loss of staff capacity to manage financial aid awards. The harm of these cuts to students with disabilities, including the effects on early intervention programs for young children, remains unacknowledged by a Secretary of Education who struggles to remember what IDEA (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) stands for.
The administration has no intention of resolving these concerns or communicating how it will replace the ED’s essential services and programs. Since Inauguration Day the administration has wielded authority without regard to the democratic process, ignoring the laws or livelihoods they break.
CLASP stands ready to work with and on behalf of students, families, and communities to advance and protect the educational rights of all students. We call on federal and state policymakers to oppose these reckless actions and take steps to slow down and mitigate the harm while also supporting children, families, and educators at risk. In addition, we call on our partners in the education and children’s advocacy space to join the effort to push back against these harmful attacks, which are an affront to our collective goals to build a more just and equitable country.
By Mark Swartz
(EXCERPT)
Key advocacy organizations, including The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) are providing — and regularly updating — resources for child care educators. According to Suma Setty, a senior policy analyst at CLASP, about one in five U.S. child care providers is an immigrant. “Unless something drastic happens, there are certain things that will remain true, like your Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights,” she says, referring to protection against arbitrary arrest and self-incrimination, respectively. “All people have a constitutional right to remain silent.”
By Stephanie Schmit & Rachel Wilensky
Federal budget proposals currently under consideration threaten resources available for children and families through multiple key programs, including the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) programs. These programs are vital supports for families with low incomes throughout the country and provide access to essential services, including child care and early education. The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) is the primary source of federal funding for child care and early education, but in some states TANF and SSBG provide significant support for child care assistance. The proposed threats to these programs will further restrict access to child care and early education for tens of thousands of children and families.
Child care access for close to 40,000 children across the country is at risk in addition to vital supports and services for families if we do not protect SSBG and TANF funding. This fact sheet provides background information about SSBG and TANF programs and highlights the number of children whose child care would be impacted by threatened cuts.
>> Read the full fact sheet here
By Rachel Cohen
The immigration crackdown threatening to break America’s child care system
What happens if the people caring for American children get deported?
Read the full article at vox.com
By Alyssa Fortner and Shira Small
This year’s Black History Month theme, “African Americans and Labor,” provides an important opportunity to uplift and reflect on the ways Black women have shaped America’s child care system. This reflection is particularly critical one month into a new administration that has demonstrated disregard for the contributions of diverse workforces today and throughout history. To change the future of child care, it is important to understand the past, both to acknowledge how injustice shapes the sector and ensure a fairer and more equitable future for those who sustain and utilize the child care system.
In the time of chattel slavery, enslaved Black women were forced to take care of white children, while not being allowed to take care of their own. In the post-emancipation period, low-paid domestic work was one of the only industries available to Black women. And throughout the 1900s policy choices and both proposed and enacted laws further marginalized and harmed those in the child care workforce and the families that relied on them. CLASP’s more detailed timeline of this history and impact can be found here.
Though the U.S. child care system has changed over the course of history, the labor of Black women continues to be underpaid and undervalued. While 18 percent of child care workers are Black, Black people only compose 13 percent of the overall U.S. workforce. Despite their overrepresentation in the child care workforce, Black women earn less on average than their white counterparts in a field that is already woefully underpaid, with the average worker earning $30,370 in 2023. For center-based providers, the wage gap between white and Black workers amounts to an average of more than $8,000 per year. Workers in home-based child care programs, which Black providers operate in higher numbers, earn even less.
On top of low wages, the workforce’s limited access to health insurance, retirement savings, and other benefits demonstrate the continued devaluation of Black women’s labor, harming the entire sector. Creating an economically sustainable profession that supports the well-being of all providers is not only a necessary step in creating a stronger child care system, but in working to repair the history of exploiting Black women’s work.
Anti-Black racism, discrimination, and a refusal to chart a new path for child care to disconnect it from its unjust roots keeps child care workers underpaid and keeps care unaffordable. At CLASP, we are committed to helping transform the child care system by outlining its history, changing narratives around the system and workforce, and putting forth policy solutions that support those who have been undervalued or overlooked.
As too many communities in this country face increasing threats to their economic and personal well-being, CLASP remains steadfast in its mission to advance racial and economic equity—especially in moments when progress and justice feel fragile. We are committed to working at the intersection of advancing equity and improving policy, which are inextricably linked. To that end, below are CLASP resources that center racial equity to expand access to child care and support for the child care workforce. These resources seek to understand the impacts of anti-Blackness and racism in the child care sector, because recognizing injustice is the first step in eradicating it.
Understanding and Improving Equity in ECE Settings
Centering Black Families: Equitable Discipline through Improved Data Policies in Child Care
This report documents the history of inequitable disciplinary practices that disproportionately impact Black children in child care and early education and how data can be used to create meaningful solutions that address the harms.
This blog discusses ways in which the legacy of white supremacy in the child care sector can be dismantled.
Child Care Assistance Landscape: Inequities in Federal and State Eligibility and Access
This report analyzes variations in eligibility and access to Child Care and Development Block Grant subsidies in 2020, disaggregated by race and ethnicity.
Advancing Equity for the Child Care Workforce
The Racist History Behind Why Black Childcare Workers Are Underpaid
This 2022 op-ed examines the history of black labor in the child care sector and how it underpins the workforce’s severe underpayment.
Expanding Access to Child Care Assistance: Opportunities in the Child Care and Development Fund
This report and its fact sheets explain how the child care workforce can be better supported and diversified to provide more culturally responsive child care options for families and provides strategies for states to expand access to care.
Community Engagement as an Anti-Racist Strategy
This report examines how community engagement strategies can help create more equitable policies on the road to dismantling systemic racism.
Parent and Provider Experience Should Inform Child Care Policy
CLASP partnered with parent leaders from the United Parent Leaders Action Network in this blog to highlight the importance of community engagement as a tool to advance equity, just as it is a tool for creating effective policy.
By Shira Small with support from Charis Davis, DéJon Banks, Sr., and Sonja Lennox
What’s the best way to create child care policies that work for families and providers? Give them a seat at the table. In October 2024, the Administration for Children and Families released guidance to help state child care policy makers do just that. The guidance affirms that Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) and Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five (PDG B-5) funding can be used to engage people who have lived experience with the child care subsidy system and provides best practices on how to implement effective and equitable community engagement. This includes both parents and providers, with the guidance recognizing that gathering community feedback is a key component of improving the quality of services.
We partnered with three parent advocates from the United Parent Leaders Action Network (UPLAN) to write this blog and elevate the importance of parent voice in the state child care policy making process. Their message is clear: collecting data from directly impacted groups is not enough. To implement meaningful, community-driven policy solutions, policymakers owe parents transparency, trust building, and action. Bridging the gap between those creating policy and those impacted by it is long overdue.
Charis Davis, Ohio Parent Advocacy Network: Without parent voice, we are left with old rules and outdated laws from older individuals, mostly men, that no longer understand the position and economy that we are facing. They don’t understand what it is like to raise children today. It’s important that people get to see this guidance so more entities can start engaging with parents. To build trust, there needs to be a clear starting point/understanding and communication between all parties involved. If parents have a request, states should be transparent about what they can do, how they can do it, and work together to figure out a solution. We need transparency. Transparency is essential!
DéJon Banks, Sr., UPLAN: Decisions about us cannot be made without us. A lot of things are happening behind closed doors. There need to be direct connections between community groups and the state so that the state is coming to recruit them and bring them to the table for this engagement. Engage them at the ground level. Come to the groups where they are. When we try to speak to people in government, we get a secretary or assistant, but high-ups need to be available, so people feel heard and connected and that decision makers are actually with them. It’s hard for decision makers to deny and hide when we as parents are holding people accountable by being part of the process, which this guidance can help with.
Sonja Lennox, Washington State Parent Ambassadors: Parents should be at all tables where decisions are being made, especially when it is about them. Parents’ experiences make decision makers realize things that they are missing. With the guidance, people can see it and think of problems in a new way and how policy will affect parents and families. I think the advice that I would give people trying to start engaging parent voices is to start doing focus groups and make sure they are diverse in all demographics. Ask them what is and isn’t working well with this policy, how would you change it, and how would changing it impact you, your family, and your community? And there needs to be a stipend or something else given that says: we value your voice and opinion. To build trust, states need to walk their talk. Do what you say you’re going to do.
The guidance includes the following recommendations:
- Parents and early educators who provide feedback on child care policies should be compensated for their time at a rate comparable to other consultants in the field.
- This includes reimbursement for transportation, parking, child care, and lost wages or expenses incurred by participating in various working groups, meetings, or advisory groups.
- Trust building is a necessary step in engaging with parents and providers, from start to finish. People who lend their time and expertise should have clarity on how their feedback will be used and who it will be shared with.
- Opportunities to offer feedback on relevant policies should accommodate families’ and early educators’ working hours, which may prevent them from participating in person during standard business hours. Virtual or hybrid participation options should be offered.
- Facilitators should consider how the compensation that parents and providers may earn by providing their feedback will impact their eligibility for child care subsidies and other public benefits.
- This means notifying participants of any changes to eligibility that could occur, or exempting the participation compensation parents and providers may earn from the definition of “income” in subsidy eligibility determinations.
The expertise of families and early educators is critical to creating effective policy. This guidance is a helpful resource and starting place for states looking to gather feedback from people who have experience with the subsidy system, and states should prioritize co-designing engagement opportunities with parents and providers and/or consulting them about their needs. To create a more equitable child care system, parents and providers should have a role in setting the table, not only sitting at it.
CLASP would like to thank Sonja Lennox, Charis Davis, and DéJon Banks, Sr. with UPLAN for providing their expertise to help draft this blog.