What's New

Recently-Updated CDF Report on State of Child Care in Minnesota Available

This year's child care report, "Missed Opportunities Still Produce Costly Outcomes" has been updated and now contains the outcomes from the 2006 legislative session.

Read the Updated 2006 Report

NEW Child Care Report: Missed Opportunities Produce Costly Outcomes (Apr. 5, 2005)
This report focuses on Minnesota's Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), which provides low-income working families with financial assistance to access early care and education for their children.

Some Key Findings:

• The 2003 legislative changes put Minnesota in the bottom third nationwide terms of child care assistance eligibility.
• 10,000 fewer Minnesota children accessed child care assistance between 2003 and 2004.
• From December 2003 to December 2004, the number of licensed providers statewide showed a net decrease of 550.
  
  Read Full Report.

Feeling the Pain: The Emerging Impact of Minnesota's $86 Million Cut to Child Care (Jan. 29, 2004)
The effects of last year's drastic cuts to Minnesota child care assistance programs are beginning to emerge and it is clear that working families and children are struggling and/or returning to welfare.
Read Full Report.
Read full release.

A rebuttal to a recent opinion piece by Rep. Fran Bradley published in the Rochester Post-Bulletin
March 22, 2004 - In the recent opinion piece by Representative Fran Bradley, "Truth about child care help," 3/20/04, he attempted to rationalize budget cuts to child care assistance programs by using a dizzying assortment of distorted facts.

Child care assistance has traditionally enjoyed strong bi-partisan support in Minnesota, and it is unfortunate that Rep. Bradley is now attempting to make it such a partisan issue. Let us not get distracted from the fact that investing in early childhood programs produces real results. Read Full Response.

Best Return on Investment!

A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis indicates that investing in early childhood is one of the best long-term public investments the state can make. Quality early childhood programs generate a 16 percent rate of return on investment, 12 percent of which is public return.

Research shows that low-income children in quality early childhood programs are less likely than their peers to:

• drop out of school,
• be in special education,
• repeat a grade,
• be arrested as juveniles, and
• need welfare benefits as adults.