Under one tent

Without a lot of fanfare last week, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. took a small step toward providing low-income families better access to child care when he transferred authority for a child care subsidy program from the Department of Human Resources to the Maryland State Department of Education. As a matter of policy and practice, it's a good move.

Last year, the General Assembly passed a bill, signed by Mr. Ehrlich, that took a number of child care functions out of DHR and gave them to MSDE, including licensing and monitoring child care facilities, providing incentives to improve quality of care, and maintaining and improving credentials of staff workers. The consolidation was seen as a natural extension of MSDE's authority over several early childhood education initiatives, such as prekindergarten programs, including the state's contribution to Head Start. One program that was left with DHR, called purchase of care, uses a combination of federal and state funds to give child care subsidies to families who are on welfare or whose income is low enough to qualify them for financial help.

A justification for not moving the program was welfare reform - which is within DHR's purview - as child care is often essential to a welfare recipient's ability to work. But the vast majority of Maryland families receiving the child care subsidy are working poor; only about 20 percent of families that benefit from the subsidy are also on welfare.

Child care advocates rightly argued that, as a matter of policy, it made more sense to keep the subsidy program together with other child care programs to maintain consistency of purpose and leadership. In addition, DHR has not managed the program well, openly diverting millions of subsidy dollars to other programs, while requiring recipient families to come up with higher co-payments. Now that the governor has moved the program, state education officials can be expected not only to use the dollars for their intended purpose but also to benefit children by emphasizing quality child care as a key component of early childhood education.

It makes perfect sense for one department to be responsible for children's ongoing educational needs, from early childhood through high school.