The idea of a federal competitive grant program for high-quality early education has gotten new life. President Obama’s request for fiscal year 2012, released last month, includes $350 million for an Early Learning Challenge Fund. Earlier this month U.S. Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA) introduced the Supporting State Systems of Early Learning Act.

Casey’s bill, according to a news release from the senator’s office, “would establish an Early Learning Challenge Fund to help states build and strengthen systems of early learning, so that more low-income children ages zero to five have access to high-quality early learning and development opportunities that prepare them for success in school and beyond.” U.S Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Patty Murray (D-WA), Chris Coons (D-DE) and Al Franken (D-MN) are co-sponsors.

Specifically, the news release continues, the bill (S-470) would:

• Help states raise the bar on program quality, improve workforce qualifications and create a seamless system of early care and learning that working families and children can rely upon.
• Make funds available on a competitive basis to states that have demonstrated the greatest progress in establishing a system of high-quality early learning, as well as states that demonstrate a commitment to building a high-quality system of early learning.
• Give priority to states that establish public-private partnerships and that leverage federal child care funds for the purposes of the act.
• Require that states provide a matching rate of 15% and an assurance that new funding will supplement and not supplant current funding used to support early learning programs.

The provisions closely resemble those in earlier versions of the Early Learning Challenge Fund. President Obama first proposed the concept during the 2008 campaign and then included it in his 2010 budget request. It was incorporated in student aid reform, which, in turn, was eventually included in health care reform without the early learning fund.

“The burning question, of course, is whether this bill will make any headway in the Senate, let alone the House, this year,” Early Ed Watch notes. “How large will the fund be –- and will it be sustainable year after year?”