Public comments sought about new education laws

Release from Collaborative for Children

Advocacy Alert!

The Department of Family and Protective Services is seeking public comments on its proposed rules to implement two important new laws that strengthen quality early care and education. One requires an increased number of training hours. The other establishes qualifications for those who do the training.

The Department proposes eliminating a requirement that no more than half of the required training hours can be from self-instruction or online training. This would allow child care personnel to obtain all their training online.

Collaborative for Children supports quality online instruction as an important part of training but does not support allowing it to entirely replace classroom instruction because:

• Qualified trainers provide motivation, social connection, networking and clarification of misunderstandings in a classroom setting where participants have the opportunity to get their questions answered, to be challenged to do their best and to maximize their learning potential.
• Expert trainers serve as a role models and motivators.
• Classroom training provides a check to the misuse of online training that can occur if a student borrows the work of another or receives weak online training that does not require reading materials to answer the questions.
• Research has not yet documented the efficacy of online training for an adult population with minimal educational attainment.  Most of the research done on distance learning is with college students who also have access to webinars and chat rooms with instructional contact.

We encourage advocates to support retaining rule §746.1327 so that at least half of the required training is in the classroom.

You can view the proposed rules at:

http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Child_Care/Child_Care_Standards_and_Regulations/comment.asp

You can submit your comments by Dec. 19 at MSC@dfps.state.tx.us 

Public comments should include the following information:

• First and last name and organization you represent, if applicable
• Email/Street Address
• Role (Child Care provider, parent, advocate, etc.)
• Issue of concern:  Chapter 746 – Licensed Child-Care Centers:  §746.1327.