Title 20, EducationRelease 119-110

§9407 Uses of Funds

Title 20 › CHAPTER 75 — EARLY LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES › § 9407

Last updated Sep 22, 2026|Official source

Summary

Use grant money to set up, run, or improve voluntary early learning programs that are likely to give children lasting gains in learning. State agencies and local councils must spend the funds on at least three out of eight kinds of activities. These include helping parents, caregivers, and teachers boost children’s thinking, language, social, and motor skills; promoting good parenting; improving early reading; connecting programs with each other and with health care; helping children with special needs get services; expanding access, hours, or affordability; raising program quality through training and better pay; and removing barriers like transportation or odd hours. Agencies and local councils must work with local schools to pick the developmental skills children need to be ready for school. Programs must help children reach those skills in ways that fit their age. The services must help kids cared for at home and those in other care settings. Programs that usually charge fees must lower costs based on a family’s ability to pay.

Full Legal Text

Title 20, §9407

Education, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)In general

Subject to section 9409 of this title, grant funds under this chapter shall be used to pay for developing, operating, or enhancing voluntary early learning programs that are likely to produce sustained gains in early learning.

(b)Limited uses

Subject to section 9409 of this title, Lead State Agencies and Local Councils shall ensure that funds made available under this chapter to the agencies and Local Councils are used for three or more of the following activities:

(1)Helping parents, caregivers, child care providers, and educators increase their capacity to facilitate the development of cognitive, language comprehension, expressive language, social-emotional, and motor skills, and promote learning readiness.

(2)Promoting effective parenting.

(3)Enhancing early childhood literacy.

(4)Developing linkages among early learning programs within a community and between early learning programs and health care services for young children.

(5)Increasing access to early learning opportunities for young children with special needs, including developmental delays, by facilitating coordination with other programs serving such young children.

(6)Increasing access to existing early learning programs by expanding the days or times that the young children are served, by expanding the number of young children served, or by improving the affordability of the programs for low-income families.

(7)Improving the quality of early learning programs through professional development and training activities, increased compensation, and recruitment and retention incentives, for early learning providers.

(8)Removing ancillary barriers to early learning, including transportation difficulties and absence of programs during nontraditional work times.

(c)Requirements

Each Lead State Agency designated under section 9409(c) of this title and Local Councils receiving a grant under this chapter shall ensure—

(1)that Local Councils described in section 9413 of this title work with local educational agencies to identify cognitive, social, emotional, and motor developmental abilities which are necessary to support children’s readiness for school;

(2)that the programs, services, and activities assisted under this chapter will represent developmentally appropriate steps toward the acquisition of those abilities; and

(3)that the programs, services, and activities assisted under this chapter collectively provide benefits for children cared for in their own homes as well as children placed in the care of others.

(d)Sliding scale payments

States and Local Councils receiving assistance under this chapter shall ensure that programs, services, and activities assisted under this chapter which customarily require a payment for such programs, services, or activities, adjust the cost of such programs, services, and activities provided to the individual or the individual’s child based on the individual’s ability to pay.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

20 U.S.C. § 9407

Title 20, Education

Last Updated

Sep 22, 2026

Release point: 119-110