Ms. Schumacher was a panelist for the Forum’s discussion on Childcare and Health in America.
Rachel Schumacher is the Director of the Office of Child Care, where she is committed to increasing access to quality child care that promotes early learning and development of children — from birth through school age — in partnership with their families and communities. She leads the Office of Child Care’s work to implement the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014 and enhance the quality and continuity of infant and toddler child care, including through collaboration with the Office of Head Start for Early Head Start – Child Care Partnerships.
Before coming to the Office of Child Care, Ms. Schumacher was an independent Early Childhood Policy Consultant. She has advised and conducted policy analysis on behalf of national organizations and public agencies to identify and amplify strategies to enhance the lives of young children and their parents by strengthening early childhood systems and services. As a consultant, she supported the development and launch of Early Childhood-LINC (Learning and Innovation Network for Communities), a project cosponsored by the Center for Study of Social Policy and the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County to support families and improve results for young children in communities across the country with a focus on accelerating the development of effective, integrated, local early childhood systems.
Prior to launching her consulting business, Ms. Schumacher was a Senior Fellow in Child Care and Early Education at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). While at CLASP, she led policy research and provided technical assistance to policymakers on a range of topics including: infant and toddler child care and Early Head Start policies, state early childhood systems, enhancing child care quality standards, state prekindergarten programs, and federal law and regulation for the Child Care and Development Fund and Head Start/Early Head Start. Before CLASP, Rachel served as an Early Childhood Policy Analyst at the Children’s Defense Fund, Greater Cincinnati Project and as a Legislative Aide in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
Ms. Schumacher has a Bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a Master’s in Public Policy from the Irving B. Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
