Common Start Coalition Applauds Senate Passage of Early Education and Child Care Bill
The Common Start Coalition, a diverse group of over 150 organizations leading the campaign on Beacon Hill to address the multi-faceted childcare crisis, applauded the state Senate’s passage today of early education and child care legislation which is backed by the coalition.
“The Common Start Coalition, made up of more than 150 organizations and thousands of parents, providers, and early educators working together to make high-quality early education and child care affordable and accessible to all Massachusetts families, is thrilled by the Senate's passage of An Act to Expand Access to High-Quality, Affordable Early Education and Care. This legislation represents a substantial step toward implementing our full vision and tackling the ongoing child care crisis,” said Deb Fastino, Statewide Director of the Common Start Coalition and Executive Director of the Coalition for Social Justice. “This legislation will aid educators who are working for inadequate pay, families who are struggling to afford child care, and providers who are working hard to keep their doors open and their programs fully staffed. We are grateful for the leadership of Education Committee Chairman Jason Lewis, Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Michael Rodrigues and Senate President Karen Spilka, and look forward to working with Education Committee Chairwoman Peisch and House leadership to get comprehensive child care legislation across the finish line and deliver the help that parents, educators, providers, and children desperately need.”
“This bill is a crucial step forward in making early education a priority in Massachusetts,” said Mark Reilly, the Vice President of Policy & Government Relations at Jumpstart, which both trains college students to become early educators and advocates for policy change. “Massachusetts is 40th in the nation in state investment in early education and we are pleased to see that the Legislature is poised to drive the state up those rankings. Increasing pay for early educators and offering scholarships and loan assistance to those seeking to enter the field will also address the longstanding inequity and current workforce crisis that is plaguing the field.”
“This is a win-win situation — it's the right thing to do for our economy and it's the moral thing to do," said Cindy Rowe, Executive Director of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action. “Without access to affordable, high-quality early education and child care, parents and other caregivers are either unable to work, or they struggle to balance jobs with caring for their children. Our entire economy is suffering due to the lack of early education and child care options. This bill will be a major step forward in fixing that.”
“The health crisis highlighted so many inequities in so many of our systems and has also raised broad, concrete awareness of how critical and integral the early education and care sector is to our economy. The roadmap outlined in the Legislature’s Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission Report and hearing the real life, day-to-day challenges from educators and families helped inform the bill passed by the Massachusetts Senate,” said Amy O’Leary, Executive Director of Strategies for Children. “We are grateful to the members of the legislature - your commitment and dedication to better understand, listen and learn from educators and providers, ask questions, visit programs and work in partnership with advocates, business leaders and your colleagues in the legislature and the Baker Administration have made a difference for children and families in the Commonwealth and gives me great hope as we continue our work together.”
“We applaud the Senate for passing this bill, which strives to address current access, affordability, and workforce challenges in Massachusetts’ early education and care sector,” said Lauren Birchfield Kennedy, Co-President and Chief Strategy Officer of Neighborhood Villages. “The bill makes care more affordable for more families, makes investments in early educators, and, importantly, it makes permanent the direct-to-provider grants first made possible by the state's Commonwealth Cares for Children Stabilization Grant Program, which are critical to keeping child care programs open, especially in socially vulnerable communities. Now, more than ever, families across the Commonwealth are in desperate need of affordable care solutions that enable them to work and provide their children a high-quality early education that will set them up to thrive.”
“The Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women (MCSW) has been a committed coalition partner from the start. Prior to the pandemic, we had been hearing from women across the Commonwealth about issues they faced around childcare and early childhood education,” said Mary-dith Tuitt, Chair of the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women Legislative and Public Policy Committee. “During the pandemic, we hosted a virtual hearing and launched a survey focused on childcare and education - and our findings motivated our work with the Common Start Coalition. We are truly excited to be a part of this milestone - and we remain committed to the mission, keeping the momentum to cross the finish line.”
“This bill will bring long-awaited racial equity to the thousands of women who have dedicated their lives to providing child care, and to the many families across Massachusetts who need affordable, high-quality child care," said Jynai McDonald, Western Massachusetts Chapter Coordinator for the Common Start Coalition. "It will help close the racial equity wage gap for providers of color and allow more parents to remain in the workforce. Families will have to worry less about how they are going to afford child care while still keeping a roof over their head and food on the table."
The legislation passed by the Senate today, S2973, An Act to Expand Access to High-Quality, Affordable Early Education and Care, would establish a framework for delivering increased access to affordable, high-quality early education and child care to Massachusetts families, over the course of several years. The legislation would:
Expand access to child care subsidies, beginning with low-income families and then moving up the income scale. The bill would increase eligibility for child care subsidies over time from the current limit of 50% of SMI ($44,626/year for a family of 2, $65,626/year for a family of 4) to 125% of SMI ($111,565/year for a family of 2, $164,065/year for a family of 4);
Require parent fees for subsidized families to be affordable and updated at least every 5 years;
Create an additional operational funding stream that goes directly to providers to help them afford the cost of offering quality care, including higher pay for educators;
Reimburse providers based on quarterly enrollment rather than daily attendance to provide more predictable, reliable funding;
Require the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) to assess the true cost of quality care and then set reimbursement rates that adequately fund high-quality programs;
Require EEC to provide guidance for educator salaries to be commensurate with public school educators with similar education and training;
Allow providers who accept subsidies to offer discounts and scholarships to their educators and staff, which they have been prohibited from doing in the past;
Require a study with recommendations to the Legislature on how employers could provide more support to their workers' child care needs; and
Enact numerous provisions to address equity including data collection, language access, identifying and removing barriers to access, and establishing scholarships and loan forgiveness programs for early educators.
While An Act to Expand Access to High-Quality, Affordable Early Education and Care sets out a framework for expanding access to affordable, high-quality early education and child care, fulfilling the Common Start vision of a high-quality early education and childcare system that is truly affordable and accessible for all families in Massachusetts will require a sustained effort to fund that framework through the annual budget process and build on it over several years. The combination of this legislation and proposed new funding in the state budget currently being debated by a legislative conference committee, if the priorities of both chambers make it into the final FY23 budget, would represent a substantial step toward implementing this vision.
###
The Common Start Coalition is a statewide partnership of organizations, providers, parents, early educators and advocates working together to make high-quality early education and child care affordable and accessible to all Massachusetts families. Our goal is to ensure that all families have the care solutions they need and that all children in our Commonwealth have the same, strong start and enter school on a level playing field. We are a diverse coalition including community, faith-based, labor, business, and early education and child care organizations, as well as early educators, parents, individuals, and direct service organizations.
The coalition, established in 2018, includes more than 150 organizations across Massachusetts, and is coordinated by a steering committee made up of the Coalition for Social Justice, Greater Boston Legal Services, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA), the MA Association of Early Education and Care (MADCA), the Massachusetts Association for the Education of Young Children, the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, the MA Commission on the Status of Women, Neighborhood Villages, Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts, SEIU Local 509, and Strategies for Children. The Coalition has six regional chapters across the state and a Spanish-language statewide chapter – each of which include local parents, early educators, providers, and other advocates.