Common Start Coalition Calls for Passage of Bills to Create System of Affordable, Accessible, High-Quality Early Education and Child Care
As Bills Achieve Majority Support in House and Senate, Parents, Early Educators, Providers, and Advocates Lobby Legislators to Move Quickly on Comprehensive Child Care Legislation
BOSTON – Policy experts, parents, early educators, early education and care program administrators, and family child care providers spoke to legislators on Beacon Hill today, urging them to move quickly on comprehensive child care legislation that is now sponsored by a majority of both chambers of the Legislature.
“My daughter stayed home with me until she was 2 years old. Last fall, I was finally able to obtain a childcare voucher. At the time, I was extremely nervous I wasn't going to get childcare in time for when my classes started,” said Tiffany Jenkins, a Hyde Park parent who is a full-student at Endicott College, a trainee carpenter, and a part-time concierge at a local hospital. “If this legislation is passed and fully funded, every family who qualifies would receive a subsidy. Because when you need childcare to get a job or go to school, you need it right away, not months or years later when a spot opens up.”
During a legislative briefing and lobby day organized by the Common Start Coalition, a diverse group of over 150 organizations leading the campaign on Beacon Hill to address the multi-faceted early education and child care crisis, legislators and their staff heard about H.489 (filed by Representatives Gordon & Madaro) & S.301 (filed by Senators Lewis & Moran), two bills that would establish a system of affordable, accessible, and high-quality early education and child care for Massachusetts families, and help advance the Common Start vision in Massachusetts.
“The Common Start Coalition is a statewide partnership of organizations, providers from the mixed delivery system, parents, early educators and advocates working together to make high-quality early education and child care affordable and accessible to all Massachusetts families,” said Amy O’Leary, Executive Director of Strategies for Children. “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 know there is broad support for Common Start’s vision and policy proposals, and we are excited to work with the Legislature to pass comprehensive early education and child care legislation this year.”
The bills, which are now co-sponsored by a majority of legislators in both the State House of Representatives (81 legislators) and the State Senate (23 legislators), would provide the specific structure that is needed to deliver affordable care options for families; significantly better pay and benefits for early educators; a new, stable source of funding for providers; high-quality programs and services for children; and substantial relief for businesses and our economy.
“Every day I get to work with 5-year-olds who are learning to read, write, be friends, do math, and understand the world around them. They have incredible complexity and depth of character, and many have severe behavioral challenges,” said Jarred Rose, a Stoughton Pre-K teacher and public policy co-chair of MAAEYC. “They deserve teachers who are there for them every day – yet due to the pay structure that has been allowed to grow, many teachers are leaving the field and vacancies are getting harder and harder to fill. Three of my colleagues in as many months have moved away from Massachusetts or left the industry. This low pay system severely deprives our children of the continuity of care that is so critical for their early development and it has to stop.”
“Our field continues to struggle to recruit and retain staff—and we need continued long-term investments that will enable us to continue to grow wages,” said Justin Pasquariello, Executive Director of East Boston Social Services. “In recent months, we have only just been able to maintain the staffing needed to keep all school-age classrooms open—and this has required the Program Director and others to frequently be in the classrooms to maintain required ratios. We are seeing increased behavioral health, mental health and developmental needs in our children—and so in addition to investing in teacher pay, we need to invest in other supports so our teachers don’t burn out.”
“We support the Common Start vision of providing affordable care to more families—and to achieve that vision, we must have the wages to enable us to recruit and retain workers to staff more classrooms and Family Child Care programs,” Pasquariello continued. “We must then invest in access too. As we are able to grow the field, we support the Common Start vision of growing access from those with the lowest household incomes—many of whom still don’t have access to a subsidy or voucher—up to include middle-income families who currently struggle to afford the full cost of care.”
Under the bills, programs would be available in early education and child care centers, private homes, and schools – the same settings where early education and child care is provided now. The bills affect early education and care for children from birth through age 5, as well as after- and out-of-school time for children ages 5-12, and for children with special needs through age 15 – in line with the ages covered by the current child care subsidy system.
“Los educadores de cuidado infantil familiar como yo brindamos atención desproporcionadamente a niños de color y niños de bajos ingresos y en ciudades de entrada/Gateway cities. Las familias marginadas en particular necesitan acceso a atención asequible y de alta calidad, particularmente fuera de los horarios convencionales, y me enorgullece brindar estos servicios esenciales, pero es difícil para los educadores que brindan estos servicios esenciales llegar a fin de mes,” said Celina Reyes, a Lawrence family child care (FCC) provider and Vice President of the Family Child Care Chapter of SEIU Local 509. “La Agenda de Inicio Común haría del cuidado infantil una profesión para toda la vida al proporcionar un salario base para cada educador. Nuevos proveedores podrían abrir programas de cuidado infantil en regiones donde actualmente es difícil acceder a la atención.”
[Translation: “Family child care educators like me disproportionately provide care to children of color and children who are low income and in gateway cities. Marginalized families in particular need access to high quality and affordable care, particularly outside of conventional hours, and I am proud to provide these essential services, but it is hard for educators providing these essential services to make ends meet. The Common Start Agenda would make child care a lifelong profession by providing a base salary for every educator. New providers could open child care programs in regions where care is currently hard to access.”]
The Common Start legislative framework uses a combination of direct-to-provider operational funding and family financial assistance to reduce costs to families while compensating providers for the true cost of providing quality care.
Operational Funding: The bills would permanently establish a direct-to-provider funding allocation based on provider capacity (not attendance) that directly offsets provider operating costs, including higher educator pay – similar to the Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) program.
Family Financial Assistance: The bills would provide financial assistance to enable more families to afford and access high-quality early education. They prioritize families earning at or below 85% of state median income ($115,546 for a family of 4, or $78,571 for a family of 2) and, as funding becomes available, would extend eligibility for financial assistance to middle-income families.
“This bill would be transformational for the Commonwealth by revolutionizing the early care and education experience for children, families, educators, providers, and businesses,” said Ryan Telingator, the FAO Schwarz Fellow at Jumpstart for Young Children. “The first five years of a child’s life are the most important in terms of brain development; and these bills are extremely worthy investments in both the next generation of Massachusetts citizens, and the current generation of parents, caregivers, educators, and providers.”
Background on the Common Start Coalition’s Campaign to Address the Child Care Crisis
Since 2018, the Common Start Coalition has been steadily building a broad-based coalition to advocate for affordable, accessible, high-quality early education and child care. During the 2021-2022 legislative session, the coalition developed the comprehensive Common Start legislative framework that would help children, families, educators, providers, and businesses, and signed up a majority of legislators as cosponsors. In the spring of 2022, the coalition’s vision was reflected in a major report written by the state’s Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission and in legislation approved by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Education.
The Senate passed its version of the Education Committee bill unanimously in the final days of the 2021-2022 legislative session, and while the bill did not receive a vote in the House, a majority of state representatives are on record supporting the Common Start framework. Additionally, state leaders made a major down payment on the coalition’s vision by including more than $500 million in new early education funding in the FY23 state budget and an additional $465 million in new funding in the economic development bill passed in November.
A recent report by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation found that the state loses $2.7 billion each year due to inadequate access to child care, including $1.7 billion in lost earnings for employees, $812 million in additional costs and lower productivity for employers, and $188 in lower tax revenues for the state. The Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission found that public funding is necessary if Massachusetts is to offer children an equal education, families affordable care, providers a sustainable business model, and educators a competitive living wage. As the Legislative Commission report says, immediate funding is needed now, as well as in the long term, to ensure that providers can keep their programs open and pay wages sufficient to keep educators in their classrooms.
Public support for state investment in early education and child care is strong, and has increased significantly amid the child care crisis. A statewide poll of Massachusetts voters, conducted in December on behalf of the Common Start Coalition, found 73% support for the Common Start proposal, with only 18% of voters opposing it. Support is up nearly 10 points from two years ago, when the corresponding margin on this question was 64%-23%.
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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 comprised of the following members: CEO Action for Racial Equity, the Coalition for Social Justice, Greater Boston Legal Services, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA), Jumpstart for Young Children, the MA Association of Early Education and Care (MADCA), the Massachusetts Association for the Education of Young Children (MAAEYC), the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, 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. More than 3,000 individual parents, caregivers, early educators, center administrators, business owners, and family child care providers are active members of the Common Start Coalition. More information about the coalition is available at commonstartma.org.