Early Ed Supporters See Payoff In “Common Start” – State House News Service
By Katie Lannan
Littleton resident Kristen Guichard told lawmakers she pays $47,000 to send her two kids to day care four days a week, providing them with a supportive environment she feels lucky to have. It's a price tag she knows not everyone can afford and that can come with challenges that go beyond strictly financial, she said.
"While my kids were attending the day care of our choice and I went off to work each day knowing my kids were happy, safe and nurtured, another person close to me in my community was struggling with a very difficult choice," Guichard said at an Education Committee hearing Tuesday. "She was in an abusive relationship, but her partner watched her children and she could not afford other child care. As a result, she felt she had to stay in that abusive relationship just so that the children could be watched during the day and she could work."
Encouraging lawmakers to consider "impossible choices" facing parents, Guichard testified in support of a bill that would gradually establish a universal system of early education and child care from birth through age 5 in Massachusetts.
The bill (H 605/S 362), filed in the House by Reps. Ken Gordon and Adrian Madaro and in the Senate by Education Committee co-chair Sen. Jason Lewis and Sen. Susan Moran, proposes a five-year rollout of a program that would ultimately allow families earning less than half the statewide median income to access early education and child care for free, with families earning above that threshold paying up to 7 percent of their total household income. It would also create a new direct-to-provider funding allocation, based on capacity rather than attendance.