Families in Lowell rally for universal early education - Boston Globe
By Gal Tziperman Lotan
Rosario Monegro loves her job running a small day care in Lynn for a handful of children, ages 3 months to 8 years old. But it’s been difficult. She’s seen parents looking for child care caught between opposing forces: Some can’t afford to pay for day care, but can’t go to work and earn money without affordable, reliable child care.
“I would like all parents to have an opportunity to send their children to a family day care,” she said, speaking in Spanish. “That it’s accessible.”
Monegro came to Lowell City Hall Sunday morning with her 8-year-old son, Angel Lizardo, to join a few dozen adults and a handful of children for a playdate rally in support of a bill that would create a universal early education system in the state.
Under the bill, early education systems would receive public funding, like K-12 schools do now; preschool teachers, whose current wages sometimes put them below the poverty line, would be paid at the same levels K-12 teachers are; and families would not pay more than 7 percent of their household incomes for day care.