Fixing early ed system could cost $1.5 billion a year – Commonwealth Magazine
By Shira Schoenberg
Massachusetts’s early childhood education system is unaffordable and inaccessible to too many families, and it will cost an estimated $1.5 billion a year to improve it, according to a report released Monday by a special legislative commission looking at the economics of early education and care.
The commission, led by Education Committee co-chairs Sen. Jason Lewis and Rep. Alice Peisch, calls for expanding the subsidies available to families while increasing financial support to childcare centers themselves and their workers…
A coalition of education and business advocates have been pushing for a $5 billion ambitious plan to overhaul the early childhood system and provide universal, affordable, high-quality pre-k to all families, by turning a system that is largely private pay into one that is far more heavily publicly subsidized.
The Common Start Coalition issued a statement praising the report as including “critical recommendations that, if fully implemented, will begin to address some of the most critical issues at play,” including increasing affordability and supporting the workforce.