Mass. weighs importance, cost of funding child care and early childhood education – Worcester Telegram & Gazette
By Kinga Borondy
BOSTON - The calls from desperate parents seeking child care come in daily to the Guild of St. Agnes of Worcester. Yet the organization, which serves roughly 1,700 children at 17 child care centers and 135 affiliated Family Child Care homes throughout the county, can’t help.
“In April, we opened a center with the capacity to accommodate 152 children; we had a waitlist of 60 children months before opening,” said Sharon MacDonald, president and CEO of the guild. “That waitlist has only grown because we can only open six of the 10 planned classrooms due to lack of teachers.”
Witness after witness testifying Tuesday before the Joint Committee on Education at the Massachusetts State House told members that child care and early childhood education is in crisis in Massachusetts.
They cited two main reasons: The expense and the lack of a qualified and trained workforce.
Massachusetts has the second-highest child care costs in the nation, second only to Washington, D.C., according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The average costs in the state range from $16,000 to $26,000, depending on the age of the children, the number in care and the location of the care provider. That is compared to the national average of $10,000 a year, with some states even lower, such as Mississippi at $4,400.
Staffing is also an issue. Qualified and trained teaching staff, as well as home day care providers, leave the profession due to the low rate of pay. Overall, the average child worker salary in the state ranges between $37,500 to $47,500, with an average salary of $41,591. Kindergarten teachers at public schools start around $52,000.
While Massachusetts does have a voucher system for low-income families, even with subsidies and other aid, families are desperate to find quality care. And caregivers are desperate for higher reimbursement rates from the state to offset the costs of the voucher program. The state pays from $23 for in-home day cares to $101 for infants in center-based programs.
Dozens of people attended the session to urge lawmakers to support companion bills on the issue filed by both Senate and House members. If passed, the Common Start bills could save the average family up to $13,260 a year in child care costs. The cost to the state would be $1.7 billion a year.
But witness after witness assured the committee the investment would be worth it for Massachusetts.