Massachusetts child care system strapping families with high costs and few options – MASSterList
By Erin Tiernan
Toddlers, their parents and the educators who serve them are taking to the State House tomorrow to press lawmakers to reform a child-care system that’s burdening families with high costs and few options.
Early childhood education proponents from the Common Start Coalition, who are behind the rally for an affordable, accessible system, are hoping they’ll have something big to celebrate, too. Both chambers have formal sessions planned for 11 a.m. on Thursday, but top Democrats have been mum so far on which bills they plan to advance. Both House and Senate versions include big investments in early childhood education and care — $850 million and $1.5 billion, respectively — but vary on exactly how much and how to fund it.
Also on the table are a pair of bills — filed by Sens. Jason Lewis and Susan Moran and Reps. Adrian Madaro and Kenneth Gordon — that would advance the coalition’s plan to subsidize child care and bump up educators’ salaries to shore up a workforce crisis.
“The result for parents and families would be substantially lower costs — tens of thousands a year in savings for middle-income families,” coalition spokesman Andrew Farnitano told MASSterList. “The cost of child care working families are facing right now is astronomical.”