Massachusetts investment in early childhood education is imperative – MassLive
By Henry M. Thomas III & Cheryl A. Stanley
The corrosive and long-term consequences of underinvestment in U.S. early child education and care – on its providers and the parents and children who need it – was brought home by “Virtual Convening” held on April 2, co-hosted by the Urban League of Springfield and the Massachusetts Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators.
The event, which also included a keynote address and panel discussion on the role of family partnerships in providing quality early childcare and education, was attended by community leaders and educators from Western Massachusetts.
A panel discussion of the commonwealth’s investments and goals for early childhood education and care drew on findings from the commonwealth’s Future of Work Commission, which released its report in March. The commission, co-chaired by state Sens. Eric P. Lesser, D-Longmeadow, and Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, was formed in 2020 and tasked with charting a legislative path for pandemic recovery as well as meeting the needs of workers over the next decade.
A striking statistic noted in the commission’s report (drawn from October 2021 findings from the state’s Department of Early Education and Care) is that even before March 2020 there were 230,000 childcare slots available in the state for children up to age 14 – compared to an estimated 750,000 children in households headed by full-time workers. Although most childcare facilities have reopened, they remain hampered by factors such as capacity limits as well as loss of workers to other industries in which wages have increased.