New coalition forms around early education and care - State House News Service
By Katie Lannan
A new coalition, inspired by the success of groups who advocated for last year’s paid family and medical leave law, is working to develop a plan to give Massachusetts families easier access to affordable, high-quality early childhood education and care.
In a letter Tuesday to lawmakers on the Education Committee, the coalition made up of community, faith, labor and business groups, plus early educators and parents, said they are working to explore ideas including extended hours for early education and care programs, varying fees based on family income, and boosting pay and training for early educators…
Deb Fastino, executive director of the Coalition for Social Justice…was the convener of the “new, very broad” coalition that “came together based on the success of working with nontraditional partners on paid family and medical leave.”
“We are working together to develop the details of this plan that we can all support, and we would love to work with the committee members at some point as we get closer to a full bill,” Fastino said.