Recapping Our Legislative Session!

With the state’s legislative session coming to an end, we wanted to recap the incredible accomplishments that the Common Start Coalition has made over the past two years - none of this would have been possible without the support of our incredible grassroots activists and supporters across the state.

Since 2019, the Common Start Coalition has been steadily building our broad-based coalition to advocate for affordable, accessible, high-quality early education and child care. We’ve made enormous strides in raising awareness of the need for action to fix the child care crisis. This past session, we developed a comprehensive legislative framework that would help children, families, educators, providers, and businesses, and signed up a majority of legislators as cosponsors. This spring, our vision was reflected in a major report written by the state’s Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission and in legislation approved by the Legislature’s Education Committee!

The Senate passed their version of the Education Committee bill unanimously, and in the House, a majority of the state representatives have cosponsored or are supportive of the bill! Additionally, the state budget made a major down payment on our vision with more than $500 million in new early ed funding, which represents the first year of funding for our legislative framework - before the bill is even passed.

We are very optimistic about the prospect of legislative action in the near future and will continue to work with legislators to get this bill over the finish line and make sure that the many complexities of the issue are all addressed.

As we wrap up this session, we wanted to thank you for your tremendous advocacy throughout the past years. These victories are possible because of the breadth and strength of our coalition and our activists, and we look forward to winning more victories with you in the future!