Tackling the early child care crisis: Common Start bill would subsidize families, divert money to providers – Daily Hampshire Gazette
By Eden Mor
New Village, a nonprofit early education community in Northampton, has long faced the brutal reality of the early child care crisis. The school, which offers progressive and social justice-minded education for families across western Massachusetts, depends on government funding to stay afloat, despite a long waitlist of parents eager to enroll their children.
The problems plaguing child care right now come from all directions, explained Suzanne Stillinger, a teacher leader and accessibility coordinator at New Village. Many centers are unaffordable for parents, or they are located too far away from where they live. At the same time, teachers and providers are not making a livable wage, forcing many to leave the workforce.
On top of that, organizations like New Village can’t meet demand without significant help from the state and federal governments.
“We know this is where we’re needed and so we choose it,” Stillinger said of teachers’ decisions to work in early education. But the “heartbreaking truth” is that most teachers live beneath, or close to, the poverty line.
That’s why Stillinger found herself on Beacon Hill last week, joining dozens of parents and educators to testify before the Joint Committee on Education in support of legislation that would offer families financial assistance with the cost of early education and child care and address the stability of the industry.
A bill, commonly referred to as Common Start (S 301 / H 489), would largely subsidize expensive early childhood education for lower-income families, leading to huge projected increases in the percentage of young kids in such programs by reducing the cost burden for families. Backers hope the measure will increase child development and well-being and boost the commonwealth’s economy.
The bill also seeks to steer state funds toward early care providers, to directly offset provider operating costs, including higher educator pay.