Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children
Last week, on Friday, July 17, 2015, Governor Charlie Baker signed the fiscal year 2016 state budget into law. This budget has $162 million in line-item vetoes.
The vetoes include a $5 million reduction in funds for early education and care programs, as well as a $17.6 million reduction for full-day kindergarten grants.
The Legislature can vote to override these vetoes. But legislators need to hear your encouragement.
Please take a moment to send them an email and ask them to support early education funding in fiscal year 2016.
Thank you.
Eye on Early Education is a blog of Strategies for Children, an organization that works to ensure that Massachusetts invests the resources needed for all children, from birth to age five, to access high-quality early education programs that prepare them for success in school and life. The blogger, 
eyeonearlyeducation.org 
Governor Baker I’m very disappointed on your decision to not approve this. Parents and children depend on this. Workers do too. Very bad decision.
To all politicians: Have any of you taught in a classroom of 24 or more students in an urban setting? If you had you would realize that it is not fair to the students. The state requires so much of teachers that the student is lost in all the politics. Are you willing to teach and test and prep everything needed for this class? I think you should do this before cutting any funding that is needed to help our students who are the future!
I am very disappointed in any reductions to Early Childhood Education. Full Day Kindergarten is integral to the academic challenges faced by the children in today’s society. It is a disgrace to take this away and limit funding!!!
Please help this important piece of legislation not be taken away. This is a vitally important part of children’s education. Our children are the future of this country and they deserve to have the best start towards it.
Please support early education funding in fiscal year 2015, It is important to provide classroom funding to serve the number of children with special needs, children living in poverty, and English language learners enrolled, so that all children in every school district have the opportunity to succeed in school.
Governor Baker, I thought you were different. Have you ever spent a day in a kindergarten classroom? Obviously not. I am so very disappointed.
Governor Baker I suggest that you should have researched the importance of Early Education before you made this proposed cuts.
Please fund early education
Please support early education funding. These programs are so important to many families, and help get our children ready for elementary school.
Please Go fund early education Charlie! Don’t u have children! education is the key !
This is not place to cut funds. I work in a school and the curriculum is so much more rigorous than when I attended. Early intervention and kindergarten are the foundation of all learning that happens afterwards. We need full-day tuition free programs across MA to get competitive. Kindergarten is not what it was twenty years ago-socialization and play, which are also critical to early development.
Children are learning to read, write and do math at five years old now. Please support this crucial service that our children need.
IT IS A PROVEN RESEARCHED FACT THAT CHILDREN LEARN THE MOST IN THE FIRST 5 YEARS OF LIFE…..SO TAKING AWAY FUNDING IN THAT AREA IS COMPLETELY BAFFLING TO ME. TEACHERS ALWAYS SPEND A LOT OF THEIR OWN MONEY — AND FOR BEING A HIGHLY UNDERPAID PROFESSIONAL THAT IS SAYING A LOT. WE NEED TO REMEMBER THAT CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE OF THIS COUNTRY. PLEASE DO NOT TAKE FUNDING AWAY FROM AMERICA’S FUTURE!
We need funding for early education for the year of 2016. Please help our children by not taking this away from parents that need it.
I voted for you, thinking you had the best interest of the children in mind. To cut funding on early childhood care & kindergarten funding is absolutely ludicrous. You can’t trim the budget by doing anything else?! Single parents need these benefits & rely on them. I’m deeply disappointed in this action you have taken, and you have lost my vote.
People, this is something that should be done on the local level. Every town raises their taxes to pay for this. It is not the State’s responsibility. STOP SITTING BACK AND GET INVOLVED LOCALLY!
We are the strong foundation for education. Please visit a preschool classroom or Kindergarten classroom. You will be impressed with all the great things going on! Please do the right thing for children who benefit from an amazing early childhood experience !!!!
That’s like vetoing senior discounts… Curious to see where the money will go instead probably for some new SUVs….would think Baker would be a little better than that. Disappointed to say the least.
These children NEED us! Governor Baker, I’d like to see you run a classroom of 28 kindergarteners BY YOURSELF! You wouldn’t last a minute. Most of these children have never attended school before. Kindergarten is the foundation that prepares them for the rest of their lives. I don’t do my job for the money, I get paid 13 dollars an hour. I live check by check struggling each and every month. I do this job because I care about these kids’ well-being and their future. Shame on you.
I can’t believe you cut early childhood education and kindergarten! Those are the stepping stones for children! It prepares them for the upcoming years! It’s not babysitting or day care.
Early education is essential to prepare our children for the years of learning ahead. And half day programs are very difficult for working parents to maneuver and afford the cost of before and after school programs. Please reconsider the impact on all the families of our state.
[…] Baker’s budget would also level-fund full-day kindergarten grants – a hot topic from last year’s budget debate. This year, Baker has called for changing how the grant is structured. The specific budget language […]