Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children

A guest blog by Chris Martes, president and CEO of Strategies for Children.

We’re keeping an eye on early education trends, and we think there are six important things to watch for in 2018.

• FY19 state budget advocacy

Will the Governor and the Legislature continue their support for the early childhood education workforce? We hope so. Massachusetts has made important progress.

• Dear Massachusetts Legislature: Please expand preschool.

Last year, the Senate Ways and Means committee included $15 million for expansion, but this allocation did not make it into the final budget.

We are continuing to advocate for a bill that would invest in expansion in a small but powerful way. “An Act ensuring high quality early education,” H.2874 filed by Representative Alice Peisch (D-Wellesley) and S.240 filed by Senator Sal DiDomenico (D-Everett) would award preschool expansion grants to high-needs communities that are ready to go with comprehensive implementation plans.

Please join us by contacting your legislators and urging them to add their support. We’d like to see these bills move out of committee soon and be brought up for a vote by the end of the formal legislative sessions in July.

• Who’s Ready to Go?

We know of 15 communities that have preschool expansion plans, and we expect this number to grow.

Local leaders are collecting data on the needs of children, families, and programs. Expect most Gateway Cities — and several higher-need suburban communities — to have preschool plans by the end of the year.

• Philanthropic action

Looking for high returns? Join the local and national foundations that invest in young children and early learning. The payoff is huge. We’ve seen smiling preschool graduates grow up to become productive members of the state’s workforce — and we’ve seen the growing evidence base that supports high-quality pre-K become a rallying cry.

We expect more funders to enter this space and attract more of the public investments it takes to expand early learning opportunities.

• Business Innovation

The new federal tax law lowers the corporate tax rate, giving businesses more financial room to experiment with new approaches. Expect to see child and family advocates look anew to the private sector to develop new policies and programs for working families.

• Research Lessons

Keep an eye on two important research efforts: The Early Learning Study at Harvard and the evaluation of our state’s Preschool Expansion Grant (PEG). Both are generating new, Massachusetts-specific data and insights on high-quality early education. Their findings will likely impact the way we design and implement preschool programs.