In her inauguration speech, State Senator Robyn Kennedy talked about the importance of investing in early childhood programs. She also appeared earlier this month on Strategies for Children’s 9:30 call as part of our “First Year Tour” meet-and-greet with newly elected legislators. Click on the white arrow below to hear her speech or read her tweet.
Archive for the ‘Funding’ Category
In quotes: Massachusetts State Senator Robyn Kennedy
Posted in Child care, Cost and affordability, Funding, MA Legislature, Strategies for Children, tagged #ChildCare, #mapoli on March 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The power of advocacy
Posted in Child care, COVID-19, Early educators, Funding, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, tagged #InvestInChildCare, #mapoli, #MARunsOnChildCare on March 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children
Here’s a great example of the power of collective advocacy.
Last month, more than 180 organizations and 718 individuals all signed a letter that was sent to the Massachusetts Legislature. The letter’s request: please provide an additional $70 million to fund this fiscal year’s Commonwealth Cares for Children or C3 stabilization grants.
These grants were essential for helping child care providers stay open during the pandemic, and they have become critical for supporting program quality and workforce retention.
“Now is the time,” the letter adds, “to move from a temporary stabilization program to permanent direct-to-provider operational funding and take an essential next step in our efforts to establish a sustainable business model for early education and care.” The C3 grant program can pave “a pathway from stabilization to systems growth.
“The $70 million will bridge the gap between the end of the childcare stabilization grant program and position a permanently funded operational grant program for sustained support and success into the future.”
The advocacy letter featured the logo of the Early Childhood Agenda, a new effort in Massachusetts to build collective power for transformational change. Check out highlights from the release of the Agenda at the State House earlier this year.
Now, we are happy to say that the advocacy letter was received, and its message was heard!
(more…)Governor Healey’s first budget proposal has good news for early education and care
Posted in Child care, Funding, MA governor, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Strategies for Children, tagged #earlyed, #ece, #InvestInChildCare, #mapoli on March 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Yesterday, Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll kicked off the Massachusetts budget season by releasing their $55.5 billion budget proposal for fiscal year 2024, which includes good news for early education and care.
“Our FY24 budget is what Massachusetts needs to meet this moment and build a strong economy, livable communities and a sustainable future,” Governor Healey said in a statement. “Combined with our tax relief proposal, we will set Massachusetts up for success by lowering costs, growing our competitiveness, and delivering on the promise of our people.” Earlier this week we highlighted the Child and Family Tax Credit in Healey’s proposal, which would provide $600 per eligible dependent.
For early education and care, the Healey-Driscoll budget proposal includes:
• $475 million to continue the state’s C3 operational grants
• $25 million for financial assistance for low-income families
• $30 million for Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative
• $20 million for child care resource and referral services
• $20 million in rate increases for subsidized child care providers
• $5 million for Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Services, and
• $5 million for comprehensive strategic analysis to build on the work completed through the Special Legislative Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission
(more…)State budget season is starting: Governor Maura Healey will release her budget proposal tomorrow
Posted in Funding, MA governor, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, tagged #earlyed, #ece, #InvestInChildCare, #mapoli, #MARunsOnChildCare on February 28, 2023| 2 Comments »
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey will make news tomorrow when she releases her first state budget proposal for fiscal year ’24. It will be a fiscal snapshot of her policy priorities, and we’re excited to see how she invests in early education and care.
Healey stands on a strong funding foundation. As our budget analysis explains, the state’s FY’23 budget made historic investments in the early childhood system, including:
• a $1.16 billion budget for the Department of Early Education and Care, which is a 45% increase over FY22.
• a new $175 million High-Quality Early Education & Care Affordability Fund, which supports recommendations made in the Special Legislative Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission
• an Economic Development bill signed into law in November that provided an additional $150 million for C3 Stabilization Grants, and $315 million for the Affordability Fund
Advocates hope Healey will continue to increase the state’s investment, and so far, the signs are promising. Yesterday, Healey announced a major tax relief proposal that includes $458 million for a new Child and Family Tax Credit that will “provide families with a $600 credit per dependent, including children under 13, people with disabilities, and senior dependents aged 65 and older,” a press release says.
This tax relief proposal “will be factored into the budget Healey will file on Wednesday,” according to a State House News story published in the Lowell Sun. “It will be up to the Democrats who control the House and Senate to decide whether to increase or decrease the scope of Healey’s proposals.”
(more…)Lessons from Somerville: How to build a strong and sustainable early childhood system
Posted in Cost and affordability, COVID-19, Family engagement, Funding, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Philanthropy, Pre-kindergarten, tagged #earlyed, #ece, #InvestInChildCare, #MARunsOnChildCare on February 23, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Somerville, Mass., has spent years building a strong foundation for its early education and care programs.
Photo: Huong Vu for Strategies for Children
Now, a case study – One Somerville, Every Child — explores how Somerville has used a three-year (2019-2022), $1 million grant from the Commonwealth Children’s Fund to make vital progress that will support young children and families – and set an example other cities can learn from.
This work began in 2018 when representatives of the City of Somerville and the Somerville Public Schools were introduced to team members from the Commonwealth Children’s Fund – thanks to the Harvard Education Redesign Lab’s By All Means Initiative.”
Somerville officials “shared plans and dreams they had for expanding their early childhood services, and the CCF team shared their plans to start investing in communities piloting innovations in early childhood systems,” the case study says.
Somerville had three goals it sought to achieve:
• expand and institutionalize its early childhood programs
• expand its existing preschool initiatives, and
• bridge the gaps between children’s birth and when they start school
Another program that was central in the grant-funded work was “Somerville’s light-touch, universal home visiting program, SomerBaby,” a first point of connection “to early childhood services and supports for many families.”
(more…)The second year of the Advocacy Network: introducing a new group of leaders
Posted in Child care, Early educators, Funding, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, Strategies for Children, tagged #Advocacy, #EarlyEducators, #ece on February 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Advocacy Network Year 2 Cohort
Last year, Strategies for Children launched the Advocacy Network for Early Education and Care, a program for educators and leaders in the early childhood field who wanted to expand their impact. Seven advocates completed the first cohort, and are having a positive advocacy impact on their programs, communities, and state.
Now we’re excited about the second year of the program and how a new group of leaders will expand advocacy in their communities.
“This program is all about the advocacy journey,” Titus DosRemedios, deputy director of Strategies for Children, says. “Last year’s participants went on a journey with us and with each other. They stepped out of their comfort zone, met knew people, learned about policy and ‘Advocacy 101,’ and took new strides in their professional development. They had the chance to speak on panels, serve on committees, write and share testimonies, appear in the news media and on social media, and develop advocacy projects for their programs, classrooms, and communities. This created a powerful ripple effect for the early childhood community, one that we know will continue with cohort 2 and 3.”
This year’s cohort 2 participants are:
(more…)The National Early Care and Education Workforce Center – a federal effort deployed by local and national leaders
Posted in Child care, Cost and affordability, COVID-19, Federal, Funding, National, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, tagged #ece, #ECEWorkforce on February 14, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Photo: Huong Vu for Strategies for Children
Earlier this month, federal officials announced that they are creating the new and promising National Early Care and Education Workforce Center (the ECE Workforce Center). It’s a national effort to rebuild the workforce that includes local leaders here in Boston.
Launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with $30 million in funding, the new center will address an old problem: even before the pandemic, the early childhood workforce was plagued with low pay and high turnover rates. This situation has grown worse during the pandemic.
“We know it is hard for families to find quality early childhood programs. One of the reasons is that programs are having trouble recruiting and retaining early educators,” January Contreras says. Contreras is the assistant secretary at the Administration for Children and Families, part of HHS. “We cannot continue to expect early educators to remain in these critical roles only to earn poverty wages.”
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra adds, “HHS is honored to launch this first-of-its-kind research and technical assistance center to support the essential early childhood workforce who partner with families every day to ensure young children have what they need to thrive.”
The new ECE Workforce Center will help by addressing recruitment and retention. The center’s work will include the input of early educators and be carried out over the next five years by six partner organizations. They are:
(more…)In quotes: political consensus in Massachusetts on the importance of investing in child care
Posted in Business and economy, Child care, Funding, MA governor, MA Legislature, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, tagged #ece, #mapoli, #MARunsOnChildCare, #SolveChildCare on February 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »
“With sky-high prices, persistent staffing shortages, low worker pay, and not enough spots to meet parent demand, Massachusetts’ child care sector has emerged from the pandemic in even worse shape. And the dysfunction in the system ripples outward, affecting children’s development and plaguing businesses when their employees can’t find reliable child care. For decades, very little has been done about it.
“This year, however, advocates say they are finally seeing political will on Beacon Hill and beyond to take action.
“For the first time in recent memory, all three key decision makers on Beacon Hill — Governor Maura Healey, Senate President Karen E. Spilka, and House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano — have explicitly said they want to tackle the issue, expressing support for legislation that would infuse the child care sector with public funding, much like K-12 schools already receive. It aims to create a five-year blueprint to provide child care and preschool for all families, and bump up the value of child care subsidies awarded to the state’s neediest families.”
“In a statement, Healey said her administration is ‘actively evaluating’ how to deliver aid for parents and educators through the budget and ‘other avenues.’ Healey is expected to announce her first budget proposal next month.”
— “Long overlooked, child care industry may finally get a permanent lifeline from Beacon Hill,” by Samantha J. Gross, The Boston Globe, February 8, 2023
Leading the way: Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
Posted in Child care, Funding, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, tagged #ece, #SolveChildCare on February 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Doug Howgate
Doug Howgate was a college student majoring in political science at Holy Cross when he went on a field trip to a place he’d never seen before, the Massachusetts State House.
“I’m pretty sure looking back it was during a Ways and Means hearing,” he recalls. “We went down to Gardner Auditorium. I remember seeing Senate Ways and Means Chair Mark Montigny there. You just got a sense that the building had a lot of energy, that there was a lot going on, the issues seemed relevant to where I lived, and really it just seemed like it would be a fun place to work for a couple years.”
Today, after more than a few years of work in various jobs both inside and just outside the State House and after earning a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University, Howgate is the president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (MTF), and he’s pushing Massachusetts to make progress on a number of issues, including early education and care.
“I’m very lucky to live in Massachusetts, a place with a very active and engaged state government, where you can see policy in action, and you can see a connection between the things you do on Beacon Hill, and the things that happen in the lives of you and your family.”
Howgate is aware of the challenges the state faces: that resources are limited and that policymakers can’t do everything. He’s aware of persistent inequities, acknowledging that “being a white guy from a liberal arts college, I had a lot of benefits that I wasn’t aware of at the time,” including Holy Cross alumni who helped him get jobs.
(more…)A new toolkit for early educators who are also advocates
Posted in Child care, Early educators, Funding, National, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, tagged #ece, #ECEWorkforce on February 7, 2023| 1 Comment »
Screenshot: Center for the Study of Child Care Employment
Given their expertise in working with children, families, and state agencies, early educators are uniquely suited to be advocates.
Now, a new resource — The E4 Toolkit — gives them more ways to do this work and explain why and how the field of early childhood education can be improved.
“We want to connect early educators to data and talking points about the early childhood education (ECE) workforce and offer potential solutions to some of the issues they face,” Hopeton Hess explains. Hess is a research and policy associate at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley.
Using the E4 Toolkit – E4 stands for “Early Educator Engagement and Empowerment” – early educators can draw on a collection of strategies and solutions that was created “to support early educators in their advocacy, power building, and engagement with stakeholders.”
Specifically, Hess says, “Early educators could use the toolkit in group settings to contribute to their shared understanding of the early childhood sector.
“In conversations between early educators and advocacy organizations, the toolkit would be a useful prompt for identifying workforce needs and desires.”
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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, Alyssa Haywoode, comes to Eye on Early Education after a career in journalism. -
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