Parents, Early Educators, Child Care Providers & Business Leaders Call for Passage of Comprehensive Early Education & Child Care Legislation
Common Start Proposals Backed by Large Majority of Legislature; Bills Would Make Child Care More Affordable for Families, Increase Pay for Early Educators, Provide Stability for Providers, Support Children, Boost Businesses, and Advance Economic Competitiveness and Racial & Gender Equity
BOSTON – Dozens of parents, caregivers, early educators, early education and child care providers, business leaders, and advocates testified at a State House hearing on Tuesday, calling for the Legislature to pass comprehensive early education and child care legislation that would address the state’s multi-faceted child care crisis.
“As a first time parent, I know firsthand how critical it is for families to be able to make family planning decisions free from cost barriers. My husband and I would like to eventually have three children, however, we simply cannot afford to put three kids through daycare in Massachusetts,” said Rory Millark, a first time parent and Political & Organizing Director at Reproductive Equity Now. “Central to Reproductive Equity Now’s mission—and Massachusetts’ values—is giving people the ability to decide if, when, and how to become a parent or grow their family, and do so with dignity. These Common Start bills can help make that vision a reality by cutting costs for parents, providing high-quality care for our children, and ensuring our child care workers have the resources to create sustainable, long-term careers.”
“I earn enough that I don’t qualify for any subsidies or financial help, but that doesn’t mean I can afford child care. At times, I’ve wondered if I should quit my job, because at least I would be able to take care of my kids for free. But I shouldn’t have to make that choice. No one should,” said Teia Searcy, a mother of two children from Abington who currently spends more than 50% of her take-home pay on childcare. “Right now, tens of thousands of parents and caregivers in Massachusetts - especially moms - struggle with impossible choices because of our unaffordable childcare system. At the same time, the educators and childcare providers who we trust with our children’s care struggle to make ends meet themselves. That’s why more than 160 organizations across the state, as well as thousands of parents, early educators, providers, and advocates, have come together in the Common Start Coalition to demand an end to the child care crisis.”
Members of the Common Start Coalition, a diverse group of more than 160 organizations and thousands of individuals dedicated to solving the child care crisis, spoke in support of H.489 (filed by Representatives Gordon & Madaro) & S.301 (filed by Senators Lewis & Moran), two bills that would establish a system of affordable, accessible, and high-quality early education and child care for Massachusetts families, and help advance the Common Start vision in Massachusetts.
“Despite our positive reputation and successes, Ellis is suffering and barely able to operate. And this is true for the majority of early education providers in the Commonwealth, if not all,” said Lauren Cook, CEO of Ellis Early Learning, a nonprofit organization that operates three child care centers in Boston, employs over 100 professionals, serves over 300 children per year, and has a waitlist of over 1000 families. “We simply don’t have enough qualified teachers to operate in the way we need to. Children and families, and our workforce, suffer as a result. The critical investments the legislature has made in recent years have been historic and greatly appreciated. But I am here to ask you to think bigger and be even bolder, and make Common Start a reality.”
The bills, which are co-sponsored by a large majority of legislators in both the State House of Representatives (102 legislators) and the State Senate (28 legislators), would provide the specific structure that is needed to deliver affordable care options for families; significantly better pay and benefits for early educators; a new, stable source of funding for providers; high-quality programs and services for children; and substantial relief for businesses. Passage of the bills would make Massachusetts significantly more affordable, greatly improve our economic competitiveness, and dramatically increase racial and gender equity.
“These bills describe a vision for early education and care in Massachusetts where educators are well-compensated, providers have the resources necessary to run financially sustainable businesses, more families have access to affordable child care that meets their needs, and most importantly, young children are able to experience the benefits of attending high-quality programs,” said Marisa Fear, Director of Policy at Strategies for Children and a member of the Common Start Coalition’s Steering Committee. “We know that fulfilling this full vision will require a sustained effort and careful consideration. We look forward to working with the Legislature and the Healey-Driscoll Administration to pass comprehensive legislation this session and set a clear path for children and families in the Commonwealth.”
Under the bills, programs would be available in early education and child care centers, private homes, and schools – the same settings where early education and child care is provided now. The bills affect early education and care for children from birth through age 5, as well as after- and out-of-school time for children ages 5-12, and for children with special needs through age 15 – in line with the ages covered by the current child care subsidy system.
“I have been dreaming about my future children for the last six years of my life. But the one thing that has always been a major source of anxiety was ‘and then what?’ My salary simply would not cover childcare for my own infant while I went back to work taking care of other people’s,” said Aidn White, an infant care educator in Northampton. “So for six years, I’ve held off. Can I bring a child into the world when I don’t have health insurance? I’m standing here, begging a room full of strangers to make it possible for me to eat and pay my rent while I have a child. We have to increase the salary and benefits of educators.”
The Common Start legislative framework uses a combination of direct-to-provider operational funding and family financial assistance to reduce costs to families while compensating providers for the true cost of providing quality care.
Operational Funding: The bills would permanently establish a direct-to-provider funding allocation based on provider capacity (not attendance) that directly offsets provider operating costs, including higher educator pay – similar to the current Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) program.
Family Financial Assistance: The bills would provide financial assistance to enable more families to afford and access high-quality early education. They prioritize families earning at or below 85% of state median income ($115,546 for a family of 4, or $78,571 for a family of 2) and, as funding becomes available, would extend eligibility for financial assistance to middle-income families.
“Access to early childhood education is an issue of great concern for our region. Our labor force needs the stability that enactment of the Common Start legislation will provide, such as employees knowing they will find safe, reliable child care when they need it,” said Noelle Pina, Chief of Staff at the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, which represents over 1,000 employers and 15,000 employees on Cape Cod. “Right now, childcare is difficult to access, expensive, and is causing parents to make changes to their work schedules and even consider leaving Cape Cod or the Islands. Providers are facing challenges finding and retaining qualified staff to support their centers. Recent investments by the Commonwealth have put us on the right path, but the Common Start bill is one of the major answers needed to keep our labor force and families simultaneously healthier.”
Last week, a UMass Boston report on the affordability provisions of the bills found that nearly half of all Massachusetts families with children under 14 (or under 17 with special needs) would be eligible for financial assistance under the 85% threshold, and that this expansion of child care financial assistance would cost the state $1.7 billion. For eligible families, the percentage of their family income going to child care would be reduced from an average of 17.2% to an average of 4.3%. The average affected family would save $13,260 per year.
“As a low-income single mother, I endure tremendous stress to afford reliable care for my children,” said Rosimara Sneed, a mother of two from Salem. “Many days when my daycare was closed, I had no choice but to take my children, including my autistic son, to the restaurant where I worked. My children sat at a table for hours waiting for me. Parents need child care to get to work, and children need experiences and opportunities to flourish. Access to affordable, high-quality early education and child care is crucial for parents to balance their work hours and caring for their children.”
With financial assistance provided for quality child care and early education, 10,400 mothers would enter or re-enter the workforce, and 21,000 currently employed parents would increase the number of hours they work. As a result, the overall family poverty rate would fall from 15.5% to 14.1%.
The report concluded that “financial assistance would effectively enable more children access to licensed care as well as substantially reduce the cost burden on families. Additionally, because parents would be able to afford reliable care, a portion of them, especially mothers of young children, would be able to engage in more employment opportunities. The additional earnings will lift some families, especially single-parent families, out of poverty.”
“Even prior to the pandemic, over half of Massachusetts residents were living in a so-called ‘childcare desert,’ where there are so few options that there are more than three times as many children as licensed childcare slots. But for children of color in less affluent communities, the gap between early education and care capacity and family need grew dramatically during the pandemic,” said Traci Griffith, the Racial Justice Director at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “It’s common knowledge that access to high quality early childcare is vitally important for racial equity, but it bears repeating, access gaps in the early years create ever-larger opportunity gaps in later years. With the passage of this legislation, we have a very real chance to break the cycle of poverty and increase opportunity for children, families, businesses, and our communities.”
Those who testified at the hearing called for a permanent commitment to affordable and accessible high-quality early education and child care that Massachusetts families can count on.
“As an educator I am proud to provide high quality care to my families but it can be difficult. We are struggling due to the increased cost of living, rising rent and housing costs, and much more,” said Maritza Manríque, a family child care provider in East Boston. “Our wages are not enough to cover the cost of living in Massachusetts, and many of us worry about the sustainability of our programs long term. We need a structure in place that will allow for educators to have a sense of permanency and predictability.”
“Years ago, I was working as an early educator while also going to school part-time. My son was just a year old. As a single mom and a student living on a nonprofit salary, finding affordable care in this state was impossible. Thankfully, my mom was able to watch my son during the day. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to work,” said Cathy Pena, the director of two homeless shelters at Economic Mobility Pathways. “When my son got a little older, we paid the consequences. He ended up having to repeat first grade because of some minor developmental difficulties that we would have caught earlier on had he been supported by a trained early educator. Teachers know what to look for and could have pinpointed those challenges. Now, in my job at EMPath, I support families experiencing homelessness, and I see so many parents who can’t access child care and who can’t work as a result. Our organization’s mission is to help families move out of poverty, but how can you do that without something as basic as child care?”
“Of the 30 childcare professionals I work with each week, not one supports herself with a single job. Many have more than two,” said Lisa McElaney, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor working in Early Head Start programs in Boston. “Parents I counsel worry about teacher turnover and burnout and what they mean for consistency of care. Consequently, unabating high levels of caregiver stress are taxing children’s developing brains, limiting the social and emotional resiliency they will need in an increasingly complex world.”
“As owner, administrator, and teacher in my school, the continual pressures of shifting responsibilities weigh on me: the weight of keeping tuition affordable for families, while meeting expenses, such as mortgage, healthcare, maintenance, or delaying improvements altogether. The weight of fairly compensating my exceptional team, so they do not feel the need to move to Dunkin Donuts or Stop and Shop, where they can make similar income without the added stressors early childhood education provides,” said Kathy Raymond, Head of School at Montessori Beginnings in Sandwich. “We must stabilize our centers, transform our workforce, and heal our broken system. I believe this can only happen with consistent, guaranteed, permanent funding in order to reduce the cost of high quality childcare for families, while raising salaries and retaining quality educators.”
Background on the Common Start Coalition’s Campaign to Address the Child Care Crisis
Since 2018, the Common Start Coalition has been steadily building a broad-based coalition to advocate for affordable, accessible, high-quality early education and child care. During the 2021-2022 legislative session, the coalition developed the comprehensive Common Start legislative framework that would help children, families, educators, providers, and businesses, and signed up a majority of legislators as cosponsors. In the spring of 2022, the coalition’s 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 Joint Committee on Education.
The Senate passed its version of the Education Committee bill unanimously in the final days of the 2021-2022 legislative session, and while the bill did not receive a vote in the House, a majority of state representatives are on record supporting the Common Start framework. Additionally, state leaders have made a major down payment on the coalition’s vision over the past few years, including $1.5 billion for early education and child care in the FY24 budget.
A recent report by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation found that the state loses $2.7 billion each year due to inadequate access to child care, including $1.7 billion in lost earnings for employees, $812 million in additional costs and lower productivity for employers, and $188 in lower tax revenues for the state. The Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission found that public funding is necessary if Massachusetts is to offer children an equal education, families affordable care, providers a sustainable business model, and educators a competitive living wage. As the Legislative Commission report says, immediate funding is needed now, as well as in the long term, to ensure that providers can keep their programs open and pay wages sufficient to keep educators in their classrooms.
Public support for state investment in early education and child care is strong, and has increased significantly amid the child care crisis. A statewide poll of Massachusetts voters, conducted in December on behalf of the Common Start Coalition, found 73% support for the Common Start proposal, with only 18% of voters opposing it. Support was up nearly 10 points from two years earlier, when the corresponding margin on this question was 64%-23%.
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The Common Start Coalition is a statewide partnership of organizations, providers, parents, early educators and advocates working together to make high-quality early education and child care affordable and accessible to all Massachusetts families. Our goal is to ensure that all families have the care solutions they need and that all children in our Commonwealth have the same, strong start and enter school on a level playing field. We are a diverse coalition including community, faith-based, labor, business, and early education and child care organizations, as well as early educators, parents, individuals, and direct service organizations.
The coalition, established in 2018, includes more than 160 organizations across Massachusetts, and is coordinated by a steering committee comprised of the following members: CEO Action for Racial Equity, the Coalition for Social Justice, Greater Boston Legal Services, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA), Jumpstart for Young Children, the MA Association of Early Education and Care (MADCA), the Massachusetts Association for the Education of Young Children (MAAEYC), the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, the MA Commission on the Status of Women, Neighborhood Villages, Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts, SEIU Local 509, and Strategies for Children. More than 3,000 individual parents, caregivers, early educators, center administrators, business owners, and family child care providers are active members of the Common Start Coalition. More information about the coalition is available at commonstartma.org.