The Year’s Developments and Trends in State Early Childhood Policy and Advocacy
[TO COME]
Helene Stebbins, Executive Director
Alliance for Early Success
In the Alliance’s survey of each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, an advocacy organization in the state reported on legislative highlights in the state. Despite an increasingly polarized political environment and the depletion of federal pandemic relief funding, states reported a surprising number of “wins,” defined as policy advancements or defenses in early care and education, maternal and child health, family economic security and supports, and/or state infrastructure.
Of the 50 states and District of Columbia surveyed (n=51), four states did not have a legislative session in 2024.
Eighty-eight percent of states (n=45) highlighted a win in early care and education (ECE), and 53 percent (n=27) highlighted a win in maternal and child health via passage of a bill, approval of an executive order or administrative change, changing of rules by a state agency, or a ballot initiative or constitutional amendment. Approximately 43 percent (n=22) highlighted a win in family economic security and supports, and 10 percent (n=5) highlighted a win in state infrastructure (such as a state agency reorganizations or new data systems.)
Further disaggregating the broader categories shows that ECE wins were disproportionately in child care over pre-k, which is not a surprise, given the post-pandemic emphasis on child care that continues at the state level.
Advocates in several states found themselves fighting for the funding or implementation of a previously passed policy. In Vermont, for example, advocates were still celebrating a first-in-the-nation expansive child care win when the governor proposed cuts to the program. Advocacy paid off with a restoration of funding and new, stronger language in the legislation.
In the District of Columbia, the mayor proposed a reduction of funding for the recently created first-in-the-nation Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund. In Louisiana, state lawmakers proposed cutting $24 million from the $87 million it had passed for child care subsidies the previous year. In both states, advocates won a restoration of some of the funding—but not all.
In Oregon, advocates fought for and won a reversal of the legislature’s plan to cut $172 million from a employment-related child care subsidy.
Overall, 69 percent of states reported that in 2024, they had shaped or influenced the implementation of previously passed legislation or a rule change. Fifteen states described two implementation efforts.
Approximately 65 percent of states report a legislature that is supportive of early childhood issues—an 11-percent increase over the past two years. The opposite appears true among governors, who were reported to be less supportive than in years past.
In 2024, states adopted maternal and child health policies that meet families where they are, boost access to established programs, and expand the range of services available to young children and their families. In some cases, technical changes to definitions and reimbursement rates expanded eligibility and access to essential early intervention services in schools and community locations. In others, states leaned into newer policy levers and innovations to address the maternal and child health needs of their residents.
Advocates continue to advance their work in this area, and more than half the states surveyed reported a win in maternal and child health.
In Georgia, Rhode Island, and Minnesota, advocates successfully increased reimbursement rates for certain early intervention providers through relatively small increases in state funding. Texas advocates collaborated with state officials to expand eligibility for Early Childhood Special Education to include children diagnosed with a developmental delay, a policy modeled after successful efforts in other states. Definition and governance changes also increased eligibility for and access to early intervention and mental health supports in New Hampshire, Maine, and Washington.
To ensure that young children have access to the health care they need without interruptions due to administrative burdens, several additional states, including California, New York, and Pennsylvania, followed their peers in extending continuous Medicaid coverage for children aged 0 to 5. Similarly, to boost maternal health outcomes, advocates in Delaware, Virginia, and Vermont joined states that have included doula care as a covered service under Medicaid.
As state advocates explore the multiple policy levers available to improve maternal health outcomes, they’ve added increased access to midwifery care to their toolbox. Massachusetts, Colorado, and Illinois passed bills that will enable additional birthing people to access midwifery care, a model that monitors the physical, psychological, and social well-being of mothers and pregnant people throughout the childbearing cycle, resulting in fewer interventions and more positive outcomes for low-risk birthing people. The midwifery model is the dominant model for low-risk births internationally and could have positive impacts on health outcomes in the United States if adopted more broadly.
Also of note:
During the height of the pandemic, states leveraged federal relief funds to implement changes in their child care policies that increased access and affordability for families, stabilized child care providers’ finances, and improved compensation and benefits for early childhood educators. As these federal funds expired in 2024, early childhood advocates in many states were able to secure additional state funding to sustain, and in some cases, expand, these successful reforms.
While, in most cases, state funding was not sufficient to replace all of the federal funds, these wins demonstrate that governors and state legislators—in both conservative and progressive led states—see improving child care as an appropriate purpose for state funding.
In 2022, Kentucky passed a policy to extend subsidy eligibility to child care teachers and staff, regardless of income. Since 2022, early childhood advocates and policymakers in many states have advanced this idea as a way to attract and retain early childhood educators. Even though the strategy doesn’t directly increase educators’ compensation, it does provide them with some financial relief. In 2024, states including Arkansas, Indiana, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Utah, and Washington, DC implemented this strategy or passed policies to enact it. Others, including Iowa, Rhode Island, Washington State, and of course, Kentucky continued to allocate funding for it. In Kentucky, the state is providing more than $26 million to provide this benefit to child care staff.
In 2024, state advocates continued to support families’ immediate needs by passing or improving tax credits, making federal benefits more accessible, increasing resources for guaranteed income pilots, supporting renters, addressing hunger, moving forward with paid leave programs, and making needed changes to child welfare systems.
Several states passed or improved tax credits for families in 2024, including Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs), Child Tax Credits (CTC), and Child and Dependent Care Tax Credits (CDCTC):
A few states made positive changes to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), using the flexibilities allowed to states under that program.
In 2024, state early childhood policy advocates made gains addressing social determinants of health, such as housing and nutrition. At least three states passed laws that will better support renters at risk of eviction (who often have young children):
In several states, advocates made significant gains in the area of child nutrition:
Advocates continue to advance crucial home visiting support for families in their states. And in 2024, several made notable gains.
This is even more true in a federal policy environment that is less likely to yield increases in funding and support for family economic security and child health and development. And while unrestricted operating investment is essential to their success, it is increasingly clear that real-time access to expertise and other state advocates is making a significant difference in advocacy success.
As an intermediary investor that applies funding for advocacy at the state level, the Alliance for Early Success has daily interaction with state advocates, and they are increasingly requesting—and leveraging—responsive capacity.
Responsive capacity is support that is tailored to a particular problem, opportunity, or landscape, and it can come in several forms.
Alliance grantees (and their coalition members) check in regularly with an Alliance policy director who stays up-to-date on the state’s particular policy landscape and advocates’ agenda. They report their challenges and opportunities, get direction, and are often connected with another organization that can give them effective and tailored technical assistance.
The past year saw heavy use of national Responsive Support organizations. The Alliance funds a network of issue experts and consultants to provide a wide range of supports to state advocates (and their coalition members) at no cost—and in 2024 several turned that resource into a big win.
In Alabama, advocates seized on the state administration’s new priority on workforce and sought to advance a new state child care tax credit. The Alliance connected advocates with Stoney Associates and the Committee for Economic Development at the Conference Board, who immediately began working with them on an Alabama-specific proposal, based on what had been successful in similar states. These Responsive Support providers lent additional credibility, brought deep expertise, and freed advocates to spend time building relationships instead of research. The resulting policy provides opportunities for employers, for-profit child care providers, and nonprofit child care providers to apply for funds. The state’s initial investment is $15 million for 2025, plus $5 million for child care facilities that improve their quality. The Alabama legislature unanimously passed the bill and the governor signed it into law in May, 2024. Advocates insist this responsive capacity was the difference between winning and not winning.
In Georgia, advocates worked extensively with Alliance responsive support provider ZERO TO THREE to successfully implement a much-needed a special court system designed to reduce the removal of infants and toddlers from their homes.
In West Virginia, True North Group provided quick assistance to advocates during the legislative session on a pending foster parent and kinship bill that was moving through committee—reviewing the legislation, providing feedback, and developing language for advocates to communicate concerns about the bill. The bill did not advance out of the House Judiciary Committee.
In a 2024 survey of Alliance network advocates from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, 78 percent reported responsive support was important to their work.
Advocates tell us another effective component of responsive capacity is access to peer advocates in other states. They report that opportunities and threats are coming up faster than before, conditions are changing just as fast, and that access to peers who have tackled similar conditions in their own states are vital.
Advocates in Rhode Island, for example, were planning a survey of businesses about child care and—through the Alliance network—have a strong Alliance relationship with advocates in Missouri, who they knew had completed a similar and effective project. They reached out for information about the work Missouri did to survey businesses and employers, and Missouri advocates shared strategies, successes, and potential pitfalls. They also connected Rhode Island with their research partner. Advocates in West Virginia have similarly strong relationships through the Alliance with advocates in New Jersey, and were able to reach out for specific language from successful New Jersey legislation to accelerate their push for child care reimbursement in the state based on enrollment instead of attendance.
To foster these relationships, the Alliance each year convenes numerous Alliance Collaborative Communities. Advocates join these groups to learn and collaborate alongside advocates in other states on strategy and effective tactics.
Advocates from 13 states, for example meet regularly in the Aligning Child Welfare and Early Childhood Policy community. These states are sharing strategies and successes for shifting the narrative in their states to focus on “upstream” prevention, including evidence-based messaging that that is proving effective.
Advocates from 16 states, for example, participate in a new Alliance Early Intervention Advocacy community. Almost immediately after the community’s launch, California advocates came to the group for recommendations to shape new policy for the state’s “warm handoff” to early intervention programs—input that helped define a new policy and win funding for a first-of-its-kind collaborative to operationalize the work.
The Alliance’s Right for Kids community, in its third year, is a collaborative space for advocates working in states that are led by a Republican trifecta or a Republican legislature/Democrat Governor. One of the Alliance’s largest and most engaged communities, Right for Kids in the past year tackled strategies for understanding the landscape and learning from right-leaning activist groups, understanding toxic polarization and exploring effective depolarization efforts, working with grassroots partners, and working with women Republican legislative champions. Advocates in this group reach out to each other often and regularly report its effectiveness for providing new perspectives and responsive capacity to their organizations.
The Alliance convenes numerous communities each year on issues surfaced by state advocates, and often must turn away states due to limited capacity.
As the Alliance continues to see evidence of advocacy accelerated by the connections created at convenings, the organization hosted a record number of in-person gatherings in 2024, debuting several new models that advocates report were highly effective.
In October, the Alliance partnered with early childhood funders in New England to host the New England Regional Early Childhood Advocate Convening. The event brought together Alliance allies and their partners from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont to facilitate cross-state learning, share policy and advocacy goals in a region with high mobility across states, and to strengthen the sense of community for advocates and funders. Participants particularly valued the depth and connection-building that a regional convening provides.
In November, members of Alliance’s peer learning community on the ECE workforce gathered in Seattle for Sharing Power and Leadership with Early Childhood Educators in ECE Advocacy. Participants learned how Washington advocates have “flipped the script” by facilitating a process for the past three years that puts early childhood educators in the decision-making role.
Also in November, the Alliance hosted its first-ever in-person convening of the Right for Kids community. Around 80 advocates from 26 states gathered in Salt Lake City to connect and accelerate their advocacy by learning from each other. The main goal of the convening was to strengthen relationships in the Right for Kids network. Attendees appreciated both the policy work they were able to do together and just being together right after the consequential 2024 election. Attendees left feeling newly energized and optimistic.
“I feel so much better prepared/comfortable with dialing into future virtual convenings of peers now that I have met folks – especially as someone new to the policy space.”
Advocates continue to tell the Alliance that fluid, real-time responsiveness of the Alliance and their peer advocates in the Alliance network is unique and often the exact kind of support they need in the moment. Their extensive use of the Alliance listserv further bears this out. The Alliance hosts an email community created for state early childhood policy advocates share information and—most important—request information and examples in the moment.
In February, advocates from Nebraska reached out to the listserv requesting clarification on the issue of child care providers using child care subsidies to care for their own children. Advocates across the country responded with extensive guidance and examples, with significant input from advocates in Kentucky, where this categorical eligibility was first launched. This discussion led to an impromptu huddle in which advocates from Maryland and Wyoming shared their strategies for supporting this work in their states. More advocates across the country are now working on this policy and successfully implementing categorical eligibility for child care workers.
Similar exchanges in the listserv community happened throughout 2024, including extensive peer-to-peer support on voter education and advocacy guides and tools for communicating the broken economics of child care.
Overall in 2024, more than 1,200 Alliance listserv members contributed more than 2,100 posts.
In the past year when advocates wanted to dive deeper with each other on a successful strategy, they turned to the Alliance—as in years past—to facilitate a “huddle” on the topic. Advocates continued their requests for and participation in these spontaneous and unstructured conversations.
As advocates this year continued to struggle with state policymakers’ reluctance to implement legislation that had been passed, for example, many joined a huddle to ask question of advocates from New Mexico, who won a ballot initiative in 2022 to dedicate Land Grant Permanent Funds to early childhood education—and then pivoted immediately to ensuring that the funds were used for their intended purpose. They shared with their peers their work to educate grassroots community members about the budget process, to activate constituents to speak out during budget deliberations, and to keep policy makers accountable to voter intent.
Several states this year expressed interest in learning how to successfully develop and pass a multifaceted maternal health package, or “Momnibus Bill.” Advocates from Colorado and Michigan (where there has been successful legislation) shared their efforts to highlight disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes.
In 2024, advocates also joined huddles on liability insurance and early childhood education, advocacy to improve child welfare policies and practices, fiscal Maps, and engaging small business owners in advocacy for child care, to name a few.
Traditional policy advocacy pursued by full-time staff 501(c)3 organizations—often called “grasstops” advocacy—has typically focused on building relationships with policymakers and winning yearly incremental policy and budget gains.
Policy landscapes are shifting, and advocates are increasingly reporting large turnover in legislatures and are experiencing difficulty—as noted above—holding on to wins through the budgeting process.
The biggest successes in recent years have come alongside the pressure of large, diverse, power-sharing coalitions that form a strong and lasting constituency for early childhood issues.
As advocates look for more capacity in catalyzing and engaging these types of coalitions, more and more are turning to the Alliance for support in doing this work successfully and equitably. Marginalized communities—in spite of often being closer to the underserved communities—typically have less access to advocacy funding, decision-making, and power.
To this end, six states—Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Virginia—are currently participating in the Alliance’s Child Care NEXT project, an initiative that is providing long-term, multifaceted support to diverse, state-wide coalitions in support of a bold child care goal. The project focuses on building power through trust and shared decision-making, and these states are demonstrating the effectiveness of this agenda.
In Virginia, the Child Care NEXT coalition is making bigger and bigger gains—most recently a record. Their advocacy helped secure more than $366M in FY25 and $461M in FY26 in state general fund support for early childhood care and education services. Combined with the ongoing baseline federal funding, Virginia has committed an historic $1.1 billion toward child care services for low to moderate income families over the coming biennium.
In Oregon, the Child Care NEXT coalition successfully pressured the legislature to reverse position and restore $172 million previously cut from an important child care subsidy program.
Eight states are participating in the Alliance’s new Trauma-Informed Approaches to Engaging Family Advocates community, and in 2024 co-created an internal shared document on equitable parent-compensation strategies and resources. The group also compiled a list of questions for their organizations to consider as they explore how to avoid extractive relationships in engaging parents in advocacy.
The advocates in the Alliance Partners on the ECE Profession community this year intentionally dedicated time at each of its meetings to exchange ideas about how advocates can develop and share more power and leadership among those who are most impacted by early childhood policies—including parents, educators, and providers. The group’s 2024 convening focused on ways advocates from Washington used the principles of liberatory design to “flip the script” by facilitating a multi-year process that puts early childhood educators in leadership and decision-making roles.
While advocates in many states see that the power imbalances in advocacy stem from the broader opportunity disparities in states, many struggle with how to communicate and address racial inequities in their states’ programs and services.
So in 2024, 200 advocates from across the country convened in Montgomery, Alabama, for The Alabama Experience: An Alliance for Early Success Equity Journey. Built around visits to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Sites and other local landmarks, the intensive experience included deep reflections, racial caucuses, and team planning on how to take their learning back to their organizations.
The experiences challenged me in a way that generated new questions and strengthened my interest for further learning and action.
In the post-experience evaluation, survey respondents were asked to rate their agreement with a statement on a scale of one to six. “The experiences challenged me in a way that generated new questions and strengthened my interest for further learning and action” scored an average of 5.48, with a large majority scoring it a highest-possible six.
To further advance their work in prioritizing racial equity in their organizations, advocate teams from 22 states requested Alliance Operationalizing Equity grants in 2024, a highly flexible grant program that funds grantees internal work to see racial marginalization and change the way they work and advocate.
The hallmark wins in the past several years benefitted from loud and diverse coalitions united with a clear, common demand. The Alliance is investing more heavily than ever before in inclusive advocacy and ensuring the “grasstops” advocacy community has the vision and skill to work effectively and authentically in coalitions. The Alliance’s new theory of change positions its role of accelerating traditional advocacy in this larger context.
A powerful, unified constituency for early childhood priorities cannot thrive when large segments of the constituency don’t have the capacity or power to participate meaningfully. Stabilizing and growing the organizations is essential. When the Alliance was awarded a $10-milion McKenzie Scott grant in 2023, the organization transferred the entire investment to the Early Childhood Power Equity Fund for distribution as multi-year, general operating grants to under-resourced grassroots organizations. The fund is a collaborative of several organizations catalyzed by the Alliance in 2021 to find ways to better support these groups, and it will make its multi-year unrestricted grassroots grants in 2025.
The policy landscapes in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia are different—and changing. The Alliance continues to look for creative, responsive, and trust-based ways to invest resources and support in organizations that allow them to do the most effective advocacy possible in any particular moment in any particular state.
It is clear that dynamic peer-to-peer connection creates opportunities to share information in ways that accelerate advocacy. But this process is decidedly organic and depends on advocates having met the correct connection and having learned of their relevant work. In response, the Alliance has spent three years developing AllianceLinx, a new advocacy community policy landscape database. Alliance staff—and a dedicated AllianceLinx manager—populate the system daily with intelligence about which states are working on which policies with which partners, which allows Alliance policy directors to connect states with exponentially more peers and resources in the moment when they will have maximum impact.
The impact has been immediate and significant, with Alliance staff using the system daily to support state advocates. In the spring of 2024, for example, advocates in a midwestern state asked the Alliance for information on other states who have successfully created consolidated state offices of early childhood. A search of AllianceLinx quickly provided contacts in three states who have successfully done this, information and contacts from seven states currently working on it (three of which are experiencing serious headwinds), two recent in-depth resources, and three members of the Alliance Responsive Support Network with experience in this area.
There is significant potential in exploring ways to use technological innovation to systemize and accelerate the delivery of responsive capacity.
The Alliance for Early Success’ 50-State Early Childhood Policy Progress and Landscape Report is an analysis of the year in early childhood state policy advocacy that in informed in part by a survey of advocates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The survey asks them for highlights from the year, so the results, therefore, are representative and not comprehensive.
Analysis was completed by the Alliance policy team, with special thanks to Frontera Strategy for developing and conducting the 50-state-plus-DC survey.
Mandy Ableidinger, Senior Policy Director
Mimi Aledo-Sandoval, Senior Policy Director
Jacy Montoya Price, Senior Director, Advocacy and Issue Campaigns
Aaliyah Roulhac, Community and Network Associate
Daniela Villasmil, Policy Associate
Albert Wat, Senior Policy Director
Helene Stebbins, Executive Director
Individual state early childhood policy landscape pages were compiled by Alliance staff from the sources credited on each page.
Frontera Strategy supports advocacy efforts nationwide by providing qualitative and quantitative research services, including needs assessments and environmental scans, program and policy evaluation, statistical analyses, and survey research for associations, foundations, and nonprofit service organizations active in state capitols.
Jason Sabo
sabo@fronterastrategy.com
Lisa Kerber, PhD
kerber@fronterastrategy.com
Advocates working in all states and the District of Columbia completed the survey, and all 51 are represented in the data. The report was edited by Stinson Liles, Director of Communications, Alliance for Early Success.
The state pages and the report are not meant to be comprehensive. Both feature highlights from the year as reported by Alliance allies in the state.
Suggested Citation: Alliance for Early Success (2024), 50-State Early Childhood Policy Progress and Landscape Report 2023.
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© 2024 Alliance for Early Success
The Alliance for Early Success does not endorse or advocate for specific legislation or candidates.
