Arizona

Children’s Action Alliance (CAA) seeks to influence policies and decisions affecting the lives of Arizona children and their families. Their research, publications, media campaigns, and advocacy are aimed at a future where: all children have health insurance, a place to call home, enter school ready to learn and succeed, and no child is raised in poverty, hungry, or abused or neglected.

State Allies:

Top Priorities for 2021

Secure the expenditure authority from the legislature to expend $88M in CARES Act funding to maintain vital child care infrastructure.

Direct state and federal child care funding to establish a package of supports intended to keep existing child care programs operational.

Fight to maintain existing state investments in vital early childhood programs like Healthy Families, Early Intervention, and school district literacy grants.

Fight attempts to divert state investments in preschool to online preschool programs.

Secure a $20M state general fund investment for quality preschool programs to replace lost Preschool Development Grant slots.

Arizona’s 2020 Early Childhood Policy Landscape and Progress:

$11.65BB STATE BUDGET
Estimated FY20 State General Fund Expenditures

ALIGNED GOVERNMENT
House (R), Senate (R)
Governor (R)

45% LOW-INCOME
348,347 Young Children (0-8) are Below 200% FPL

The Arizona session began with great promise. Most priority legislation was moving along with bipartisan support. Then COVID-19 hit, and the session came to a halt in mid-March, effectively killing all remaining bills. The absence of the legislature left the bulk of COVID-19 federal relief under the control of the governor. The focus of the Children’s Action Alliance shifted to the emergency response to COVID-19 with an immediate focus on ensuring that essential workers had safe, consistent child care.

S1504 changed law on fingerprint clearance cards for child care providers to bring the state into alignment with federal requirements.
Secured $47M in CARES Act funding to provide grants to child care providers struggling with COVID-19-related costs. Helped to develop Arizona Enrichment Centers. Scholarships were made available to low-income families. Arizona received $88M in Cares Act funding specifically for child care. The Governor’s Office directed $24M of those dollars to pay for the Enrichment Centers. Due to collective advocacy, the state’s Child Care Administration Office continued to reimburse providers at their January billing rate indefinitely and Quality First, the state QRIS system, continued to pay scholarships.
Executive order requires child care facilities, schools, and shelters to report COVID-19 cases to their local health departments.
Blocked a bill that would use precious and limited state general fund dollars to purchase an online preschool curriculum.
As the result of requests by school superintendents, the governor asked Department of Health Services to allow child care providers to waive ratios for school-aged children. The executive order allowed ANY provider to apply to waive ANY licensure requirement. Arizona worked with the Governor’s Office and department to put parameters around waivers that would be accepted.

*Early childhood policy progress in a state is the result of numerous efforts — by those listed on this page and many others — who worked both independently and collaboratively to achieve wins for young children.

State Budget Data: National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), “Table 4: Fiscal 2020 State General Fund, Estimated (Millions); The Fiscal Survey of the States.” Spring, 2020

Low-Income Data (including disaggregation by race): National Center for Children in Poverty, “NCCP Analysis of ACS 1-year Estimates—Public Use Microdata Sample, 2019.”

State Action Data: Provided by state advocates, October-November 2020, with analysis and synthesis by Frontera Strategy for Alliance for Early Success, “Protecting Progress and Investing in Scale: The 2020 50-State Progress Report on Early Childhood Education Policy.”

Additional State Actions: Early Care and Education, State Budget Actions, Fiscal Year 2020. National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), October 2020.

The Alliance for Early Success is achieving large-scale, long-lasting change for the state’s young children by providing our allies with powerful advantages that help them shape Arizona early childhood state policy.

Strategic, Outcomes-Focused Investments

Consulting and Strategy

Technical Support from National Expertise

Rapid Response Support

Connections/Access to Allies in Similar States

Roles in National Communities of Practice