
Stars Align for Early Education Workforce in Massachusetts
Dust off your telescopes because the stars are aligning. No, I’m not talking about the solar eclipse.
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Strategies for Children works to ensure that Massachusetts’ children have the support they need in the early childhood years to be ready to succeed in school and life. They engage in policy advocacy, research, communications, and constituency building at both the local and state levels to ensure all children have access to high-quality early education, enter elementary schools ready to succeed, and are proficient readers by the end of third grade.
State Allies:
Sustain child care in the time of COVID-19 by advocating for public funding and policies that help the system recover and rebuild stronger, informed by changes in parents’ demand and program supply.
Continue our advocacy for investments in high-quality early education and care, including preschool expansion, affordable child care, and workforce.
Develop and strengthen existing supports and TA for the early care and education (ECE) community in response to the pandemic (e.g., daily calls, advocacy webinar series, facilitating local collaborations), informed by lessons learned from our Community Readiness initiative.
Develop a “speakers bureau” for ECE advocacy that includes educators, directors, family child providers, parents, and emerging leaders that reflects the demographics of the people most impacted by policy decisions, using our Collective Statement on Racial Justice as the foundation.
Advance the work of the Massachusetts Partnership for Infants and Toddlers by documenting and sharing lessons learned during COVID-19 (e.g., program adaptations for family engagement).
$35.18B STATE BUDGET
Estimated FY20 State General Fund Expenditures
UNALIGNED GOVERNMENT
House (D), Senate (D)
Governor (R)
26% LOW-INCOME
167,186 Young Children (0-8) are Below 200% FPL
As of late November, Massachusetts has not passed a FY21 budget. State leaders are waiting to see how much tax revenue is available, and if there will be more federal relief to states and child care specifically. The child care sector lost an estimated $250 million each month of the state’s three-month closure period, due to the loss of private pay fees. Since COVID-19 hit, the new goal of preventing the collapse of the child care industry has superseded the ally’s prior goals.
Dust off your telescopes because the stars are aligning. No, I’m not talking about the solar eclipse.
The Alliance for Early Success 2020 50-State Progress Report on Early Childhood Policy expands state data (disaggregating low-income young children by race) and provides high-level state policy trend analysis for the nation as a whole. Click the icon to download the report.
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: Mincic, Melissa, Early Care and Education, State Budget Actions, Fiscal Year 2020. National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), October 2020.
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