New York

The Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy is a 148-year-old statewide, nonprofit organization dedicated to policy analysis and advocacy in support of public systems that meet the needs of disenfranchised populations and people living in poverty—particularly New York children and families. The Schuyler Center partners with Alliance for Quality Education and with the Center for Children’s Initiatives.

State Allies:

Top Priorities for 2021

Protect current state and local investments in New York’s pre-k and child-care systems by prioritizing communities of color, immigrant, and low-income communities and leveraging both grassroots and grasstops voices to engage the state’s legislative, executive, and agency leaders.

Continue to engage in targeted grassroots organizing that will result in parents and providers participating and leading in statewide actions (e.g., Empire State Campaign for Child Care), increasing public pressure on the legislature, and putting a face to the frontline demands for expanded early childhood services.

Continue to position pre-k—in both community-based and public school settings—as an essential component of the state’s efforts to create a birth to 8 system of early learning and care by working with the Regents, executive and legislative leaders, as well as early childhood and public education advocates to advance key recommendations related to financing, workforce, children with disabilities, and the state’s rebuilding efforts across early care and education and K-12 systems.

Ensure that the unique needs of children, families, and educators in pre-k and child care programs are represented at decision-making tables advising policymakers on how schools will be structured this fall and beyond in the midst of the pandemic.

Secure federal investment for early childhood, including pre-k, child care and Medicaid, through additional federal COVID-19 relief bills and other opportunities, while ensuring new and existing federal relief funds are used in a manner that reduces racial and other inequities and provides the highest quality education and care possible.

New York’s 2020 Early Childhood Policy Landscape and Progress:

$79.01B STATE BUDGET
Estimated FY20 State General Fund Expenditures

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

36% LOW-INCOME
698,541 Young Children (0-8) are Below 200% FPL

In January 2020, New York became the epicenter of the pandemic. The state’s already severe budget deficit ballooned from $9 billion in January to $19 billion today. Advocates managed to protect the state’s pre-k investment, securing services for 126,000 3- and 4-year-olds, and $750,000 in new funding for the state’s first Regional Technical Assistance Center. They also protected the incumbent pre-k workforce by extending the deadline for lead teachers to become fully certified by a year. These were significant victories in the face of the state’s ballooning deficit. These actions protected significant capacity for both school-based and community-based programs and staff through the spring.

Secured a permanent Paid Sick Days policy ensuring that most workers in New York will have the right to earn and use at least 40 hours a year of paid sick time each year. Paid sick time can be used should the worker fall ill; pursue diagnosis, preventive care, or treatment; or to care for a family member facing health issues. Leave is also available to access services related to sexual assault, domestic violence, or sex trafficking.
S7506 provides for increased use of telehealth in behavioral health, oral health, law maternity care, care management, services provided in emergency departments, and services provided to certain high-need populations to the extent such services are deemed appropriate for the populations served (NCSL).
S8182 authorizes licensed pharmacists to administer an approved vaccine for coronavirus (NCSL).
FY20-21 Final Budget invests $4M to reduce maternal mortality and creates the maternal mortality review board to develop implicit racial bias training, expand community health workers and build a data warehouse to support quality improvement activities for maternal health outcomes.
FY20-21 Final Budget includes $3.8M for Nurse-Family Partnership, an $800,000 increase over the Executive Budget and a $300,000 increase as compared to last year’s budget. Healthy Families New York was level funded at $26.1M. Funding for the Public Private Partnership at the Office of Children and Family Services, which funded several Parent Child Plus and Parents as Teachers programs, was eliminated ($3.6 M). There is no funding for other evidence-based home visiting programs.
Secured $750,000 in new funding for the state’s first Regional Pre-k Technical Assistance Center, a pilot supported by the Long Island Pre-k Initiative.
New York dedicated $20M of federal CARES Act child care funds to a CARES Act Scholarship Fund to provide low- and middle-income essential workers with free child care in a streamlined, simple process, along with another $10M for PPE and cleaning supplies. Additional funds (total $164M) have been allocated but not yet released for reopening and operating grants for providers, and another round of Essential Worker Scholarships.

*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.

More from New York:

Stunning Victory for Preschoolers in New York: $340 Million Expansion of Full-Day Pre-K

May 14, 2014

By now, nearly everyone knows that Pre-K is a hot topic in New York State, topping the legislative agenda, with key state officials agreeing that the key questions were not whether to invest, but how much and how fast – and how to pay for it. And who would get the credit for doing the most. By early January, prior to the official start of the legislative session and state budget negotiations, New York City newly-elected Mayor Bill de Blasio put Pre-K front and center in state politics, by proposing a modest new tax on income over $500,000 to pay

Download the full 50-State report.

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.

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 New York early childhood policy.

Strategic, Outcomes-Focused Investments
Consulting and Strategy
Direct Access to National Expertise
Rapid Response Support
Connections/Access to Allies in Similar States
Roles in National Communities of Practice