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:
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.
$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.
*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.
The New York legislature passed a new, progressive, annual budget in state revenue that will fully fund its school aid formula. Additionally, New York will allocate federal relief dollars to support significant policy changes in child care.
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.
