Child Care Workforce Archives - Alliance for Early Success

Oklahoma Advocates Celebrate a Hard-Won Benefit for Child Care Workers

July 7, 2026

When state funding passed for Oklahoma’s Teacher Recruitment & Retention Program (TRR) in 2025, the program became one of the first in the nation to appropriate a budget for free child care benefits to eligible employees working in licensed child care facilities. Advocates say it’s a big step in directly addressing the recruitment and retention crisis that has long destabilized Oklahoma’s child care workforce.

Alliance for Early Success Annual 50-State Policy Report Shows Power Building and Progress—and Headwinds—in 2025

February 19, 2026

The Alliance for Early Success has released it’s annual report on state early childhood policy progress, and it shows—while headwinds are increasing—early childhood advocates are working together and adding capacity to get hard-fought wins for young children and their families.

South Dakota Advocates Spotlight Child Care Workforce Unsustainability and Introduce First Workforce Subsidy Bill

September 18, 2025

A task force, a Children’s Day at the Capitol, and a new workforce child care subsidy bill are a few of the pieces of South Dakota advocates’ push to better support the state’s child care providers and workers.

Oregon Child Care Advocacy Coalition Has a New Way to Set Its Policy Agenda, and It Begins with Parents and Providers

September 4, 2025

The Child Care for Oregon coalition has implemented a new process that sets its policy agenda by first asking parents and practitioners to name the barriers they face and describe the future they envision for child care in Oregon.

Montana Advocates Win Historic, Bipartisan New Revenue Stream for Early Childhood

July 15, 2025

After years of advocacy, Zero to Five Montana—along with other advocates, parents, and providers—has succeeded in passing a new early childhood endowment: the new Early Childhood Special Revenue Account.

Arkansas Takes Steps to Help Early Educators Save for Retirement

July 9, 2025

A new law in Arkansas makes early educators eligible to participate in the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, a defined benefit retirement plan established for public school and other public education employees in the state. The new law means that any early educator who is licensed by the state and receives state or federal child care funding is eligible to save for retirement through the system.

Attention Philanthropy: The Front Line in the Fight for Children and Families Just Moved to the States

July 8, 2025

FIELD NOTES | By Helene Stebbins | As state policymakers work to address the huge budget shortfalls created by the federal government’s enactment of H.R. 1, state early childhood policy advocates are the next line of defense. And they need big investments in capacity to get the job done.

Missouri ECE Fellows Program Empowers Community Voices and Connects Legislators to Voices with Experience

June 24, 2025

Missouri advocates learned from Alliance network peers in Ohio as they created the grassroots network that advances an early childhood agenda by placing those most directly impacted by state policy to the forefront of advocacy.

South Carolina Feedback Program Lets Community Voice Shape Policy

June 6, 2025

Your Voice Matters, South Carolina’s centralized community feedback initiative, is showing impressive family response rates, shaping policies, and engaging and educating state legislators on the impact of supporting early childhood programs and services.

Alliance Webinar with CSCCE on Using 2024 Research Data to Drive Policy Change for the Early Care and Education Workforce

March 13, 2025

The Alliance and the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment discuss CSCCE’s 2024 child care workforce index and how the index’s messages and findings can be used to drive policy change that centers the experiences of early educators in all 50 states.

Child Care Workforce