Jessica Merrill, Titus DosRemedios, Kelly Savarese, Dawn DiStefano, Nicole Penney, Kim Davenport, Grace Cruz, Efrain Ponce Hamlet, Amy O’Leary, Clifford Kwong, Lisa Van Thiel. Photo courtesy of Kim Davenport.

Last week, there was a standing-room-only hearing at the Massachusetts State House where parents, teachers, and advocates called on elected officials to increase access to high-quality, affordable child care, expand preschool, increase educator salaries, and other priorities.

“Right now many parents struggle to access affordable childcare, and they often choose to stay home to avoid expensive daycare,” WWLP.com reports on the issues covered at the hearing, adding:

“Expanding full-day preschool would give parents the option of going back to work on a part-time or full-time basis.”

The multi-generational impact of having more preschool programs for children that would make it easier for parents to go work would be hugely beneficial for Massachusetts. This could be accomplished by a number of bills that were discussed at the hearing including:

• a “rates” bill — An Act Relative to Rates of Payment for Early Childhood Education and Care Programs (H.480) — that would raise the salaries of early educators who work in programs that accept child care subsidies. Central to this bill is the requirement that the state conduct an annual study of the true cost of quality child care and use this cost to set subsidy rates, rather than simply looking at market cost.

• An Act Relative to Affordable and Accessible High Quality Early Education and Care (H.470, S.288) calls on Massachusetts to assure that children have access to affordable, high-quality care during standard and non-standard work hours. The bill would also create “appropriate professional development and compensation for early education and care providers.” This bill has the support of the Coalition for Social Justice, which shared written and in-person testimony. The coalition includes Strategies for Children and 40 other organizations.

Legislators also heard about the ongoing advocacy priority of preschool expansion: An Act Ensuring High Quality Pre-Kindergarten Education (H.551, S.265).

This bill was filed in 2015, 2017, and 2019, and it is designed to expand on the important work of the federal Preschool Expansion Grant (PEG) that expires in August as well as on state-funded preschool expansion through the Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative (CPPI) grant. While a number of cities – including Boston, Holyoke, Lawrence, New Bedford, Somerville, and Springfield – have received this funding, many other cities have not.

This “uneven progression,” as Amy O’Leary, director of Strategies’ Early Education for All campaign, explained at the hearing, excludes children and families across the commonwealth.

As a Strategies fact sheet explains, the bill would address quality and access by focusing on “underperforming school districts through a targeted, phased-in approach. This comprehensive plan is modeled after the New Jersey Abbott preschool program, which has helped to narrow the achievement gap in those communities.”

Speaking in support of this bill were members of three panels:

Educators

Communities

Communities

Lowell parent Abisola Ogunseye testified about the full-day, Lowell Public School preschool program that her child attended noting, “the cost of the program cannot compare to its benefit.”

Titus Dos Remedios, Strategies’ director of research and policy, testified on the impact of expanding preschool by pointing to “the PEG evaluation conducted over the past four years by researchers at Abt Associates.”

“…what is clear today is that the federally funded PEG program did what it was designed to do – support 48 of the highest quality preschool classrooms in the state. PEG was funded at a level to support educator compensation and professional development, comprehensive services and family engagement, and full-day / full-year programming for children from very low-income families.”

A number of communities supported access, quality, and affordability in letters that were also submitted to state legislators.

Salem leaders wrote that while it was disappointing that the city did not receive a state-funded CPPI grant, the city is “continuing to lay the groundwork for increased access to preschool,” work that could help the city win funding in the future.

Holyoke wrote that research shows how important preschool is. The city sees the impact in its public school preschool program where “preschool students are nearly two times more likely to be prepared for Kindergarten, as measured on the nationally normed STAR assessment.” Thanks to a federal grant, the city has nearly doubled its preschool enrollment, but these new seats will be hard to maintain because federal funding is running out.

New Bedford received a CPPI grant and used it to create more preschool classrooms that include “shared comprehensive services for the children and families including; special education, behavior management, case management and speech and language services.”

“Unfortunately, we were only one of six communities to be awarded a small pilot grant. Thirteen additional communities with a documented history of successful preschool partnerships have recently lost federal funding. It is the obligation of the Commonwealth to recognize the success of these programs and prioritize funding and support for early education and care.”

Leaders from Haverhill wrote:

“Here in Haverhill, parents are eager for more preschool opportunities. Based on a survey we conducted in 2018, there were 191 children on waitlists and unable to enroll in a preschool program.”

Haverhill applied for and received a Preschool Expansion Planning grant. So while the city now has a plan, it did not, unfortunately, receive implementation funds.

And Pittsfield writes this it is committed to advocating for high-quality affordable child care especially for “our most vulnerable low-income families. Failure to do so is a missed opportunity to improve the lives in our community and state.” Pittsfield received Preschool Planning Grant funds, but it needs more funding to continue its work.

“In our community we have seen the achievement gap grow between local schools and neighborhoods. Our goal continues to be to work to bridge that gap and allow all children to flourish.”

Please build on the momentum generated by the hearing by sharing your stories with legislators and asking them to pass this bill.

It’s a vital step forward for children, families, employers, and long-term prosperity in Massachusetts.