Our Child Care Priorities for the 2023-2024 Legislative Session
Access to early education and care is foundational to an equitable society for all children and families. It’s an important driver of employment opportunity, financial security, and economic mobility for both families and their children. It’s critical to preventing the achievement gap, and core to gender and racial equity.
But early education and care has long been undervalued in our country. As a result, it’s not working for anyone—families, providers, or educators.
And while the situation is serious, it’s also a unique moment and opportunity for action in Massachusetts. Child care was one of the only issues mentioned in the inaugural speeches of each member of the “Big Three” on Beacon Hill—Governor Maura Healey, Senate President Karen Spilka, and House Speaker Ron Mariano. It’s also a major priority for Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and so many other elected leaders.
Our Vision: What We are Fighting For
At Neighborhood Villages, we are seizing this opportunity to set forth our vision for a future in which all families have access to affordable, high-quality early education and care. That vision includes the following:
Comprehensive Child Care Reform: Comprehensive early education and care reform means that all families have access to high-quality affordable care in the location and on the schedules they need. It means that being an early educator is a well-paid career that attracts and retains the best talent. A transformed early education and care system prioritizes equity, connects families to the care solutions that are right for them, provides all children a high-quality early education, supports teachers in their professional development, and provides supportive infrastructure to early education and care providers. Specifically, that means:
No family pays more than 7% of household income for care and families who make less than 150% of the federal poverty line pay nothing.
Early educators’ salaries and benefits align with those of public K-12 teachers and staff.
Providers receive public funding, through per-child subsidies and direct-to-provider grants, that covers the labor and operating costs associated with delivery of high-quality care.
A Fully Funded Child Care System: In a fully funded child care system:
The child care subsidy reimbursement rate reflects the true cost of providing high-quality care and there is adequate public funding dedicated to ensuring that all families eligible for a child care subsidy are able to receive one and to enroll their child in care.
Direct-to-provider operations grants are a permanent funding vehicle that delivers a robust baseline of funding for all licensed early education and care providers and that takes into account the ages, populations, and locations a provider serves.
Sufficient public funding is dedicated to the Department of Early Education and Care, which is charged with overseeing public administration of Massachusetts’ early education and care system.
Our Legislative Priorities for 2023-2024
To achieve our vision, we are excited to announce our immediate priorities for the 2023-2024 legislative session, which are driven by our fight for a more affordable, accessible, and equitable child care system. Those priorities include:
Passing Comprehensive Early Education and Care Reform Legislation in Massachusetts: Specifically,passage of two bills introduced in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and in the Massachusetts Senate, both named An Act providing affordable and accessible high quality early education and care to promote child development and well-being and support the economy in the Commonwealth (HD.2794/SD.667). Though they differ from each other, both bills would:
Make care affordable for more Massachusetts families.
Create a sustainable funding source for quality care through codification of direct-to-provider operations grants.
Promote increased compensation for early educators by aligning salaries and benefits for early education educators with those of public K-12 educators.
2. Robustly Funding the Massachusetts Early Education and Care Sector to Improve Access and Affordability and Raise Educator Salaries: In the FY2024 state budget, we are fighting for sustained – and increased – funding for key elements of the Commonwealth’s early education and care sector, including:
Operations grants (3000-1045) funded at a minimum of $470 million, to create a sustainable and predictable funding source for quality early education and care, increase educator compensation, and improve access to care, especially for lower income families.
Child care financial assistance rate reserve (3000-1042) funded at a minimum of $60 million, to help raise the child care subsidy reimbursement rate and grow the supply of quality care options for vulnerable and lower income families.
Neighborhood Villages pilot (3000-7055) funded at $1.5 million, to support access to quality early education and care by continuing funding for Neighborhood Villages.
Higher education opportunities for the early education and care workforce (3000-7066) funded at a minimum of $10 million, to promote educator access to higher education opportunities and strengthen the early education and care workforce pipeline.
Learn more about Neighborhood Villages’ advocacy agenda here. For a quick resource on our agenda, check out our fact sheet. You can also visit our resource hub for everything you need on why all of this matters so much.
To meaningfully transform the child care system, we need to codify our priorities into law. We look forward to working with lawmakers, advocates, families, and educators to achieve this. Together, we can create the change we want to see and lay the foundation for better, more equitable future for educators, families, and children across the Commonwealth.