RECAP of Jan EEC Board Meeting: EEC Updates & Situating Early Ed Workforce Challenges in the Context of the MA Labor Market

Watch the January EEC Board Meeting

At Neighborhood Villages, we prioritize keeping up with the policy landscape in the early education and care field, both across the country and in Massachusetts. That includes tuning-in to the monthly meetings of the Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care (“EEC Board”), to stay apprised of updates and to identify opportunities for how we can work with government and other stakeholders to improve our early education and care system.

This month’s EEC Board meeting served as an orientation for new members of the Board to EEC and focused on one of EEC’s top priorities: recruitment and retention of early education and care teachers. The agenda included:

I.Key updates from the Department of EEC;

II. A presentation by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation on the Massachusetts labor market; and

III. ECC’s assessment of key challenges and opportunities regarding the early education & care workforce. 

I. Key Updates from the Department of EEC.

Key updates from the Department of EEC included:

• Massachusetts was awarded a federal Preschool Development Grant (PDG) Birth to Five (B-5) in the amount of $12 million annually for three years, to be used to advance EEC initiatives and priorities, with a focus on system-building in the early education and care sector. For example, EEC anticipates that the funds will help push forward priorities such as making child care financial assistance more equitable and accessible to families; building the workforce credentialing system; and bringing the voices of families into the agency and its work.

• On Tuesday, January 10th, EEC launched a pilot to distribute funds allocated in the state budget to provide child care tuition support for early education and care program staff. To be eligible for the tuition financial assistance, applicants must: 

• Be currently employed at a licensed or funded early education or school aged program in Massachusetts. (Including but not limited to educators, support staff, administrators, kitchen staff, transportation staff, cleaning and maintenance staff.); 

• Live in Massachusetts; AND

• Have an income at or below 85% of the Massachusetts state median income (SMI).

EEC’s pilot of this initiative will be administered using the existing channel of the current child care subsidy system, which provides financial assistance for eligible families seeking to enroll their children in care. Thus, to take advantage of this tuition assistance, educators will need to identify and enroll their child in a program that participates in the subsidy system. 

II. Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation’s (MTF) Presentation on the Massachusetts Workforce, Inclusive of Trends in Early Education and Care. 

The MTF presentation provided an overview of demographic and population trends in MA and highlighted that Massachusetts faces a growing shortage of workers, generally. The shortage is attributed to low birth rates, migration from the state, and reduced immigration into the state. Data highlighted in the presentation include:

• Massachusetts currently has more than two job openings for every unemployed person; 

• Massachusetts lost 46,000 residents in 2021;

• Massachusetts lost approximately 3,000 child care workers since the pandemic began.

Notably, expanding access to child care was highlighted as a potential antidote to workforce shortages – though Massachusetts faces serious challenges with respect to its early education and care sector, including: (a) a subsidy system that reaches relatively few children; (b) high costs of care; and (c) limited availability.

MTF also analyzed the economic impact of the limitations of Massachusetts’ child care system and estimated that it causes the Commonwealth to lose about $2.7 billion dollars each year, comprising lost wages for families, costs related to attrition of employees for businesses, and foregone tax revenue. 

III. Key Challenges and Opportunities Regarding the Early Education & Care Workforce 

EEC presented updated data points on the Massachusetts early education and care workforce, gathered from recent EEC administrative data and surveys. Previous assessments of the early education and care sector in the Commonwealth have shown a loss of providers and a reduction in licensed capacity to serve children, since the onset of the pandemic. What the recent data reveal is that, while the number of licensed child care seats is returning to pre-pandemic levels, child care providers are not enrolling at their full licensed capacity. They cannot enroll children in all of the seats they have available because of staffing shortages. Even despite a high rate of new family child care (FCC) providers entering the market each month, more than a third of providers cannot enroll at full capacity because they lack a sufficient number of educators.  This shortage of educators is due mainly to the field’s low wages. Low pay impacts providers’ ability to both recruit and retain employees. Indeed, nearly a third of all educator positions in the state have turned over in the past year.

An EEC working group on the workforce is exploring strategies to address staffing challenges, including a framework for building professional development and career pathways, and specific actions designed to recruit and retain educators. One action is the provision of financial support for child care for educators and program staff. The pilot of this program, as noted previously, has begun, and we will be watching closely to see how it impacts workforce dynamics.  

The next meeting of the Board of EEC will take place as scheduled, on February 14, 2023. The March meeting of the Board of EEC has been rescheduled and will take place on March 21, 2023.