State Senate Passes Transformational Bill to Expand Access to High-Quality, Affordable Early Education and Child Care
BOSTON – State Senator Ed Kennedy (D – Lowell) joined his colleagues in the Massachusetts State Senate in unanimously passing S.2973 An Act to expand access to high-quality, affordable early education and care, on Thursday, July 7, 2022. The bipartisan piece of legislation increases the access and affordability of high-quality early education and childcare for Massachusetts families, strengthens early education providers, improves compensation and professional development for the early education workforce, and addresses the workforce needs of employers in the Commonwealth. This bill draws from recommendations made by the Special Legislative Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission, which was created by the legislature in 2020 and issued its final report in March 2022.
“High-quality, affordable early education and childcare are fundamental to the Commonwealth’s current economic recovery, and future economic growth. By making these necessary investments for both families and providers in the state’s early education and childcare systems, we are ensuring the Commonwealth’s continued prosperity,” said State Senator Ed Kennedy.
Children with access to affordable high-quality early education develop stronger communication, social, and cognitive skills. Early education investments have been shown to yield considerable long-term benefits, such as higher academic achievement and greater lifetime earnings. However, many families in the Commonwealth lack access to high-quality, affordable early education. The financial strain of childcare on families impacts the ability of parents, especially working mothers, to enter or remain in the work force, which is a contributing factor to labor shortages and threatens the Commonwealth’s economic recovery.
“S.2973 crafts a road map for lifting early education program quality and enhancing the lives of early educators across Massachusetts, while dramatically expanding access in the coming years to assist children and families. We are appreciative of Senator Kennedy’s leadership, his commitment to high-quality early education and for his efforts to pass this important legislation,” said Community Teamwork CEO Karen Frederick and Acre Family Child Care Co-Executive Director Lucas Skorczeski in a joint statement.
S.2973 improves access to high-quality, affordable childcare for Massachusetts families in the following ways:
- Increases subsidy eligibility over time from the current level of 50% of state median income ($65,626 annual household income for a family of four) to 125% of state median income ($164,065 annual household income for a family of four)
- Makes it easier for subsidized providers to offer scholarships or discounted tuition for their private pay families
- Requires the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) to evaluate and eliminate barriers to subsidy access for families on an annual basis
- Requires parent fees for subsidized families to be affordable and updated at least every five years
- Requires EEC to assess the extent of the current supply of licensed childcare availability across the state and the unmet needs of families
Although childcare is expensive for families in the Commonwealth, early education and childcare providers are themselves in crisis. Due to the low wages and poor benefits that providers can afford to pay their staff, providers struggle with attracting and retaining early educators, the majority of whom are women, and many of whom are women of color. Federal pandemic relief funding has been a lifeline for the early education and care sector, but these funds are one-time. S.2973 helps stabilize providers, improve program quality, and expand capacity by:
- Making permanent the operational grants to providers that were first distributed during the pandemic and requires that a provider must be willing to enroll subsidized children to qualify for a grant
- Requiring EEC to use an actual cost-of-quality-care methodology for setting subsidy reimbursement rates and calculating operational grants
- Requiring EEC to reimburse subsidized providers based on quarterly enrollment rather than daily attendance of children
- Taking steps to strengthen the recruitment and pipeline of early educators
Early educators with bachelor’s degrees earn far less than their counterparts who teach in public elementary schools, and one in six early educators lives in poverty. To improve compensation, benefits, and professional development opportunities for the early educator workforce, this legislation:
- Requires EEC to develop a career ladder that links educational attainment and work experience to compensation and benefits and recommends that compensation levels be commensurate with public school teachers who are similarly credentialed
- Establishes early educator scholarship and loan forgiveness programs to provide greater access to higher education and professional development opportunities
- Enables subsidized providers to offer free or discounted seats for the children of their own staff
Additional provisions would further improve and strengthen early education and childcare in the Commonwealth. S.2973 also creates a commission to study and recommend to the legislature ways that employers could provide more support to their workers to help meet their early education and childcare needs. Furthermore, this legislation requires the EEC and the Children’s Investment Fund to report to the legislature on ways to improve and expand the impact of the Early Education and Out of School Time (EEOST) Capital Fund for making improvements to early education facilities. Finally, this bill creates a data advisory commission to work with EEC on expanded data collection and reporting, and the improved use of data to inform the cost and quality of care.
Having passed the Senate, S.2973 now moves to the House of Representatives for further consideration.