By Jan Soma, Progressive Needham
The Common Start Coalition hosted a Round Table Event January 24th to underscore the importance of the Common Start bill (S.362/H.605), a comprehensive, innovative bill that will transform the lives of many families as well as the Massachusetts economy by guaranteeing affordable, high-quality child care and early education for all. Check out this visual to see how many benefits radiate out of this one piece of legislation.
Colin Jones from Mass. Budget and Policy Center gave an overview of recent federal funding. The upshot is that federal relief has not offset the total losses of our child care system during the pandemic. More federal funds are expected but they will constitute a bridge for a couple years until we can develop state funding for the universal child care program.
Representative Katherine Clark spoke of child care as a PUBLIC GOOD. She has been a consistent supporter of accessible child care even before being elected to the U.S. House of Representative in 2013. She explained that lack of available child care costs the U.S. economy $57 billion dollars a year because 30% of families can’t find care for their children. Other developed countries spend about $14,000 per year to subsidize child care while the U.S. spends about $500. She emphasized that our legislators are continuing to fight for adequate funding for child care initiatives.
Parents and educators provided real stories about the realities they face these days. The additional stresses of the pandemic make their needs especially clear.
Naomi Meyer, an attorney at Greater Boston legal Services who helped develop and write this bill, explained that it may take five years to fully implement the legislation but would start by covering the families with the lowest incomes first.
Over the past few years, the Common Start Coalition has done an impressive job of bringing together stakeholders across the state to work on the bill. As Meyer explained, we can’t solve one piece of the puzzle by itself: we will only succeed by bringing parents, teachers, providers, and community members together around a shared vision.