HARRISBURG, PA (July 6, 2023) – Today, the principal partners of Early Learning Pennsylvania (ELPA), a statewide coalition of advocates focused on supporting young Pennsylvanians from birth to age five, issued the following statements regarding House Bill 611 that still awaits the signature of the Senate President Pro Tempore and finally Governor Shapiro to become the enacted 2023-24 Pennsylvania state budget. ELPA operates four issue-based advocacy campaigns: Pre-K for PA, Start Strong PA, Childhood Begins at Home and Thriving PA.
First Budget in a Decade to Not Expand Pre-K Counts and State Funding for Head Start
“The Pre-K for PA campaign is deeply disappointed by the failure to expand the state’s publicly funded pre-k programs – PA Pre-K Counts and the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program. When nearly 90,000 eligible 3- and 4-year-olds do not have access to these once-in-a-lifetime early learning opportunities, and pre-k and Head Start programs can’t keep teachers in their classrooms because of inadequate reimbursement rates, this budget bill is simply unacceptable.
“Public investment in high-quality pre-k has historically been a consensus issue in Pennsylvania; aligning political parties, rural, urban and suburban communities, and families across the commonwealth on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that improves the life chances of Pennsylvania’s children. In fact, a February 2023 Susquehanna Polling and Research poll showed that 98% of PA voters believe that early learning is important, and 78% of PA voters support increasing state funding to serve more eligible children in pre-k programs, which was an increase from 65% in 2022.
“Unfortunately, HB 611 is a noticeable departure from a decade of growing investment in high-quality pre-k and threatens the stability of the early care and education sector and the futures of the 90,000 young children that lack access.
“With no new funding and all PA Pre-K Counts contracts up for renewal as part of a complete competitive rebid in FY 2023-24, Pre-K for PA urges the Shapiro Administration to maintain (to the greatest degree possible) the current per county slot allocation to ensure stability in access for our youngest learners.”
Budget Fails to Address Historic Labor Shortage; Continues Child Care Crisis Impacting Working Families
“With a child care sector that is on the brink of collapse, the Start Strong PA Campaign is shocked by the lack of investment to address the child care teacher shortage in the state budget bill. Policymakers ignored calls from chambers of commerce, working parents, child care providers, military leaders and others to stabilize the sector by investing in child care wages. Failing to invest in the workforce, which supports all other sectors, will continue to harm the commonwealth’s children, working families and the overall economy.
“HB 611 currently allocates slightly more than $100 million in new state funding to maintain the status quo in the child care system. This includes supporting the current child care subsidy caseload and utilization, as well as maintaining the increase in subsidy rates as one-time federal funding lapses. While maintaining the 60th percentile of market rates is important to help alleviate inflationary pressures on child care providers, it has not stabilized the child care workforce. This maintenance of effort of the subsidy system is simply woefully inadequate given the scale of the commonwealth’s child care crisis.
“Across Pennsylvania, child care providers are closing classrooms and entire programs due to this historic child care teacher shortage. According to a February 2023 Start Strong PA survey of more than 1,000 child care providers across the state, 85% of responding providers had open and unfilled positions amounting to more than 3,600 open staff positions resulting in 1,500 closed classrooms, and a combined waitlist of more than 35,000 children.
“Low wages within the child care sector are driving this staffing shortage. The average wage of a Pennsylvania child care teacher is less than $12.50/hour. At this earning potential, 21 percent of the child care workforce relies upon Medicaid for their health care coverage and SNAP to put food on the table. There is no county in the commonwealth where this wage covers the cost of living.
“For families with young children, access to child care is a critical factor in their ability to go to work and ensure their children are in a safe and nurturing environment. Nearly 70 percent of all households with children younger than age 6 have all available caregivers in the workforce—that’s over 537,000 households.
“For all other business sectors, the child care sector is the workforce behind the workforce. When families can’t get child care, their children suffer, their income drops and the state’s economy is shortchanged. In a time of severe labor shortages and billions in state budget surplus, the commonwealth’s failure to ensure parents have access to child care is a tragic outcome.
“For all Pennsylvanians, when businesses aren’t fully staffed, or staff are unreliable due to lack of child care, they cannot produce goods or provide services, creating shortages and increasing prices. So, whether one has young children or not, Pennsylvania’s child care crisis should matter to all of us.”
Infant and Toddler Early Intervention and Maternal Health Increases Included in Budget
“The budget bill also contains an increase of $15.4 million for Infant and Toddler (Part C) Early Intervention in the Department of Human Services budget. This is short of Governor Shapiro’s March budget proposal, which called for a $20.2 million increase. While the additional $15.4 million will serve more children and sustain a rate increase initially achieved through one-time federal stimulus funding, Thriving PA is disappointed more was not done to support the Early Intervention system holistically. This includes solutions to address workforce shortages needed to create a viable and sustained service delivery platform.
“Additionally, Preschool (Part B) Early Intervention received a $10.4 million increase in the Department of Education budget, which was what Governor Shapiro included in his March request.
“A $2.3 million increase in the Department of Health budget was included in HB 611 in order to implement recommendations included in the Maternal Mortality Review Commission report. Thriving PA appreciates support for these funds, which will help address maternal mortality and morbidity in Pennsylvania.”
In summary, House Bill 611, which still awaits the signature of the Senate President Pro Tempore and finally Governor Shapiro to become the enacted 2023-24 Pennsylvania state budget, includes:
- Level funding for the state’s Pre-K Counts program.
- Level funding for the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program.
- Increase of $103,747,000 to maintain the status quo in the child care subsidy program (increases of $13,370,000 million for the state Child Care Assistance line item and $90,377,000 million for the Child Care Services line item).
- Level-funding for evidence-based home visiting in the Community-Based Family Center line item and $25,000 for the Nurse-Family Partnership line item, which is a technical adjustment from previously enhanced federal matching funds.
- $15.4 million for the Early Intervention Part C (infants and toddlers) program through DHS.
- $10.4 million for the Early Intervention Part B (age-three-to-five) program through PDE.
About Pre-K for PA
Pre-K for PA launched in 2014 with the vision that every 3- and 4-year-old in Pennsylvania will have access to high-quality pre-k. Learn more at www.prekforpa.org.
About Start Strong PA
Start Strong PA launched in 2019 to support healthy child development, working families, and the economy by increasing access to and affordability of high-quality child care programs for young children. Learn more at www.startstrongpa.org.
About Childhood Begins At Home
Childhood Begins At Home is a statewide campaign launched in 2017 to help policymakers and the public understand the value of evidence-based home visiting and support public investments in the programs. Learn more at www.childhoodbeginsathome.org.
About Thriving PA
Thriving PA is a perinatal and child health campaign launched in 2021 and is working to ensure each birthing person, infant, and toddler in Pennsylvania has the opportunity for affordable, quality health care access. Learn more at www.thrivingpa.org.
Northeast Times: Op-Ed: Teaching Our Youngest Children Deserves a Living Wage
May 10, 2023 by Milagros Battiti and Adria Godfrey
Do you love what you do? Do you feel called to do a job, no matter how stressful it feels some days?
We do. We are both early education teachers in Northeast Philadelphia.
We work with 20 or so tiny souls who need us to provide a sense of safety, structure and the excitement of learning. We work with their parents and guardians, too, helping them navigate the challenges of being a working parent, of hunting for the supports their children need.
Doing all this makes us very happy. But it doesn’t pay our bills.
In Pennsylvania, educating other people’s small children while they work doesn’t pay enough to provide for your own children. Or to pay the student loans you piled up getting trained to do the work. Or, sometimes, even to go out with your friends for a modest meal.
A study by Children First found that the average pay for early education teachers in Pennsylvania is $12.43 an hour, or a shade under $26,000 a year. This level of pay covers only about three-quarters of the basic cost of living – food, shelter, health care, transportation – in Philadelphia. In some western counties, that figure dips to around 50%.
In a survey of 3,400 early ed workers across Pennsylvania, three out of five reported a surprise $400 expense would send their household budgets into a tailspin. Even though they work full-time, many said they need SNAP food benefits and Medicaid to get by. Fully half said they did not expect to be in the same job, at the same center, in five years. No wonder studies estimate the national shortfall or early ed teachers is 110,000 and growing.
Unlike many who responded to the Children First survey, we don’t plan on going anywhere. We want to stay where we are; we love the kids we get to help and relish the relationships we build with their families. We love making a difference in a child’s future.
But we also must balance that happiness with a constant financial struggle. One of us has a master’s in education, and 23 years experience. The other has a bachelor’s and is newer to the work. One of us has three kids of her own, with one looking at college, another eager to play travel sports (whew … expensive!) and the youngest still needing $1,300 worth of child care a month. The other of us works second jobs, sells stuff online and at flea markets and maxes out credit cards – but still sometimes runs out of money before the month ends. She almost never takes a vacation day, because she has to save her time off to take care of a sick mother.
Here’s a finding from the survey that came as no surprise to us: The typical early ed teacher holding a college degree gets better pay, but not enough to pay off the student loans she piled up getting that degree. The second jaw of this financial vise is that the tuition early ed centers charge is usually higher than the annual tuition in the Pennsylvania state university system. So, the centers where we work would have a hard time raising their tuition to pay us a living wage.
The support for fair wages for early childhood educators must come from our commonwealth.
Our state’s new governor just introduced his first proposed budget. We’re happy to see he didn’t ignore us totally. The proposal ups the funding for the Pre-K Counts and Head Start programs by about 10% ($30 million). But his focus is on increasing the number of slots, not reducing families’ costs, or raising our deeply inadequate pay.
As educators, we do know a little bit about basic math and logic. So, a question for our leaders in Harrisburg: What does a theoretical increase in the number of slots matter if you’re not going to pay enough to retain or attract qualified teachers to teach those kids?
Perhaps you’re not all that moved by our personal financial struggles. But please know this: Shortfalls in pre-k slots and hours of operation also spawn severe harm to the state’s businesses in the form of worker absences, productivity losses and turnover. A new ReadyNation report found that child care breakdowns cost our commonwealth $6.65 billion (yes, with a B). That, in turn, costs the state nearly $600 million in annual tax revenue, the study found. That figure, by the way, is more than double what the state spent this fiscal year to support Pre-K Counts and Head Start.
We hope our state lawmakers will at the very least endorse, if not increase, Gov. Shapiro’s proposed allocation for early childhood education.
Gov. Shapiro is also proposing a $66.7 million increase for Child Care Works in this year’s budget. We hope our legislators will go above and beyond that because this amount only keeps up with inflation. It will do nothing to stem the quality and turnover crises, nor will it ease the financial struggles we cope with every day.
If we could, we’d like to have those elected officials spend a day – just one, in our classrooms, to see what it takes to be a good early childhood educator for 20 children. What we do is not, definitely not just babysitting. We are educators, who help young children develop cognitively, physically, emotionally and academically – with benefits to themselves and society that last as long as they live. We are qualified and we do quality work.
We deserve to be able to make a decent, living wage doing it.
A couple of weeks ago, we spoke to our lawmakers from the Northeast about what we are going through, the challenges we face and our commitment to our children. We urge our fellow educators to do the same with their representatives.
Our political leaders need to hear from us about what is really happening on the ground. That’s why we’re telling our story and asking our home state to invest in us, so we can educate its children. ••
Milagros Battiti is an early educator KinderAcademy and Adria Godfrey is an early educator at SPIN, both child care providers in the Northeast.
See the full op-ed here.
WJET: Gov. Shapiro promotes youth education at 2023 Easter egg hunt
Governor Josh Shapiro is using his first Easter egg hunt to push his education agenda, especially for younger Pennsylvanians.
That hunt brought dozens of the state’s youngest citizens to the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg.
The governor is pushing an agenda that is offering programs for students from pre-K through K-12 with the hopes that all children can access a good education.
“We want to give every single child the freedom to chart their own course and the freedom to succeed. The way we would do that is by having well-funded classrooms, mental health care available for our children, free breakfast and everything. It’s really important that we make those investments,” said Gov. Shapiro.
Governor Shapiro added that he was proud to host his first Easter egg hunt on the grounds of the governor’s mansion with his wife, First Lady Lori Shapiro.
Read the article here.
ABC27: Governor Shapiro, First Lady host annual Easter egg hunt
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — It was a fun day on Tuesday at the Governor’s Mansion as Governor and First Lady Shapiro hosted students, teachers, and advocates for the annual Easter egg hunt and education events.
Kids had a great time at the Easter egg hunt, while the event highlighted the importance of investing in early childhood education. Pre-K for PA gave the kids backpacks to hold their collected eggs.
“They’re counting their eggs, they are telling us the colors, they are learning about the governor and his position, and what he does for the state of Pennsylvania,” said Lead Teacher at Discovery Place, Karen Johnson.
Students, teachers, and advocates came from across Pennsylvania to join in on the educational fun.
“Lori and I are thrilled to welcome preschool students and teachers to the Residence, and we’re committed to working just as hard for all Pennsylvania children as we do for ours,” said Governor Shapiro.
Watch the video here and read the article here.
PennLive: Gov. Shapiro, first lady host annual Easter Egg Hunt
By Jimmie Brown
Governor Josh Shapiro and First Lady Lori Shapiro hosted several pre-k students, teachers, and advocates at for an annual Easter egg hunt Tuesday.
The Easter Egg Hunt was co-sponsored by Pre-K for PA.
The event served two purposes: continuing the tradition of an Easter Egg hunt at the governor’s residence, and promoting Shapiro’s plan to invest more money in early childhood education in Pennsylvania.
“Safe and strong communities are built on the foundation of an adequate and equitable education, from pre-K through college – and we must invest in early education so that every child in Pennsylvania can get the best possible start in life,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro’s budget proposes investing more than $30 million in Head Start and Pre-K Counts to help employ more preschool teachers and serve more students.
Watch the video for scenes from the Easter egg hunt event.
Read the article and see photos here.
WTAJ: Governor Shapiro Highlights Early Education at Easter Event
PENNSYLVANIA (WTAJ) – Governor Josh Shapiro and First Lady Lori Shapiro hosted an Easter egg hunt to highlight the need for high-quality early childhood programs across the Commonwealth.
The Shapiro’s were joined by Pre-K for Pa as part of the Shapiro Administration’s commitment to creating better schools, healthier families and safer communities.
“Safe and strong communities are built on the foundation of an adequate and equitable education, from pre-K through college and we must invest in early education so that every child in Pennsylvania can get the best possible start in life,” Governor Shapiro said.
“Strong early childhood education programs set students up for success, both inside and outside of the classroom, and that’s why budget invests over $30 million in Head Start and Pre-K Counts to help us recruit more preschool teachers and serve more students. Lori and I are thrilled to welcome preschool students and teachers to the Residence, and we’re committed to working just as hard for all Pennsylvania children as we do for ours.”
In his first budget address, Governor Shapiro proposed a $30,000,000 increase in Pre-K Counts funding and $2,700,000 in funding for the Head Start Supplemental Program to help address staffing shortages in early childhood education programs.
Read the full article here.
