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MAKING PROGRESS ON CHILD CARE
It’s about darn time.
Parents and child care providers too often get lip service from lawmakers about solving the child care crisis. A roll call vote this week on a child care bill forced Pennsylvania legislators to show where they stand.
On a bipartisan vote (113 – 90) in the PA House, a bill to recruit and retain child care teachers passed.
Lawmakers voting against the recruitment and retention measure might make more sense if the measure wasn’t so popular with their constituents, especially primary voters. Even more than 70 chambers of commerce across Pennsylvania asked legislators to support this measure.
One of the leading causes of the child care crisis is the persistent shortage of workers, driven in large part by low wages that make it difficult for providers to recruit and retain staff. If the 3,000 unfilled child care jobs in our Commonwealth were filled, an estimated 25,000 more children could have access to quality child care.
This measure would tackle the child care shortage head-on by establishing and funding a program that will help providers better recruit and retain their staff. HB 506, now headed to the state Senate, pays early childhood educators whose programs have Child Care Works contracts a $1,000 bonus every year. Nearly 90% of child care programs have contracts with Child Care Works.
Eighteen other states are directly investing in recruitment, retention, and other wage-impacting strategies to ensure that child care programs can keep classrooms open and the child care supply can meet the demand of working families.
In Republican Nebraska, 96% of child care teachers benefiting from the state’s retention program says it keeps them in the sector. In Democratic Minnesota, 83% of providers agreed that the state funds helped retain staff. In Wisconsin, 99% of recipients stay in the early childhood education field. Clearly, recruitment and retention programs work in red states, in blue states, and in purple states.
Even in Congress, the usual partisanship fades away when it comes to child care. At a hearing of a U.S. House education subcommittee, Congressman Ryan Mackenzie (R – PA) said, “It’s great to see that there is broad bipartisan recognition of the problem. I think everybody is recognizing the problem for working families to access quality and affordable child care, the barrier that it creates for people going back into the workforce after they have their child, and also the challenges that we face with child care providers.“
Voters, parents, business owners – they all know that child care is essential. So do many Democrats and Republicans in both Congress and the PA Legislature. But for the PA state representatives who didn’t vote to fix the child care crisis, it’s time for them to get with the program.
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