For students who exit Early Intervention at 3 and do not meet the bar for an IEP, there exists a two-year period — roughly ages three to five — between Early Intervention services and public kindergarten during which many parents and caregivers are left to figure out how to pay for developmental support options.
child care
Posted inEducation
Massachusetts emerges as a national leader in child care access, but accessibility issues remain
Funding for the Mass. Department of Early Education and Care increased by 125 percent between 2020 and 2025, helping support providers and expand capacity.
Posted inEducation
Pilot opens expansion opportunity for some family child care providers
The pilot will include about 25 to 30 programs, as EEC collects data and feedback from educators and families. EEC will use those findings to help guide future decisions about family child care capacity, staffing ratios and licensing structures.
Posted inChild Care
Surtax fueling early ed expansion, but will it last?
The money expanding child care access this year comes from one-time surplus funds. Maintaining long-term funding will mean finding a permanent home for it in next year’s state budget.
Posted inEducation
Worcester pilot program provides early childhood educators with rent-free space to start their businesses
The Family Childcare Success Project, formed in partnership by the Guild of St. Agnes and the Seven Hills Foundation, launched a new family child care incubator — only the third of its kind in the nation — meant to provide more child care slots while making it easier for early educators to get their start.
Posted inThe Codcast
How ‘universal’ is universal pre-K?
This week on The Codcast, we dive into Gov. Maura Healey’s “Gateway to Pre-K” agenda. By the end of 2026, her administration declared that every family of a 4-year-old in the state’s 26 Gateway Cities would have the opportunity – at low or no cost – to enroll their child in a preschool program that prepares them for kindergarten. But local providers say they won’t get there.
Posted inEducation
Healey has called for universal pre-K in every Gateway City by the year’s end. Providers say they won’t get there.
Seven of the 26 cities are not currently participating in the state’s pre-K implementation program. Child care providers in cities that are participating say that while it enforces a mixed-delivery approach highly valued by preschool advocates, universal access for every 4-year-old by the end of the year is a pipe dream.
Posted inEducation
Report highlights persistent challenges in early child care workforce
Despite “fragile progress,” the Commonwealth’s early child care system continues to suffer from a workforce problem, according to a new analysis published by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. The report makes several policy recommendations and highlights that the state is losing out on billions in tax revenue.
Posted inPolitics
Bill to allow campaign funds for childcare on the move
While everything from pricey steakhouse dinners to travel to far-off conferences can be paid with campaign funds under the broad definition of allowable spending that furthers a candidate’s political career, childcare falls outside that interpretation.
Posted inState Government
Healey pushes $93m boost in new child care spending
Healey plans to pursue about $93 million in new child care spending in her fiscal year 2025 budget proposal, which will also request another $475 million in grants to continue supporting early education providers.
Posted inState Government
State child care assistance boosted 5%
Gov. Maura Healey’s office said the approval means providers across the state will start to receive at least a 5.5 percent increase to their daily per child reimbursement rate beginning next month — an increase of more than $2,000 per child on average each year.
Posted inOpinion
Apprenticeship: a key to solving our child care crisis
WITHIN EVERY CHALLENGE lies vast opportunity, and perhaps nowhere is that more true than our child care system, which is struggling with a capacity shortage. Solving the capacity problem will […]
Posted inEducation
Investing in child care infrastructure can be transformative
CHILD CARE is vital to our economy. This has never been more apparent than over the past 18 months as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools and child care centers […]
Posted inOpinion
Pushing for radically different child care system
NATALIE IS a multiracial single mother raising a young son with autism in the greater Boston area. In my job at Economic Mobility Pathways, I work with women like her to […]
Posted inUncategorized
Legislature eyes changes in childcare system
RARELY HAS THE ISSUE of childcare received such sustained attention from the state Legislature. But with the pandemic calling renewed attention to the economic importance of childcare, two state panels […]
Posted inOpinion
Essential workers need child care support
ESSENTIAL WORKERS are taking care of our state and of our nation: healthcare workers, grocery clerks, bank tellers, first responders, domestic workers, restaurant workers, janitors, and so many more. Yet many of us […]
Posted inThe Download
Pandemic leads to rethinking of childcare
The shuttering of daycares last spring made apparent to workers and employers alike the importance of childcare to a functioning economy. Now, experts hope that one silver lining of the […]
Posted inUncategorized
Pandemic leads to rethinking of childcare
THE SHUTTERING of daycares last spring made apparent to workers and employers alike the importance of childcare to a functioning economy. Now, experts hope that one silver lining of the […]
Posted inEducation
Licensing of new childcare providers on hold
NICOLE MCCORMACK, a hairstylist from Haverhilll, always dreamed of opening a home daycare. So with her youngest son entering kindergarten, she started applying for a license in March. Five months […]
Posted inUncategorized
Providers question feasibility of childcare guidelines
CHILDREN RETURNING to daycare will no longer be encouraged to play together. Caregivers will wear face coverings. Public playgrounds will be off limits. Class sizes will be smaller. Gov. Charlie […]
Posted inOpinion
Major public funding needed for child care
MONTHS BEFORE the first documented case of coronavirus became public, an owner of a Connecticut-based child care center suggested a way to demonstrate child care’s critical role in the economy. […]
Posted inEducation
Parents, daycare providers grapple with uncertainty
BEFORE THE CORONAVIRUS pandemic hit, April McCarthy, 31, of Chelmsford, was working as a mental health clinician, while a family daycare provider watched her 2-year-old daughter and 7-month-old son. Then […]
Posted inEconomy
Congress must act on child care crisis
CHILD CARE IS an essential component of our national economic infrastructure, as fundamental as our roads and bridges. Just ask any parent performing essential services during the pandemic, or any […]
