New & Noteworthy

Things are looking up for young children, parents, and child care providers in California thanks to transformational legislative wins over the summer of 2023. These policy achievements did not happen by chance, but were the result of a coordinated effort that was fueled by the grassroots organizing of parents, providers, and thousands of organizations speaking with one voice. The resulting policy wins consist of many different parts, but revolve around two key issues ripe for reform: 1) family fees, meaning the dollar amount paid by families to access subsidized child care, and, 2) the rates paid by the state to providers of subsidized child care.

Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed a 2024-25 budget Tuesday that increases basic education funding by $1.1 billion, which would be the largest single-year increase ever. Most of that money, $900 million, would be funneled through a so-called adequacy formula that calculates what every district actually requires to educate all their children to high standards, based on students’ needs.

Stone grantee partner Rebecca Vonderlack Navarro of Latino Policy Forum and Linda Perales an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union makes the case for more bilingual teachers in this WTTW interview.

A New Haven early childcare center is expanding a program providing free homes for teachers and their families. Friends Center for Children began the Teacher Housing Initiative in 2021. With the planned completion of a newly constructed home set for the fall, the center will provide housing for six of its teachers. The program is specifically designed to ease the financial burden some educators face, Friends Center Executive Director Allyx Schiavone said. Ninety-seven percent of educators teaching children under the age of five are women and mostly people of color.

When discussing the educator workforce shortages in Illinois, it is evident that the challenges our education system faces are complex. Reporter Shanzeh Ahmad’s recent article in the Tribune highlights the persistent, critical shortage of educators in special education and bilingual classes and sheds light on the disparate impact these shortages have on particular student populations. We must address this issue with urgency.

Our organizations, The Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing and The Hyams Foundation, are movement funders that share a common set of assumptions about the nature of power and the role that progressive philanthropy must play in defending democracy. As women of color and leaders of movement foundations, we are preoccupied with the question: What role should progressive philanthropy play in responding to the rise of repressive, authoritarian policies that threaten the lives and well-being of the communities we are accountable to?

Stone provided funding for the Early Years Climate Action Task Force. Dora Ramos is a family child care provider in Stamford, Connecticut, where the temperature climbed above 90 degrees for a few days in July. She takes care of children in her home, which has a large backyard, and was able to adapt, still getting the children outside, even on the hottest days. “Our parents bring the children at 7:10 a.m., so we bring them outside very early — first thing,” she said. “We have sprinklers; they use the hose to fill up pots with water and ‘cook.’” But in Dallas, where the high hit 110 degrees on August 18, it wasn’t safe or possible to play outside for weeks-long stretches this summer, said Cori Berg, the director of Hope Day School, a preschool there. “It was cranky weather for sure,” she said. “What most people don’t really think about is what it’s like for a child in a center. They’re cooped up in one room for hours and hours and hours.”

Youth organizer Maria Paula Degillo used to protest in downtown Chicago against the high rates of suspensions and expulsions for students of color. Now, she collaborates with Chicago Public Schools to create safe school environments without harsh discipline and over policing. Today, Degillo, with the group Voices of Youth in Chicago Education, is joining the district’s Chief of Safety and Security Jadine Chou at a City Club of Chicago event to highlight the partnership forged between the district and community organizations over the course of the last decade to improve school safety.

On Saturday, $39 billion in federal child-care funds made available through the American Rescue Plan Act are set to expire. As a result, close to 3.2 million children could lose their spots in early education programs. Congress can solve this problem. So far, however, it has declined to do so, starting with deciding not to pass the Build Back Better provisions in 2022 that would have made child-care funding permanent.