PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION TO SUPPORT FUNDING FOR CHILD CARE FROM BIRTH TO 5 YEARS OF AGE. 

We are in urgent need of a dedicated funding source for early care and education, and the recently announced 6% voucher rate increase does not even approach the problem. Qualified early educators who care for and educate babies to 5-year-olds in center-based and family childcare homes are leaving the profession or closing their doors and/or classrooms. This workforce, having been trained and holding college degrees to work with children at their most receptive developmental stages, simply cannot afford to stay in the jobs for which they have been trained. Wages are too low and costs to families for quality childcare are too high.

Senator Jennifer L.Flanagan has sponsored a bill S255, which sits before this committee. S255 is entitled “an act relative to early education funding”. To quote a portion of the act:

One and three-quarters per cent of the collections of the excise imposed at a rate of 6.25 per cent shall be distributed to the department of early education and care (DEEC) for the purpose of investing in compensation commensurate with qualifications for early childhood educators and providers. This program shall be known as the early educator rewards program.

For the full text visit BILL S255