 See all the chatter on January 12! |
The California Department of Education (CDE) held a public hearing on January 12 as they finalize their federally required state child care plan. More than a dozen child care workers, parents and community supporters went to Sacramento to share their stories of how poverty pay harms California families and our future. They called on California to expand access for struggling families and demand $15 per hour pay for all early educators. This public testimony comes after child care providers and parents joined other underpaid workers in their largest-ever nationwide mobilization this past November to call for a $15 an hour minimum wage and union rights (Fight for $15). Click here for photos of the day! And check out news coverage on the hearing from Univision and KFBK.
Let’s back up a little bit to shed more light on why this hearing is so important…
Late in 2014, a little over a year ago, President Obama signed the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 into law. The law reauthorized the child care program for the first time since 1996. SEIU was very involved leading up to the passage of the CCDBG, advocating for a stronger system of care for children, parents and providers.
The bottom line, though, was that CCDBG left it up to the states to decide how they will implement much of the new requirements and recommendations, such as:
- Timely payments for child care services
- More investment in ages 0-to-3
- Expanded supply of child care services
- Continuity of child care services for parents, such as a minimum eligibility period of 12 months and child care assistance for at least 3 months when a family experiences job loss
So that brings us to now…
California still has a lot of catching up to do after the devastating cuts to child care during the Great Recession. We lost child care services for more than 100,000 children. During the past couple years, we’ve finally stopped the cuts and made a little bit of progress. But, according to the California Budget and Policy Center, child care funding today is still 20% lower than funding levels in 2007.
As we mention above, there’s a little bit of good news in the new federal spending bill. It includes some increased funding for early care and education. But California’s share won’t be enough to comply with the new CCDBG regulations.
That means California needs to get MUCH more serious about investing in child care.
And that’s what we went to Sacramento to tell state leaders! When parents struggle to afford child care…when most early educators are paid so little we can barely survive…that lack of investment means children are locked out. We told California leaders that too-few spaces for children and low wages for early educators leads to high turnover, limited training and a broken system of early learning and care that is not moving California forward. Stay tuned for our plan to win meaningful investment in early care and education in 2016.
