By Beth Brelje
Reading Eagle

It is budget season in Harrisburg and while lawmakers set spending priorities, advocates for many causes are squeaking for more money.

Start Strong PA, as a coalition of early childhood advocacy groups is known, was one among them last week. The nonprofit group led a press conference Tuesday seeking additional money to expand Child Care Works, the state's subsidized child care program that offers subsidies toward free and low-cost child care for low income workers.

Today, Tuesday, January 29, 2019, Start Strong PA hosted its launch event at the Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where approximately 75 early childhood advocates including state legislators, professionals, and families with children in child care were in attendance.

Guided by this evidenced-based research, legislators, their staff, families, and the press are invited to attend the launch of Start Strong PA, a statewide initiative to help ensure every Pennsylvania infant and toddler starts off strong.

By John King & Myra Jones Taylor
The Hechinger Report

We must improve the odds for babies and toddlers, especially those who aren't white.

More than 10,000 babies will be born in the United States today, each with infinite potential.

By Eric Scicchitano
The Daily Item

It's more expensive to send a child to day care than it is to pay the cost of tuition at a state system university.

Pennsylvanians pay on average $10,681 annually for full-time care at child care centers and $8,161 at in-home settings for children from newborns through preschool, according to data collected in 2017 by Child Care Aware of America, the latest available from the nonprofit advocacy group.

By Julia Klein, Chairwoman & CEO of CH Briggs Co.
Reading Eagle

Investing in our young children is not hard. It's not soft. It's not complicated. It's not partisan. It's not up to someone else. It's an imperative backed by decades of research.

By William Lehr Jr.
PennLive

In June, Gov. Tom Wolf and the Pennsylvania General Assembly helped make wishes come true, with a remarkable, bipartisan allocation in the 2018-19 state budget of an additional $66.5 million for early learning programs.

We have long known that investing in early childhood promises to deliver strong adults.