The principal partners of Early Learning Pennsylvania (ELPA), a statewide coalition of advocates focused on supporting young Pennsylvanians from birth to age five, are calling on the General Assembly to go beyond Governor Wolf’s budget proposal and prioritize greater state investments in high-quality pre-k, child care and evidence-based home visiting services to help Pennsylvania’s working families.

The Pennsylvania Early Learning Investment Commission, in partnership with ReadyNation, released a report outlining new research that shows that inadequate infant and toddler child care imposes substantial and long-lasting consequences in Pennsylvania.

On November 18, 2019, across Pennsylvania, Start Strong PA released a new report demonstrating the benefits and need for high quality infant toddler child care. According to the Pennsylvania KIDS COUNT Data Center, Pennsylvania is home to 1,270,433 families with children and 418,455 of the children are under three years old.

By Linda Kiesling
The New York Times

I am typing this from inside an indoor playground in Portland. We are new to town, it’s the tail end of summer and my 4-year-old daughter can’t start her new preschool until next week. It’s also raining, and our house is full of boxes.

By Kendra Aucker
The Daily Item

Health care is bursting with opportunities…

What’s standing in our way? In addition to the supply of skilled workers in specialty clinical roles, a lack of accessible, affordable, high-quality child care for infants and toddlers, and it’s not a problem for health care alone.

The FY 2019-20 budget agreement allocated $27 million in new federal resources to expand subsidized child care in Pennsylvania and invest in quality improvements to the system. Start Strong PA stands with state policymakers in its firm belief that this is an example of a budget that “funds what works” and helps “put Pennsylvanians to work”. However, these federal gains in the child care line items were offset by a $36 million reduction in state funding which was replaced with federal dollars.

By Kevin Mahnken
the74Million

Access to early-childhood education significantly reduces students’ chances of being placed in special education or held back in school and increases their prospects of graduating high school, according to new research published by the American Educational Research Association. The report synthesizes evidence of the lasting, long-term benefits of high-quality preschool programs, which have often been dismissed as transient.

By WCED News

Senator Jay Costa and other speakers at the kick-off rally spoke about the importance of putting adequate funding behind early childhood education.

According to the speakers, prioritizing spending on early-learning programs will save the commonwealth long-term costs because children are better prepared to graduate school on time and are well positioned to enter the workforce with good paying jobs.

Start Strong PA observed the 2019-20 PA budget as an important down payment to ensure all infants and toddlers learn, grow, and succeed. The following statement was issued by the ten principal partners leading Start Strong PA, a campaign to ensure that children across the state can access affordable, high-quality child care programs during the most critical period of brain development, the first three years of life.

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.