Mindy Binderman is executive director of GEEARS: Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students.
As part of an Atlanta Journal-Constitution legislative series, education and child advocates have been sharing their wish lists for the 2024 General Assembly, due to start Monday. Here is what Binderman and her organization would like to see lawmakers do.
By Mindy Binderman
This fall, GEEARS: Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students commissioned a survey of 400 parents and caregivers of children ages 5 and under. Almost 8 in 10 of our respondents told us it had been a challenge to afford some kind of basic necessity such as food, housing, diapers and, notably, child care.
GEEARS works to ensure that Georgia’s youngest children and their families have access to the resources they need to thrive. We knew, going into 2023, that this year was going to be daunting. The federal child care stabilization grants provided by the American Rescue Plan Act would expire at the end of September. These dollars had kept untold child care programs from shuttering during the pandemic. They’d bolstered the child care subsidies provided by Georgia’s Childcare and Parent Services or CAPS Program. They’d helped families remain housed and fed.
Sure enough, now that Sept. 30 has come and gone, we’re hearing some alarming reports from early childhood programs that are teetering very close to the edge of the “child care cliff.” An April survey of Georgia child care providers by Quality Care for Children found that a quarter of respondents predicted they might have to close their programs after federal funding ended.
But here’s why we’re hopeful for our state’s 2024 legislative session.
Our advocacy, including last year’s call for increased state investment in CAPS, is gaining serious traction with legislators on both sides of the General Assembly.
• We’re hearing that more and more Georgia lawmakers are paying attention to the actions of states like Alabama, Louisiana and Minnesota, who’ve invested historic amounts in child care on the state level because they understand how critical a child’s earliest years are. The most active and high-impact brain development happens during the first five years of life and thus, those years set a foundation for later educational achievements.
• During the 2023 legislative session, Georgia legislators demonstrated this support by passing House Bill 129, which extended Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits to pregnant women who do not already have another child and gave incremental increases to women who give birth while receiving assistance.
• Lawmakers listened with respect and intensity to the parents and children who shared about their needs and challenges at GEEARS’ Strolling Thunder event in February.
When our poll results are released this month, we’re certain that these same lawmakers will respond to parents’ moving stories about CAPS.
Among them are these stories:
“It has made it to where I can work and have my child in daycare. If I don’t have them in daycare, I can’t work, and if I can’t work, I can’t pay the bills.”
“It’s been very helpful. I don’t know how I could make it without it.”
“I work in customer service and still have to work on school breaks and summers. Having child care during these times really helps to be able to afford other bills and expenses.”
In 2024, the needs of Georgia’s families will be great. Now, only 6% of potentially income-eligible children are estimated to receive CAPS. But our state’s resources are also great. Our unrestricted budget surplus has reached an unprecedented amount of almost $11 billion.
This means Georgia can do far better when it comes to helping families afford stable, high-quality child care — which in turn, will keep parents and caregivers in the workforce and child care providers in business.
Thus, we’re asking the Legislature to add at least $20 million in state dollars to the CAPS budget and strengthen Georgia’s Lottery-funded pre-K by reducing class sizes and raising the poverty-level wages of assistant teachers, among other improvements.
We’ve also urged legislators to pilot a pre-K program for 3-year-olds. (The current program serves only 4-year-olds.) Research shows that “dosage” matters. While children make significant gains with one year of high-quality early education, earlier access and additional time have the potential to make even more of an educational difference, especially for children who are most distanced from opportunities.
There are other ways economic supports have an educational impact. Safe, steady housing, for instance, gives parents a chance at prolonged employment and consistent access to a child care program. Yet, children under 5 are at the greatest risk of eviction, which can lead to instability during crucial years of development. Policymakers should prioritize young children and their families in receiving rental assistance and promote policies that ensure family health and safety and Iimit housing disruptions.
We’re also continuing our campaign to eliminate our state sales tax on diapers. One in 2 families struggle to afford this basic need, which keeps babies clean and healthy. Furthermore, young children cannot attend child care programs without diapers.
Georgia has the means to help our youngest children and their families and still retain an immense budget surplus. Just as crucially, we believe our lawmakers want to enact substantive policy changes on behalf of families with young children. We believe it because, for years, we’ve watched legislators absorb and affirm our advocacy and that of our partners.
We’ve arrived at the year when change must happen — and we have faith that our lawmakers will meet this critical moment.
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