BREAKING: Early Childhood Coalition Reacts to Bipartisan Funding Commission Report

March 31, 2021

BROAD-BASED COALITION THANKS GOVERNOR, EARLY CHILDHOOD FUNDING COMMISSION; PLEDGES FURTHER COMMITMENT TO IMPLEMENTATION OF MULTI-YEAR PLANS FOR MAKING ILLINOIS “BEST STATE IN NATION FOR FAMILIES RAISING YOUNG CHILDREN”

Today, the Early Childhood Funding Coalition — with membership from a broad array of sectors and communities, statewide, including Illinois Action for Children — thanks Governor Pritzker and the bipartisan Illinois Commission on Equitable Early Childhood Education and Care Funding for releasing its comprehensive report on the future of our state’s early care and education system. We applaud the Commission’s goal, set by the Governor, that “Illinois will become the best state in the nation for families raising young children, with the nation’s best early childhood education and child care.” We now urge state policymakers and leaders to heed the recommendations laid out in the report, using them as a roadmap for how to make that goal a reality.

We pledge our continued partnership to reach this intended destination together. Ultimately, this journey will benefit not only children from birth to age 5, but their families, communities, and our entire state. We are committed to helping shift from study to practice, from deliberation to implementation, without delay.

The Commission spent more than a year studying Illinois’ system of early childhood services, its underlying strengths and longstanding challenges, as well as gathering lessons from other states. Along the way, our Coalition helped shape and inform these discussions, guided by our own principles for improving programs’ funding adequacy, equity, transparency and governance. Our members have varied experiences and rich perspectives, and we look forward to putting these to good use in supporting implementation efforts in the months and years ahead.

We welcome this implementation challenge and opportunity, just as we welcome the Commission’s report, which establishes plans to ensure stronger funding of preschool, child care and critical birth-to-3 services — recommendations that aim to reflect concrete needs and actual costs more realistically, reach all young children whose parents want such help, and do so with equity as our guiding star.  

These recommendations envision a better system of early childhood care and education — one that expands access and opportunity to children and families by providing a better delivery of programs’ funding, as well as more effective and efficient program governance with a single state-agency focus that can better target our resources and attention to the needs of Illinois’ youngest learners. Greater support of the state’s dedicated early childhood educators and caregivers is a key aim, understanding that this is vital to equity and quality — and reflecting the COVID-19 pandemic’s reminder that the early care and education workforce supports all other business sectors.

The pandemic has challenged our state, and we have responded with strength. Now the work to implement these recommendations begins. We know the work ahead will be long and arduous, and limited resources will be a challenge. But we move forward knowing the value and gravity of our goal: so that all children can thrive, we must invest in and create the nation’s best early care and education system.

 

April Janney, President and CEO, Illinois Action for Children

“The early years of a child’s life create the foundation for a lifetime of achievement–and the child care provided during those years is crucial to the fair and equitable participation in our workforce and economy by women and people of color,” said April Janney, President and CEO of Illinois Action for Children. “I am eager and hopeful that Governor Pritzker and the General Assembly will be bold in their implementation of these recommendations as first steps toward a new vision of early care and education in Illinois.”

 

Shauna Ejeh, Senior V.P. of Programs, Illinois Action for Children

“As a Commissioner on Governor Pritzker’s Commission on Early Childhood Funding Equity, I am thrilled about the release of this report which will serve as a roadmap for the child care and early education community in our state,” said Shauna Ejeh, Senior V.P. of Programs for Illinois Action for Children. “The recommendations in this report are an important starting point in resolving inequities in access to services, funding, and support—and we know there is much more work needed to reach these goals in a meaningful way for children and families.”

 

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, member, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Illinois organization of law-enforcement leaders

“I am highly encouraged by the Commission’s roadmap to a more equitable and efficient system for delivering care and education to our state’s youngest children. When families are supported with quality programs during their kids’ first years, our communities prosper and are safer.”

 

Lisa Savegnago, President, Nameplate & Panel Technology, Carol Stream; member, ReadyNation Illinois network of business leaders

“The Commission’s report points the way to long-needed, more equitable improvements in support of early childhood programs — services that, in turn, help to support today’s workforce as well as develop a strong workforce for the future. This is vitally important to our business climate and economy, and we should put these recommendations to good use.”

 

Brigadier General (Ret.) Stephen Curda, U.S. Army, Chicago; member, Mission: Readiness Illinois’ nonpartisan, non-profit organization of retired admirals and generals

“Mission: Readiness strongly supports the work of the Commission to address systemic, long-standing challenges. High-quality early childhood supports are crucial for helping kids enter kindergarten ready to learn and setting them on a path to success — toward whatever civilian career, college, or military experience they may ultimately choose.”

 

Robin Steans, President of Advance Illinois

“These recommendations have the potential to eliminate opportunity gaps and address disparities by bringing early childhood programs and services together in a single, new agency, and by eliminating barriers for families, early childhood providers, and our critical early childhood workforce,” said Robin Steans, president of Advance Illinois. “Importantly and for the first time in the state’s history, we now know how much we should be spending to ensure equitable access to high-quality early learning experiences.  While it is a daunting number, it makes the work ahead clear. ” 

 

Jaime Russell, Program Director of Family Support Services, Children’s Home & Aid

“High quality, accessible early childhood services, like home visiting, are crucial for the success of young children. We commend the Commission’s work on proposing system-wide changes towards a fully funded and equitable early childhood system that recognizes home visiting as an important support to families and as a link to other community services. We look forward to working with advocates and stakeholders to ensure these recommendations help us better serve children who need our services the most‒ children living in low-income communities, with special needs, or involved in the child welfare system.”  

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The Early Childhood Funding Coalition is a group of advocates, non-profit organizations, child care providers, school districts, parents and others who have come together to fight for the well-being of Illinois’ youngest children. We seek adequate, equitable, sustainable, reliable funding for children’s services from birth through age 5. We want to ensure all children can access quality education and care, as their parents choose. We want resources to be invested in the children and communities that need it most, in order to eliminate racial, socio-economic, and other disparities. We are working together to make sure that ALL families and early childhood providers have the resources they need to help children succeed.

 

The Illinois Early Childhood Funding Coalition consists of 90 organizations (listed below) and over 100 individuals.

 

A Child’s Place Early Learning Centers

A Step Ahead Daycare Inc.

Ada S. McKinley

Advance Illinois

Advance Preschool, Inc.

Alignment Rockford

Asian Human Services

Association of Illinois Montessori Schools

Baby TALK, Inc.

Base Child Care

Berwyn South D100 

Carole Robertson Center for Learning

CCSD62

Centers for New Horizons

Circle Root Collaborative

Chicago Dia de los Niños

Chicago Public Schools

Children’s Home & Aid

Children’s Playhouse

Circles of Learning

Community Organizing & Family Issues 

Collaboration for Early Childhood

CPPC City Parent Policy Committee/ Community Representative/Executive Committee

Cuddle Care

CUSD 303 Early Childhood

Dolton Riverdale School District 148

El Hogar del Nino 

Equitable Perspective

Ericka Okuneva

Erikson Institute

Erie Neighborhood House

Eyes On The Future Child Development Center

Faith Coalition

Family Focus

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids – Illinois

For Your Child Preschool

Good Shepherd Institute Family Childcare

GROW Developing Childcare Professionals, Inc.

Happy Bear Child Development Center

Harry S. Truman College

Hathaway Miranda LLC

Harlem Community Center

HCC Hand-n-Hand Child Care Center

Illinois Developmental Therapy Association

IFF (formerly the Illinois Facilities Fund)

Illinois for Education Equity

Illinois Action for Children

Illinois Association for the Education of the Young Children

Illinois Early Intervention Coalition

Illinois Head Start Association

Illinois Network of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies

Illinois Valley Community College

Kiddos Care

Kids Above All

Kingdom Academy learning center

Kohl Children’s Museum

Latino Policy Forum

LINK Unlimited Scholars

Little Leaders Academy

Little Scouts

Marillac St. Vincent Family Services

McLean County Unit District 5

Mission: Readiness – Illinois

Mosaic Early Childhood

National Louis University

Nurse-Family Partnership

Oak Park and River Forest Day Nursery

Oakton Community College Early Childhood Education Center

Okkin

One Hope United

Open Space Early Learning Center

OptimizeMyOrg

Ounce of Prevention Fund

Our Leaders of Tomorrow

Palma Wilderman

Prevent Child Abuse Illinois

ReadyNation – Illinois

Rockford Day Nursery

SAL Family and Community Services

St. Paul Christian Day Care and Kindergarten

Start Early

Teach Plus Illinois

The Center: Early Childhood Professional Learning

The Chicago Urban League

The Children’s Center of Cicero-Berwyn

TJs Tiny Town

Under Carrey’s Care Corp

Voices for Illinois Children – Powered by YWCA Metropolitan Chicago

We Are The World Home Day Care

YMCA Metropolitan Chicago

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