Giving Compass' Take:
- Carly Sitrin reports on how child care workers in Philadelphia are organizing for higher wages, prompting the City Council president to propose that a task force be created.
- What is the role of donors and funders in addressing how early childhood educators and care workers are underresourced?
- Learn more about key issues in child care and how you can help.
- Search our Guide to Good for nonprofits focused on child care in your area.
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Hundreds of Philadelphians rallied at City Hall on Monday demanding more support for what they say is an understaffed, underresourced, and underappreciated field: Early childhood education.
“We are the people raising your kids,” said Tyrone Scott, director of government and external affairs at First Up, an early childhood advocacy group. “Acknowledge us.”
Scott spoke about the challenges for early childhood education as part of the national Day Without Childcare protests. Child care centers in Philly have experienced severe staffing shortages and rising costs in recent years. That’s led to classroom closures and other strains that have restricted families’ access to free public pre-K seats and child care opportunities.
Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who has used child care services for his two children and spoke at the event, pledged to launch a city task force to figure out how to make child care workers the “number one priority” in the city.
“Our teachers, our workers that come day in and day out, you deserve a high-quality raise. You deserve high-quality benefits,” Johnson told the crowd. “If we can provide subsidies and support for big time developers … then surely we can find ways to support what I believe is the most essential service here in the city of Philadelphia, that’s early childhood development.”
Though Johnson did not lay out how the task force on higher wages for child care workers would work, speakers at Monday’s rally said they’ll hold their elected officials to that promise.
To create such a task force, Johnson will need to draft and introduce a resolution laying out what it would do before bringing the measure to fellow council members for a vote.
Johnson wants to put the resolution to a vote before his colleagues leave for summer recess on June 12, said Vincent Thompson, Johnson’s communications director. If it passes, Johnson would then have to appoint people to the group. The soonest the task force could start work would be late summer or early fall.
Read the full article about higher wages for child care workers by Carly Sitrin at Chalkbeat.