Early Care & Education

CCC’s Work in Early Care & Education

Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York is committed to ensuring all children have access to safe, quality, affordable education.

CCC advocates to:

Ensure all schools have the resources they need to provide students with a quality education:

• We advocate for increases in New York State Education Aid to increase the resources for schools statewide.
• We advocate to ensure all public schools have the resources they need for small class sizes, quality teachers, supplies, and support services so they can ensure all students receive the attention and assistance they need to succeed.

Ensure all children are able to obtain a high school diploma, or the equivalent:

• We support the development of early warning systems, which would allow teachers to assess student progress and address student needs before they fall behind academically.
• We advocate for decreasing the numbers of students expelled or suspended, so children remain engaged and connected to their schools.
• We support increased investments in programs, supports and alternative options for youth who have fallen behind in obtaining the credits they need to graduate from high school.
• We advocate for services and supports that close the achievement gap between students.
• We promote programs and policies that create positive school environments in which children can learn, including reforming the disciplinary code, ensuring security measures do not create punitive school environments, and eliminating bullying.
• We advocate for school curricula to be comprehensive and include physical fitness, art, music, nutrition, sexual education and money management.

Increase government funding for early childhood education:

• We advocate for increased federal, state and city investments in early childhood education so every young child in New York State can be prepared for kindergarten.
• We advocate for increased federal, state and city funding to stabilize and prevent cuts to New York City’s subsidized system, called EarlyLearn NYC.

Ensure every young child ages 0-4 has access to early childhood education:

• We advocate to increase the number of children served by the subsidized child care system so that all income-eligible children can be served.
• We support full day universal pre-kindergarten (UPK) for all 4-year olds and half day UPK for all 3-year olds.
• We support initiatives, such as tax credits, that make child care more affordable for families.

Ensure all early childhood programs are high quality:

• We advocate for funding to ensure early childhood programs that contract with New York City receive enough funds to deliver high quality programming for children.
• We support legislation that requires informal child care providers to have child abuse and neglect background checks and be fingerprinted.
• We support salary parity for teachers in community-based organizations and schools.
• We support training and professional development for early childhood staff and technical assistance for early childhood programs.

CCC is a member of the Campaign for Children.

Current and recent issues:

• We pushed for universal pre-K and then an expansion of universal pre-K to include three-year-olds.
• We supported the expansion of funding for community schools, which are a key resource for low-income students and families.
• We are advocating to expand capacity for high-quality infant and toddler care.
• We are calling for socioeconomic integration of early childhood classrooms.