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Reaction to Release of Blue Ribbon Panel Report

The Connecticut Project commends the Blue Ribbon Panel's recommendations for equitable early childhood education and urges significant state investment to address the childcare crisis and improve educator compensation.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 8, 2023
Contact: Meghan Holden, The Connecticut Project, meghanholden@ctproject.org

NEW HAVEN — The Connecticut Office of Early Childhood today released the report of its Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Care, a group tasked by executive order with creating a five-year strategic plan for Connecticut’s childcare system.

The following is a reaction from Courtney Parkerson, a director with The Connecticut Project:

“Every family should have access to quality early childhood education without breaking the bank. Right now, there are deep inequities in who can access high-quality childcare in our state. We commend Commissioner Beth Bye, the staff of the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood Education, and the Blue Ribbon Panel members for a process that incorporated broad outreach and community engagement, including from early childhood educators, providers, parents, and advocates. The Blue Ribbon Panel report includes some encouraging recommendations, and all of these require a robust investment in Connecticut’s early childhood education system. Lack of resources is at the root of Connecticut’s current childcare crisis, and the state now must put its money where its mouth is by securing and sustaining the
investment we need to make sure all children have access to early childhood education and that no early childhood educator is themselves in financial crisis by doing the important work of teaching our youngest children. We urge Governor Lamont and the state legislature to prioritize the promise of an affordable, high-quality early childhood education for every Connecticut family, and to ensure that promise is especially delivered for low-income and other vulnerable families.”

Among the Blue Ribbon Panel’s recommendations are:

  • Make early childhood education more affordable and accessible for low and middle-income
    families;
  • Create new, sustainable public funding to invest in early childhood education;
  • Improve the quality of early childhood education programs;
  • Improve early childhood educator compensation to stabilize the early childhood education system.

For a link to the report: Blue-Ribbon-Panel-Child-Care-Equity-and-Access-Public-Sharing-Session-Slides-2023-05.pdf

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The Connecticut Project is a social change organization that mobilizes communities, ideas, and resources to improve systems and generate real-world outcomes for people that are lower-income or asset-limited. We work for a just, thriving, and optimistic Connecticut where race, gender, income, geography, and other circumstances no longer predetermine opportunity.
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