If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been blogging much lately, as I’ve been working (professionally, as a consultant) pretty steadily on the legislative push to allow up to 10,000 center and home-based early education and care providers the opportunity to come together as a union and negotiate with the state on policy issues relevant to their profession and the kids in their care. It’s a big issue not just for them, but for our economy – that’s a lot of small-businesspeople spread across the state that make it possible for parents to work in the near term. In the even more important long term, these professionals set the stage for kids’ success in the schools (including by IDing and addressing developmental or behavior issues early). It’s an awesome issue on a lot of levels.
On that front, there are some great things to report. First, Howard Dean endorsed the effort with some strong language, saying the legislation “makes for common sense public policy and is the right thing to do.”
Also, hearings are now set in the House on the bill for next week. The ball is moving forward. Here are some links to some of the coverage:
- Provider Anna Gephardt and Organizer Cyndi Miller on the Mark Johnson Show from the Statehouse last week (the last half hour of the program, right after Gov. Shumlin)
- Center Director Tori Grahame and Miller on Steve West’s WKVT show in Brattleboro. (no podcast link yet, but it’ll be rebroadcast Saturday on Steve’s highlights of the week)
- Shay Totten’s coverage of Sen. Tim Ashe being put to work at a Colchester Center and his comments in support of the bill (You can also see a brief video of comments from Ashe).
Great stuff, serious momentum. Over a third of the House and Senate are co-sponsoring, and the Governor supports the effort. It’s awesome to see politics work the way it’s supposed to.
If you’d like to contact your legislators on the issue, here’s a link to the leg directory. The bills are H.97 and S.29. If you can spare a moment to write a letter to the editor, here’s a tool for that as well.