Texas counties, cities embrace new child care center tax credit even though few providers qualify
Child care has never been funded at the local level. As a state, we’re 100% reliant on our federal government to support child care, so there hasn’t been a mindset that the state should invest or the locals should invest. But this is something that we as a community should be asking: Are we making sure that there are places for our [age] 0-5 kids so that our families can work?"
'Inside Out': Addressing Texas' child care crisis
Child care costs in Texas pose a major challenge. Experts say a unified approach to working with the Legislature to secure funding would benefit employers, working parents and the broader Texas economy. So how do we get there?
On this week’s ‘Inside Out’ segment, former Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, and former State Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, discuss policies and solutions lawmakers could address.
A Fragmented Non-System: Highlighting the Lack of Sustainable Funding for ECE in America
"For children birth to age 5, we invest less in education than we do at any other stage of life...Yet these children are going through the most important and fastest period of brain development that they’ll ever experience."
Travis County approves 100% property tax exemption for eligible child care providers
Travis County commissioners unanimously approved a 100% property tax exemption for qualifying child care providers, starting in the 2024 tax year.
This comes after Texas voters last year approved Proposition 2, a constitutional amendment allowing municipalities and counties to provide a property tax exemption for qualifying child care centers.
AP News - Education
Baby's first market failure Podcast
This podcast explains the broken market for child care and how it simultaneously strains parents' budgets and underpays its workers.
Planet Money
Employees in these 14 counties could be eligible to split cost of child care with employers and state in pilot
EdNC
North Carolina joins Michigan & Kentucky in expanding access for low and middle income families through an innovative model.
The Business Case for Child Care Is the Community Case for Child Care
Editorial - US News & World Report
The Stress of Finding Child Care Is Hurting Parents’ Health
Opinion - New York Times
"We know inadequate child care is an economic issue, costing states, families and businesses billions of dollars every year. We know it’s a gender issue that contributes to a widening pay gap. We know it’s a policy issue, made worse by the absences of a federal pre-K program and a federal paid-leave policy. But here is another critical consideration worth pushing for: Our country’s inadequate child care system is also a health care issue....Worse, the parents likely to experience the worst impacts of the child care cliff are people of color and low-wage workers, who are already at the highest risk for stress-related illness."