April 9 News Conference in Harrisburg to Call for State Investment in Child Care

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MEDIA ADVISORY

WHAT: Co-Chairs of the bicameral, bipartisan legislative Early Childhood Education (ECE) Caucus will host early learning students, teachers, and parents, as well as other advocates at a Capitol Rotunda press conference to underscore how a growing teacher shortage, driven by low compensation, is closing child care and pre-k classrooms throughout Pennsylvania and making recruiting and retaining employees in all industry sectors more difficult when working parents of young children cannot access care.

WHEN: Tuesday, April 9, 2024, 9 a.m.

WHERE: Pennsylvania Capitol Rotunda, 501 North 3rd Street, Harrisburg, PA 17120

WHY: An employer childcare impact survey conducted by the PA Chamber of Business and Industry and the Early Learning Investment Commission found more than 80% of Pennsylvania employers attributed childcare issues to moderate or significant problems recruiting and retaining workers. Also reflective of the crisis, a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Policy Lab survey showed more than 3,300 open childcare positions among 677 providers surveyed. Fully staffed, those providers could serve almost 16,500 more children.

Many states are directly investing in strategies to turn around childcare and teacher shortages. Eighteen states including Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee have been investing in initiatives to cut down teacher turnover rates. Leah Spangler, EdD, President & CEO of The Learning Lamp, will join speakers Tuesday in outlining the severity of the situation in Pennsylvania and calling for state investment now.

“To raise workforce participation, which is a goal in the Commonwealth’s new economic development strategy, families need child care. But it won’t happen without public investment to help attract and retain a quality early learning workforce,” explains Spangler.

The Learning Lamp is a nonprofit organization with a mission to engage all children in the support they need to succeed. We deliver high-quality programs that are affordable and accessible to families of all income levels. In 2023, The Learning Lamp and our school-based division Ignite Education Solutions directly served 37,524 youth/adults from 87 public/private schools in 36 Pennsylvania counties. We also supported 473 child care and youth-serving organizations with shared resources, positively impacting another 44,190 children statewide.

Our programs include child care and preschool, after-school and summer care, tutoring, SAT prep, school staffing, specialized classrooms for at-risk students, online learning, credit recovery, portable STEM classrooms, substance use prevention, trauma support, and family-strengthening programs, and project consulting for schools.