As child care providers and advocates, we’ve learned that good ideas alone are not enough to change policy. One of us, Ayan Mohamed, works with 800 child care providers from the East African community and hears the same message: families cannot thrive without affordable, accessible child care, and providers cannot continue serving children without meaningful public investment. Child care educators are teachers, not babysitters, and they deserve to be respected and compensated as the professionals they are.
Every legislative session, providers, families, and educators speak up for affordable child care and early learning. Yet when difficult budget decisions are made, programs serving children are often the first to get cut.
These budget decisions do not mean that Olympia doesn't care about kids. In the last two-year budget, the Legislature faced a $16 billion shortfall, and legislators fought severe cuts to essential programs to exhaustion. Thanks to their efforts, a handful of education grants were restored, and the cap on Working Connections Child Care was not put in place. The shortfall forced hard choices, but it didn't determine which programs were cut the most. Political power did; the programs that survived were the ones with the most organized, best-funded interests advocating to protect them.
Children under 5 are among the poorest and most racially diverse people in our state, and they entered this budget with far less organized political power than other interest groups. In the last two years, Washington cut a billion dollars from child care and early learning, the deepest cuts since the 2008 recession. Those cuts came even as infant care costs $21,348 a year, about $8,000 more than a year at the University of Washington.
The cuts didn't stop there. The Legislature cut roughly $110 million from K-12, including a $102 million cut to Transition to Kindergarten. $108 million was cut from higher education. Preschool for every eligible child was pushed back to 2030, and the governor's budget office has warned of deeper shortfalls in the next budget.
That's why eight organizations formed the Children's Political Table. We are working towards a shared vision: children deserve the long-term power to stop future cuts and pass policies that improve their lives. This year, we are organizing and electing leaders together. Our coalition includes Children's Campaign Fund, Stand for Children Washington PAC, Communities for Our Colleges, League of Education Voters, Alliance for Gun Responsibility, Progreso, Save the Children Action Network, and the Washington Youth Alliance Future Fund.
Three or more of us backed the same candidate in four competitive open-seat primaries (in some cases through a dual endorsement): Luc Jasmin III in LD-3, Danica Noble in LD-32, Michael Alvarez Shepard in LD-42, and Renee Hernandez Greenfield in LD-26. They earned our support because they've committed to protecting child care, public schools, gun safety, and a juvenile justice system that treats kids like kids.
There are many leaders fighting for kids in the legislature. These are races that could be decided by a few hundred votes, which is why our member organizations are paying close attention to them. To protect kids from the next round of cuts, their priorities have to shape who wins.
This is our first cycle working together. By the next one, we want every candidate in a targeted race to know exactly what earns our endorsements: the commitments, the record, and the leadership each of us looks for.
In May, Proveedoras Unidas de Eastern Washington closed their doors to bring 200 providers to a park in Yakima to fight for child care funding. In June they filled a hall in Sunnyside to organize around new revenue. Nearly 300 people in two months. That is how kids build power. The next time Olympia faces a shortfall, we need a pro-kids majority that will protect the programs families rely on and fight for kids when new revenue comes in. Every district, from Puget Sound to Central and Eastern Washington, shapes that majority.
On August 4, vote for the candidates who will give kids the power they didn't have the last two sessions.
Ayan Mohamed is a child care provider and advocate in South King Count.
Eric Homzapfel is chief engagement officer at the League of Education Voters.
Ryan Disch-Guzman is chief of staff with the Alliance for Gun Responsibility.
*Shelby Silva-Martinez, a child care provider and leader in Grandview, also contributed to this article and organizing effort.
Amy Sundberg
Elections Committee
