One of the more popular slogans in the Worthy Wage Campaign is “Parents can’t afford to pay, Teachers can’t afford to stay, There’s got to be a better way."

DVAEYC believes that the better way is for the public sector, at the national, state and local levels, to recognize that high quality early childhood education has an enormous return on investment. The goal of DVAEYC’s Public Policy Work is to secure public investments to ensure that all children have access to high quality early childhood programs.

For too long, child care programs have operated with a fraction of the resources required to reach and sustain high quality programming. DVAEYC staff has calculated what it would cost to operate a high quality child care in Southeastern Pennsylvania, including the cost of appropriate compensation for increasingly higher staff credentials required by Keystone STARS and Pre-K Counts.

Our sample budgets are based on the following assumptions:

Ø       Medium size center serving 72 infant, toddlers and preschoolers
Ø       All families receive the maximum child care subsidy

Click here to download the sample budget
Click here to read a summary of findings and recommendations