2025-26 Public Policy Priorities

Public Policy Platform 2025-26

Approved by membership on October 28, 2025

EveryChild California supports subsidized early care and education (ECE) for children birth - 12 and their families. We believe all families deserve access to high-quality care regardless of income, and all providers deserve the training, technical assistance, and fair funding needed to meet the diverse needs of children. This public policy platform reflects current budget realities, the rate and quality reform transition, and member feedback, shaped through collaboration with statewide and community partners. 

Our Pillars 

• FUNDING the true cost of care. • Expanding ACCESS for eligible families.  • Supporting a stable, fairly paid WORKFORCE. • Advancing QUALITY through aligned, practical systems. 

FUNDING – Pay the True Cost of Care 

• Lock in a cost-based reimbursement model that fully reflects all allowable programmatic costs, compliance, facilities, overhead, and wage progression - not just classroom ratios. 

• Implement the administrative and program definitions package (including the alternative payment administrative and support services percentage, programmatic-costs definition aligned to federal language, and an 85% contract-earning benchmark) so that caregivers can plan, staff, and report with clarity. 

• Stabilize during transition: Maintain timely payments and simple, predictable adjustments while the new methodology phases in, avoiding retroactive policy shifts. 

• Preserve training capacity: Fund paid training days to meet program needs without sacrificing services.     

• Transparency and timelines: Require clear, transparent, regularly scheduled public updates on rate and quality reform design, data inputs, and decision points. 

ACCESS – Put Families First 

• Front-load new spaces for families: Prioritize near-term slot growth across CCTR, CAPP, and CSPP to match demand, particularly where waitlists persist and pandemic-era expansions have been absorbed. 

• Keep parental choice real in a mixed-delivery system: Sustain center-based, FCCH, and school-based options so families can choose settings that fit their schedules, language, culture, and needs. 

• Fix pricing barriers: Eliminate the rule that blended subsidized and private-pay families must be charged the same rate and remove penalties for charging below the contract rate for private-pay families. 

• Streamline licensing and facilities to add capacity quickly (especially infant/toddler) and prioritize high-need communities. 

• Plain-language UPK communications: Clarify for families that UPK is a coordinated set of programs (CSPP, TK, vouchers, etc.), not a single funding stream, that delineates what it is, how to participate, and where to get help. 

WORKFORCE – Pay, Pathways, and Stability 

• Competitive, sustainable wages in parity with credentialed teachers for comparable roles, recognizing the expertise that comes with lived experience, bilingual skills, and ongoing professional learning. 

• Career lattice with multiple access pathways across roles and settings with paid practicum and mentorship models that grow and retain talent statewide. 

• Credentials/permits that match the field: Ensure CTC child development permits and the PK–3 ECE credential pathways reflect linguistic diversity, cultural diversity, practical ECE competencies, and remove duplicative hurdles. 

• Paid time for professional development and implementation (curriculum, assessment, inclusion, trauma-informed care), integrated into the funding model. 

QUALITY – Practical, Aligned, and Supported 

• Align CDE and CDSS guidance and timelines so programs avoid navigating conflicting rules; publish joint memos where policy intersects. 

• Right-size compliance: Simplify data and fiscal reporting, retire duplicative tools, focus on a few valid indicators that improve child and family outcomes. 

• Support inclusion and continuity of care (birth - 5 and school-age), with useful technical assistance and materials providers can implement. 

• Continuous improvement, not paperwork: Invest in coaching, peer learning, and culturally responsive practice over new forms. 

Cross-Cutting: Transparency, Partnership, and Voice 

• Open, predictable process for rate and quality reform (agendas, drafts, decision criteria), with regular stakeholder engagement and opportunities for field input before decisions finalize. 

• Stronger CDE and CDSS coordination to reduce fragmentation between programs. 

Standing partnerships with statewide and community organizations to amplify family and provider perspectives and commun