Latest / Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD / The Power of Local Politics: How Vermont is revolutionizing child care

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The Power of Local Politics: How Vermont is revolutionizing child care · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: This is parent data. I'm Emily Oster.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: We're coming up on yet another contentious national election. We're
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: being told again that our democracy hangs in the balance.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: It is easy to feel helpless. You can cast a vote,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: and you definitely should, and if you're particularly tenacious, you
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: can canvas, you can donate money. But for busy working parents,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: sometimes it feels like there's not much more we can
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: do than doom scroll and panic. When I'm feeling particularly
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: hopeless about the entire national discourse, I find it helpful
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: to focus on local politics, where it often feels like
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: things really can actually change, and where the people who
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: are trying to make the changes feel approachable but often
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: no less inspiring. And that's why I'm so excited, especially
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: this week, to share my conversation.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: With Ali Richards.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Ali is the CEO of Let's Grow Kids, and they're
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: on a mission to ensure affordable access to high quality
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: childcare for all Vermont families by twenty twenty five. On
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: a mission to do that, they've actually done a lot
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: of it. In June of twenty twenty three, the Vermont
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Legislature made history by passing a childcare bill into law
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: with overwhelming support from across the political spectrum. This is
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: a comprehensive bill which supports childcare through subsidies and both
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: directions to families and also to childcare providers. It's a
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: first of its kind for Vermont and for the nation,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: and it provides a model for.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Other states to hopefully follow.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: We start our conversation here ready to calmly chat about
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: policy and about all the amazing progress that they've made
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: in Vermont. And I ended the conversation with my fist
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: pumping in the air, running down the hallway to talk
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: about all the things that I was going to do
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: so to totally replicate what Ali is doing.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Ali is the kind of advocate.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Who is going to restore your faith in policy, your
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: faith in politics to the.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Extent that's possible.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: And I'm really excited to give you a dose of
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: hope in anticipation of November fifth. In this conversation, we
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: talk about grassroots mobilization, about clipboards at county fairs, about
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: knocking on doors and how important that is. We talk
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: about the economics of change. We give the cold hard
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: capitalist case for childcare and for childcare subsidies. We talk
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: about the importance of the quality of care, for kids
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: from zero to five, and we talk about what it
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: means for childcare to pay for itself, which it actually does.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: If you take a long enough perspective.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Get ready to be inspired after the break, Ali Richards,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: I am delighted to welcome Ali Richards to the Parent
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Data Podcast. Ali, thanks for being here. Can you start
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: by introducing yourself?
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm Ali Richards. I live in Vermont, and I'm
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: the CEO of Let's Grow Kids, where we really lead
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: a statewide campaign to end Vermont's childcare crisis by twenty
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: twenty five. I'm also the mother of identical twin boys
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: who started kindergarten last week, Bow and Wesley. So, Emily,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: you must get this a lot, but it is absolutely
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: a delight to be on this with you. And you
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: were seminal in my pregnancy with these twins and the
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: early stages of their lives. So thank you for that.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Really appreciate you revolutionized the younger generation having kids here.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: That's so nice.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Tamorrow, definitely leave that part.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: Anna.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: So I'm excited to talk to you because I feel
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: like so much of our childcare discussion is kind of
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: in a negative frame, like what's wrong and why things
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: are broken and you have a vision that you are
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: making a lot of progress on for how things could be.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: So before we get into like the nitty gritty, can
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: you just give us a sort of big picture overview
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: of what was the problem that you thought about solving
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: when you started.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Let's grow, like, where's the origin problem here?
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, Well, for me personally, I'm motivated to do
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: the thing that's going to have the biggest possible positive
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: impact on the most amount of people. And it's amazing
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: because early child education and in this infrastructure or lack thereof,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: to me, is our incredible opportunity of our time in society.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: So it's one of those like beautiful root cause issues
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: that when you make a positive impact on, it's gonna
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: have this ripple effect.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: So the big picture problem is in Vermont and across
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: this country. I'm sure this is very familiar to and
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: you know your listeners. Three out of five of Vermont's
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: youngest kids needed some form of childcare out of the
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: home and did not have access. So not even the
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: whole population for those who needed access, three out of
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: five didn't have it. And then you know those families
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: who find what little childcare is available, feel amazing about
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: finding it. Realize they're paying forty percent of their house
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: of the income on so it's not accessible. There's not
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: nearly enough of it. It is unaffordable. And if you
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: want to flip over to those doing the work, early
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: educators do not make a level wage. I mean, honestly,
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: fifteen dollars an hour without benefits is the average in
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Vermont before our workout going up here. So you know,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: that just gives you a sense absolute crisis in affordability,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: access and quality of an essential infrastructure that we have
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: ignored for some reason in this society. And that is
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: the problem. And another thing is it's in market failure. Right.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: I'm actually in TC today for one hundred percent, you know,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: hearing from folks who are finally starting to get this
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: from the US chamber side, you know, from the economic
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: advisor side, they're finally talking about it the way we
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: are in Vermont. This is essential infrastructure, that's economic infrastructure.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: And so anyway, I'm just the reason why it's a
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: market failure is because use parents cannot afford to pay more.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: Early educators cannot afford to make less. There is a solution.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: It is not rocket science, and it's working in Vermont.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about before we get into the solution.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: I want to talk a little specifically about what people
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: do when they cannot find childcare, because we see this
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: statistic talked about, our versions of the statistic, talked about
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: all the time that people can't access childcare. There's a
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: childcare desert. Where's my childcare? What are people doing when
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: they can't have childcare?
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: They're doing all sorts of things. I think that's a
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: funny part about this work. And I've been lesser kids
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: for nine years now. You know what we are saying
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: is this is not the thing that everyone needs to do.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: We're saying young families have zero choices right now. That's
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: the real situation on the ground across this country, and
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: so people are dropping out of the workforce in droves,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: especially women. This is for women who choose to be
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: in a career, who would like to be in a
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: career that they train for right who don't want to
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: lose their earning power. And by the way, a labor
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: is shortage, especially in rural parts of this country like Vermont,
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: that we cannot recover from without mobilizing especially women into
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: the workforce. So you've got people dropping down the workforce.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: It does not pay. First, you can't find the childcare,
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: and it does not pay. There are kids then falling
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: through the cracks. You have to juggle split shifts. You
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: know what does that do for a family? Think about that.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: You don't see each other ever when your kids you're young.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: We actually had this. We had a really amazing childcare
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: advocate in Vermont who came from Black River Produce, a
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: business advocate, and he told the story of why he
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: became an evangelist on this because he saw one of
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: his employees pass their young child through the delivery service
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: window between shifts from the mom to the dad, and
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: they did a night shift and a day shift. They
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: never saw each other and they literally passed through the
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: night through the delivery window. Right, that's what we are
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: trying to avoid here. If you actually sat down and
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: did this, you would never create the system that we
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: have today. So anyway, that's what they're doing. Kids, Our
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: kids are flying through the cracks. Families are flying through
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: the cracks. The stress levels through the roof. People are
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: they We're losing them in the workforce, right, And well,
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: I'm sure we'll talk more about this. But what we
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: know about this time in a child's development is one thing,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: and then there's the economic opportunity and workforce development piece.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: So this is like the smart thing and the right
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: thing to do everything on the spectrum from child development
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: and beyond. And that's where when you ask, well, where
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: are kids? They're not in a safe, stimulating environment that
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: we absolutely know they need to reach their full potential
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: and success in life, which we can talk more about
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: the data behind that.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: So tell me what you did. Tell me you face
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: this problem. Many states, the whole country is facing versions
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: of this problem.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: What did you do?
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: Basically, we built a campaign, you know, because one of
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: the issues this is a complex issue. Also, the solution,
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to jump right to the punchline is
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: telling them, fine, I'm sorry, Oh money, money. Guess what.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: People don't often have the courage to move large sums
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: of money around. I have found out in my work
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: in public service here. So so let me just say,
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: you know, one more piece of the foundational thing. We
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: a group of entrepreneurial people and Vermont did not set
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: out to necessarily fix childcare from the start. They set
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: out to make Vermont a thriving economy, a great place
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: to raise children. And you know, it ended up that
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: this became our focus, and it's because of what we
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: sort of started to nibble around earlier. The most critical
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: time of a child's development, as you well know, is
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: zero to five, zero three especially, but zero to five.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: And I don't think people really internalize yet, even though
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: the science is so unequivocal that what do we actually
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: mean by that? The foundation you build upon for the
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: rest of your life from everything from yes, read and
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: write in arithmetic that's the sort of more intuitive stuff,
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: but even chronic disease, executive functioning right, critical thinking, the
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: ability to have healthy relationships with others over a lifetime,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: you know, actually propensity for against addictive behavior. So if
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: you think about all the things that plague us down
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: the road in our society, they are being baked or
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: supported in zero to five. So then the question is, so,
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: where the heck are these kids at this most critical time?
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: And they're not in the place that they need or
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: want to be, And so that's why it's an infrastructure problem.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: So in Vermont, a bunch of entrepreneurs over many years
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: sort of did some grant making, did some experimenting, and
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: you know, honestly did some public policy work and said
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: we're not moving the needle. We need to pool our efforts.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: We need a focus campaign with a laser like focus
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: on the most ambitious but achievable thing that we can do.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: So we launched Let'scrow Kids. Basically it was a ten
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: year campaign. Really honestly, it's a movement, Emily, a movement
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: for high quality, affordable childcare in Vermont for all who
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: need it by twenty twenty five. Boom. So that's the
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: road we've been on. We're a one stop shop. And
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: remember Man's a pretty small place, so we have six
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand people and we can talk more
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: about like so is it relevant or not? And again
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: I won't bury the lead. I think it's one hundred
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: percent relevant. We are actually showing not only when you
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: get this right, this guy doesn't fall, but it's absolutely
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: doable and great things happen to your people in your
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: economy when you do it. So you know, sort of
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: as a model here that is transferable in many ways
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: from strategy to the outcome. Right in Vermont, we marched
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: along and basically said people policy programs, that's how we
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: set ourselves up. So people over forty thousand Vermontors, again,
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: that's six percent of our population, they're actively involved in
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: this campaign in Vermont. They're families, they're early educators.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's ten years of clipboards at fairs and emails
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: and canvas scene and door knocking, I mean neighbor to
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: neighbor peer conversations like grassroots mobilization, grassproots and mobilization. So
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: also putting early educators in the driver's seat, putting parents
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: in the driver's seat, like nothing about us without us.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: You want this public policy to work, it has to
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: be not just informed by lead by those closest to it, right,
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: So engaging these forty thousand people in a very sophisticated way.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: These are folks who have stood up and said we
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: must fix child care in Vermont. I believe it's an
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: imperative and I believe it will take public investment to
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: do it. So it's not just like yeah, I like kids,
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: it's like, nope, we know this is hard work. We're
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: going to do the hard work it's going to take
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: to really get it done. And bipartisan, right, we can
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: talk more about that. So, so forty thousand more monitors.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: People power creates a public will. And by the way,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: I'll just mentioned quickly stepped over many years, right. We
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: started with that brain science, Hey, what's the value proposition?
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Do you know? And we polled and people did not know.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: People did not realize zero to five was this incredible
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: time and there was such a crisis. So then we
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: pivoted to emergency. Emergency that got people's attention. Once we
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: laid a foundation, we went to guess what we are
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: in a crisis level of access, affordabilion, quality, and that resonated,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: as you can imagine, because everyone has a story, a parent,
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: a grandparent, an early educator, and employer. Everyone connects the
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: childcare crisis in America. So all of a sudden, then
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: we had the value, we had the crisis, and that's
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: when we were able to pivot the solution. So with
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: these forty thousand people, we created this authorizing environment for
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: policy change, the next big bucket policy change. I'm sorry
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: to say, when you want to change systemic, deep rooted issues,
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: there is no other way than policy, of course, as
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: you know, and so in this case, we worked for
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: many years with this major coalition to just know what
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: is it here?
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: What is the policy change that fixes this? Well, like
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: I said, early educators can't afford to make less, parents
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: can afford to pay more. So you need public investment
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: to fill that gap. There is no other way you
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: cannot create. It's like if all of us said, hey,
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: we have young kids, let's all pay out of our
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: own pocket to make the school for them, to pay
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: for their teachers, to pay for the rent, to pay
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: for the HVAC. Like, wouldn't happen, right, So you just
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: cannot get around it without the public investment. And so
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: we worked on the policy change. And by the way,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: every state that's doing this and federal work on this,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: we all have come to the same conclusion. This is
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: a low risk pop position. You push money into the system.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: It goes to families so it's more affordable for them,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: it goes to early educators so they have higher wages
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: and they can meet their operational needs. That's how you
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: fix us. And then we did programmatic work, so people
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: policy programs. We were on the ground with early educators
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: ready in the system for investment to make sure policy
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: change would stick. So increasing capacity, creating economies of scale,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: doing shared services, substitute pools, right, like all that. So
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: that's that was our secret sauce, right, And it didn't click,
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: I would say until we started talking about the economics.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: I hate to say it, right, like this is good
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: for humans, it's good for kids. But until we made
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: the cold, hard capitalist case, and not just we business
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: leaders in Vermont said, can't do this. We cannot function
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: if we don't have a workforce. Childcare is the biggest barrier.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: It behooves us to be a part of this. They
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: made the economic case that this pays for itself immediately
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: and three times over. And so we actually passed lash
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: year in Vermont next seventy six, the most expansive childcare
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: bill in the country. It's working. We're one year in
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: one thousand new spaces, thirty nine new childcare homes, especially
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: in rural places, way despertently educators, going up seven thousand
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: more Verma families eligible for tuition assistance by October. Right,
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: it's absolutely working. And what do we do. We created
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: a payroll tax a point four to four percent payroll
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: tax zero point four to four less than half a
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: percent of a payroll tax seventy five percent employer twenty
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: five percent employee. The employer can pick up the whole
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: thing if they want, and many are. And it basically
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: puts one hundred and twenty five million dollars of new
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: money into the childcare system to do the things I
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: just mentioned.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: There is a lot to unpack about this, so let's
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: let's talk about it.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: So I think the first thing, so, first of.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: All, this is amazing. I think it's incredibly cool and
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: really really important. Plate the thing you said which feels
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: really important to discuss in this, to sort of put
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: on the table in this conversation is this costs money.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: That the problem here is I really like this framing
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: around sort of like how would you think about public
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: school Like, we have public schools which are financed by
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: the government because there is not a system whereby everyone
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: would be able to pay their portion of the school.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: You know, that's just not where we are. This is
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: also like that.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: So I think sometimes it's easy to be like, well,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: why can't people just get together and like pull all
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: their money and pay.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: That's not going to work.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: And we know that doesn't work because it doesn't work
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: with schooling. And this is actually a more expensive thing
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: because the kids are you need a higher faculty student ratio.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: So just the initial recognition that in order to make
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: this work, we do have to subsidize it.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Period.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, and in fact, many other countries I noticed do
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: have heavy subsidies for this, the same way they do
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: for schools. So I think so I think in some
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: ways like that's that's almost the whole answer, which is
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: just the question is like people need to be ready
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: to accept that this cost money, and then we need
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: to figure out like how are we going to get.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: The money into.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: The system, and what's the way that you know, what's
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: the way to get people to understand that that's important
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: to recognize the importance of this. But there isn't some
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: secret option. Is sometimes we say here like there's no
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: secret option. See like there's no secret option. See it
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: costs money, bing go.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: And I will say, what's interesting. You'll hear me preaching
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: this up and down the seaboard here right, Like I
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: think my role these days is someone who's done this
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: now in Vermont. You know, as we're moving towards this
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: is to say, hey, folks, I hope we can agree.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: If we agree, like we you should hear folks are
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: getting together on childcare on early ChIL education across this
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: nation all the time. People understand because of COVID, I
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: would say what you just mentioned, people now understand, like, WHOA,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: why is this so different from K through twelve? Why
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: did when we close down for COVID, no question about
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: K through twelve and money kept flowing to teachers and
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: zero to five AILSEN was in a total chaotic disarray
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: when it was actually the most essential backbone to keep
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: our economy going, their essential workers where they needed to be.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: So there's this new awareness, and so people all getting
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: together and saying we got to do this, we gotta
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: do this, and everyone agrees it's infostential, it's infrastructure, and
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: it's a market failure. And I don't hear anyone talking
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: about public investment. So basically I'm just there as a
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: broken record saying, hey, folks, I hope we can agree
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: that on all these things equals public investment.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: More parent data, including pushback against Ali's campaign and how
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: she's handled it, advice for reaching across the political aisle,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: and a call to action for you after the break,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about some of the pieces of
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: pushback because I think in some ways what you're saying
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: is very straightforward.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: And once you have money.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: There are it is not that complicated to think about
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: how to su spend it.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's not easy.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: It's many things on the ground, but ultimately, once.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: There's money, there's money.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: So talk a little bit about the kinds of things
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: people would push back on here. So one concern is
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: that I have heard is that when we have expansions
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: of childcare, the quality is that good. So if you
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: guys thought about the question of like, how do we
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: maintain quality childcare when we are expanding in a meaningful way?
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, and you mentioned other places around the world, and
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: you know, we're up north in Vermont and Quebec is
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: our neighbor. And you know, although a lot of people
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: don't seem to want to hear about what Canada does,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: it's very like the Vermont legislature is very instructive. You know,
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: they did literally what we did. They added money, expanded
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: it made it more affordable for families. They didn't think
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: about quality. It didn't work. They said, oops, they went back,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: they thought about quality, and now they have subsidized high
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: quality childcare, just like we're moving towards in Vermont and
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: guess what female you know, particially before the skyrocketing, their
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: their gross provincial product is going up. So we have
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: again really like good examples to show this isn't some
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: like zany theory. This is one hundred percent tried and
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: true and the path is you know, well trodden and
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: the outcomes are well researched.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: So the Canada example is a really good one because
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: I think people do sometimes talk about that if this
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: initial rollout in Canada was poor, the quality was they
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: did not think about quality and the quality was bad,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: what did they do to fix it?
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Well, so that's and that's what we're doing in Vermont.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: I would say the number one thing we have to
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: keep at the center of this conversation is that quality
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: is humans like any other business. So the search is
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: very clear on this. The quality is absolutely proportional to
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: the level of support and preparation of the early childhood educator.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: That is the number one you sort of I guess,
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: proxy for quality in this sector. And that makes a
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: lot of logical sense, right, I can just how we
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: go about the world. It is that human who is
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: supporting that child in the time and their development in
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: this setting. And so for us. We have basically said
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: any increased investment, it cannot go just to expand the demand. Frankly,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: it can't just go to make more childcare more affordable
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: to more vermontors. It has to proportionally increase the reimbursement
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: to the early educator so they can pay a wage.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: And by the way, the beauty of that, I will say,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: like I feel like we feel a deep responsibility is
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: those folks who are steeped in like the research and
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: the quality of this to be the first people to
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: defend quality. You do not get the outcome without the quality.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: You don't get the return on investment that pays for
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: the capital that you're fronting here right without it. So
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: you need the quality for all the reasons we know,
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: and you know, the good news is we don't necessarily
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: have to be there fighting for quality in a you know,
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: antagonistic landscape because it also equals access. So that's sort
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: of a beauty of this market is you you know,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: for anyone who understands as infrastructure and wants to make
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: progress on it, the quality and the access are linked
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: because if you do not pay a wage, generally educator,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: there's no way you can recruit and retain them. That's
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: the quality. It's also the supply, and so that's what
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: we have found in Vermont. And I will just tell
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: you we increase the reimbursement rates. Like I said, we're
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: seeing one thousand new spaces, opening new programs, opening satellites
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: of current programs. And that's amazing. And we're going to
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: hit a brick wall any minute because we're having a
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: workforce crisis in this nation. You better believe that's hitting
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: early child education where this has been historically underpaid, undervalued,
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: under respected labor. And so we've done a lot to
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: move forward on that in Vermont. Again, twenty years on
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: the ground where early educators have been in the driver's
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: seat saying this is a profession, this is a business.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: It has not been seen as either. So we've developed
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: supports for both supporting this as an industry and as
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: a profession. And we're one of the first in the
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: country to be moving forward to actually establishing a recognized
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: profession called early child education. I mean, you may find
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: this too in your work. What is the name of
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: this childcare provider like right Daycare, right right exactly, which
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you found that's a dirty word.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: It would really do.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: People do not?
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Like I have found that, yes, yes, and we've I
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: try to be very careful of that childcare because people
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: do not like daycare.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: And I mean I hear that, right, I hear that.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Another piece of pushback that I will sometimes hear
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: on this, more from the right than from the left,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: is like, well, actually, the thing that's the best for
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: kids is for their moms to stay home. And so
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: when we provide childcare supports, we discourage women you from
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: staying home with their babies. And then in fact, like
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: I almost think, although I'm not sure that everyone would
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: say it this way, that in some ways the kind
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: of like well there isn't any childcare so people have
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: to stay home, is like that it's not so bad,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: you know, like that if that's the solution that people
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: come up with, like maybe that would be better for
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: their kids. You know.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: One of my favorite things in this job is going
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: into conservative talk radio in Vermont and the phones light up,
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: they light up, and because like you went right to
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: how are people going to push back? That's how you
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: do real public policy work, and then you understand it
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: and you work with it. I will say, I don't
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: think we win on making the case that this is
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: where all kids need to be or should be. It
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: should be a choice. This is a very personal time
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: in someone's life. I will just say, this is the
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: first time in our civilization where there's been an assumption
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: that the mom is isolated by herself with a kid
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: or two or three. Right, Like, we've had tribes, we've
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: had clans, we've had multi generational families. So actually it's
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: only like in the nineteen hundreds that we started becoming
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: more of a norm where you know, no, you're a
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: one family unit and it's usually the mom staying at home.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: So just to put that out there a little bit,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: because I think philosophically about this a lot in this job,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: having kids, myself, having just moved through five years of
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: you know, childcare and or lack thereof with my two twins,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: so that I'll just put out there. However, no need
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: to go down that road. It's about choices. Like we
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: started with, why wouldn't we do whatever we can as
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: a community to support young families, Right, it seems like
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: a pretty obvious place we can agree on for supports
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: they're starting out in their careers. We need them in
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: the workforce critical time in their child's development. So, and
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: as we said, there are no choices either they're single
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: family homes. Two people have to work to make ends meet.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: There's been a huge acyl of shift in women working
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: that we just have put our heads in the sand
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: for some reason, you know, some infrastructure perspective. So that's
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: the thing, right. The other piece of pushbacked is so right,
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: so should kids be at home or not? Who cares.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Let's give families some choices here, and we're all going
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: to benefit from that. Sort of an add on to
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: the pushback I get, Emily a lot is I got
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: through this phase. I it was hard, you know, like
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: I paid for my own kids or my wife quit
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: the work to stay at home. Right, I'm not going
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: to pay for someone else's kids.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: That's the number one piece of pushback I get. And
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: I just want to say we had a really productive
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: and positive conversation about that in Vermont. You know, it
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: was not contentious, it was not you know, like us
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: versus them. We had a really deep community conversation and
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: that's where the business community really came in. Hey, look,
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: you actually are paying for these kids. I'm not sure
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: if you realize that you pay taxes, right, you pay
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: property taxes for their education, well, mental health costs Invermot
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: through the roof, opied eponemic through the roof. You know,
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: we paid dearly and heart breaking fashion for people when
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: they fall into hard times. That's much more expensive than
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: helping them get a good start, right, and so it's
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: you sort of turn it on. Wait a minute, Like
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: in Vermont, our special education costs in K through twelve
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: have doubled over the last fifteen years while we lost
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: like forty thousand kids in that system. So the per
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: child cost is going through the roof. Why the vast
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: majority of that increase is because kids enter kindergarten not
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: ready to learn, they have not had social emotional support,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: they do not have a foundation, and so we're going
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: to be paining and to support those kids over a
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: lifetime instead of having them thrive to their full potential.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: So that's the argument. And the business community came in
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: and said, guess what in my business to grow and
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: increase profit, I invest in myself. I do upfront capital improvements.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: We're asking Vermont to do that as a state. And
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: we actually had this one like Seminole day early in
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: January Fridgiday. I remember ten people came into Senate Economic
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Development from all different sectors. One person, contractor, small restaurant,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: biggest soul ar company, right like a glove maker. We
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: had them all come in and they said, this is
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: my bottom line if I paid a payroll tax, this
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: is how much it would cost me in a year.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: I'd pay that back of a sudden in four months
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: because I would get this one shift back, because it
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: could hire this person, because they had childcare. They each
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: basically explained it in a microcosm of if I pay
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: this payroll tax, just like I do in my business,
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: I benefit greatly. Oh and by the way, I'll be
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: paying more taxes. My employees will pay more taxes, the
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: state of Vermont will have more organic revenue growth, and
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: my employees will all make more money. They'll pay more taxes.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: It's this virtuous cycle. So I think what you're seeing
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: is like we have a death spiral in Vermont, and
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: you can sort of change, you know, in one thing
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: is crushing another crushing another. We got to cut ourselves
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: out of this. Increase population, increase our tax base, help
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: our kids thrive, help make sure we give them the
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: skills they need to not fall into an opiate you know,
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: like our awful opiate epidemic. And so that's sort of
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: just that's the argument right against all of this sort
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: of affordability and all the pushback we get. Frankly, yeah,
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: you're very inspiring.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I'm ready to I'm ready to go do this.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: Yes, I can only do this because you help me
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: get my kids into where they needed to be right
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: their healthy developments. So here we are.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that the data on zero to
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: three is really feels really crucial here, and I think
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: is actually sometimes a hard piece of this to talk
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: about because so many of those conversations I think happen
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: among people who are already doing all of the things. So,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess when I talk to my audience,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I will people ask me a lot of questions about
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: their kids, and most of my answer is like that
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: the thing you're asking about doesn't matter, Like you don't
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: need to rotate their toys with the spreadsheet, like you
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: don't need to, you know, obsess about like the color
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: of the napkin, like you don't have to. You know,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: these things are not the things that are important, But
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: there are a set of things that are crucially important
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: that we see showing up when kids hit kindergarten.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Right, we hit kindergarten.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: You talk to basically anybody who's running kindergarten, they'll tell you, like,
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: we see the divergence in kids on day one, Right,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: we get and then we can try to make some
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: of that up, but it's there when they arrive, and
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: it's there because there are basic things that kids are
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: not getting that they need to, like a stable home, environment,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: enough to eat, somebody reading to them, somebody interacting with them,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: and those are the things that are really important. So
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: I sometimes I find it hard to communicate this because
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: I'm they're sort of sidlentin this. You're like, you know,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: you person who's kind of often making the policy, don't
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: worry so much about the little things you're doing.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: But for many.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: People, they're like, we're not allowing them to provide things
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: that the things that really matter because they don't have
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: the time and they don't have the resources.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: And that's what this kind of thing is about.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, I mean, think about that for a second, right,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: how heartbreaking is that? Think about when like when you
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: were in kindergarten, you could probably look around your class
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: and say, oh, my goodness, like this person isn't gonna
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: make it, and why they're five years old? Like how
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: could you say that? Right, it's because they did not
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: have the same opportunities in the first five years of
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: their lives or like you say, they've been around adversatile experiences.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: This data is clear, by the way, I mean, this
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: is like shocking data. Right, You actually will have more
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: likelihood of diabetes or cardiovascular disease if you have been
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: around a lot of violence or shouting even or stress
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: or on the flip side, that's why it's like this
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: is so awful and what can we possibly do about it? Oh,
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: we actually know exactly what to do, and it's not
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: that hard to deliver. You need a stable environment. You
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: need a healthy relationship with at least one adult. You
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: need to be outside some you need to move your body.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: You need to have some healthy food. You know what
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: I'm saying, Like, it's this is why it's like you
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: can tell I am an event list about this, Like
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: I have dedicated my career to this because it's so obvious.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: The more you go into it, and it almost makes
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: you like angry, like, we have a responsibility. Once we
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: have this knowledge, we have this responsibility, and what is
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: it gonna take? Oh just money for our kids, for
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: our whole future? Right, And if that's too cliche for you,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: don't it go to the economic ROI. It's amazing. It's
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: like none other you'll ever see. That's why you see
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: people like Ben Bernaki talking about this as you know,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: people like why is Ben Bernaki talking about childcare? Because
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: it's like return on investment like we have never seen before. Right,
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: So that's why I think we have to shift our frames. Right. Look,
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: we made this investment in Vermont. Guess what it's working.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: It was not some crazy experiment. The business community wasn't
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: just tagging along. They helped lead it nationally. Can we
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: change the conversation on this It's not like, oh great,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: I get it, I get it, I get it. Let's
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: do a dependent care benefit for employees. I'm such a
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: childcare cham I'm gonna give them five thousand dollars tax free.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Like no, I'm sorry, this is infrastructure. You could probably
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: pay the same amount into a subsidized system that would
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: actually fix the whole thing.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Do you feel though, like this has to happen. I
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: mean sort of turning into like how we get this
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: done elsewhere? Do you feel like this has to happen
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: at the state.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: Level, like, oh man, only because I don't hold my
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: breath for anything to happen at the national level. I mean,
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: I hate to say that. I wish that was not
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: the case. You know, there are things we should have
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: in this country that are hard to do by states
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: that should be in this country. And one of them
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: is paid family medical lief, right, I mean, the only
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: what four in developed nation that doesn't have this, and
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: so that's done only too.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: But yes, it's bad. Yeah, that is.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Bad, getting worse by the day on that statistic. Right,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: So there are some things that are hard for states
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: to do because of our economies of scale and to
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: do them right. Like states are moving forward on that,
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: and some aren't doing the most robust policy because they're
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: sort of making compromises based on their budgets. We are not.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: I just want to be clear. We did not finish
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: the job in very month. We broke it open. We
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: broke it open. We're showing the model. It's working. So
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: back to you know, ken Vermont, maybe accelerate efforts. I
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: hope the answer is yes, Emily, one hundred percent, because
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: if we can be an accelerant, that would be my
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: greatest my greatest dream. And what happened if from out
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: by the way, is we pass this bill with all
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: the Dems, all the Progs, a bunch of Republicans, a
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: bunch of independents, and the only libertarian in our body. Okay,
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: so quint partisan if that's the phrase. This is a
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: very non partisan, bipartisan. This is a unifying issue with
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: real solution that equals real results in a time that
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: I think we're hungry for that as a country. So
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: the problem is it's because it's so unifying you can't
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: get a political win off of it. I cannot believe
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: I'm saying that that we live in a world that
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: because you can't, you know, get a chit over the
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: other party, you're going to leave these kids and our
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: economy behind. So I'm very hope the FEDS will understand
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: this is an economic imperative for our economy and we'll
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: actually see some progress on this. I think the national
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: business community could really really help by saying yes, I'm
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: a champion, yes I get this, and then advocating for
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: policy change and investment instead of just doing their own
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: thing in their vacuum. I think that's huge. But what
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: I will say is Republican states, Democrats states, you know, conservative, liberal, etc.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: They're calling us and saying, how did you do it?
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: They're getting copies of our bill, They're getting copies of
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: our strategy. Municipalities, cities, whole states. And as I said earlier,
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: every state that's doing this is literally doing the same thing,
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: finding revenue, pushing into affordability and wages for early educators. Right, So,
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: I think that simplicity can build some momentum where we
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: can break this loose. I think states should move forward
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: on it, but I think the national government absolutely should
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: come and make it easier for us. And we are
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: all agreeing on a lot of the policy principles too.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: We just need the money to come out.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Do you feel like the long term solution to this,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: and if you sort of had your perfect world understand
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: we probably can't get to this, but that we should
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: in fact think about this exactly the way we think
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: about public schooling, which is basically from some early age,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: like there is a giant, like there is a national
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: childcare system, where there's a setup like you could have private,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: but there's also a public childcare system like our public schools.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, ideally, that's cleanness, that's equitable, that's you know.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, my kids just turned five and went
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: into kindergarten. I don't know who's happier them or me.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: We had the most amazing, high quality early educators, an
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: amazing programmer. You're so lucky to get into it after
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: eleven months and then a year and a half off
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: where I lived in my parents' house because of COVID,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: right like everyone else in America. The irony hurts since
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: I've been like the CEO of let's your kids throughout
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: that whole time. But I will just say, I don't
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: know if you can tell. I'm an extreme pragmatist. I
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: want it to work, and I think we're a long
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: ways away from that for a lot of reasons. And
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: then I think it's complicated in a couple of ways.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: I don't think we're compromising a lot of quality or
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: equity when you roll it out the way we are
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: doing it in Vermont, and it's actionable. Look, one big
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: difference is that it's not voluntary. It's voluntary, it's not compulsory.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: The other thing is there's so much variety in child
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: development and family needs and preferences in this age, and
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: so that's why we find a mixed delivery system that
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: offers flexibilities great, especially for rural America. A home based
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: provider for the youngest kids, especially a center, a school
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: based program, all good. And you know, there's enough economies
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: of scale that you're not wasting money by doing it
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: that way. You can scaffold shared services onto that, so
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: you're not wasting money, you're not wasting quality, and it
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: remains a melting pot as long as you are making
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: sure your subsidies are most potent for the most vulnerable families,
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: then it becomes a melting pot, which is great for quality.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: So I don't think we're compromising a lot. I think
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: it's much more doable, and I think things like the
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: fact that it's voluntary, the preferences, you know, to be honest,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: parents pay a little bit, and a lot of the
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: pushback we mentioned earlier is like we want to have
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: people should have skin in the game. So in Vermont,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: our goal is that no family pays more than ten
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: percent of their income as a max right. So that's
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: a very reasonable sliding fee scale that I think a
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: lot of people can relate to. Okay, makes sense. You're
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: paying something, but you're not paying more than you can afford,
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: and it makes it, you know, one hundred and twenty
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: five million dollars instead of a billion dollars in Vermont,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: So it helps.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: I want to end by you telling us a call
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: to action. So imagine I'm a parent and I want
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: to make this happen.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I'm a policy maker. I want to make this happen.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: How can we do that? I love it.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: I'll summarize our secret sauce quickly to answer your question
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: and end with a real CTA. So, you know, people
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: often ask, well, why did it work in Vermont? You know,
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: what did you guys do? I mentioned a couple of things.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: Got the business can need to be leaders, put early
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: educators in the driver's seat, did some serious grass roots mobilization.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: The other thing I didn't mention was politics. Some people
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: are afraid to play politics, especially in this arena, especially
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: when you do sort of like deep policy work. But
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: I am sorry. You can't pass the law if you
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: are not involved politics. So we opened up a five
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: O one C four. That's sister sort of organization to
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: our five oh one C three Let's Our Kids and
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: Let's Kids Action Network. And in essence, what did we do?
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: We elevated the issue of childcare. Politicians have never said
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: the words childcare before, they've not run on it. It's
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: not been a priority, so no one's going to do
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: anything about it. So we elevated it to a essential priority,
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: coming down the lips of our lawmakers. The way we
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: did that was we got their attention when they were candidates,
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: when they were running, they went to their communities and
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: they could not walk a block without hearing someone that
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: they were accountable to saying you must deliver on childcare
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: and housing. You know, those were the two essential priorities
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: in a real place like Vermont. Childcare and housing will
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: elect you, but do not come home from the Golden
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Dome in mom Peelia, Vermont if you have not delivered
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: on these. So then all of a sudden we had
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: this group of quint partisan champions who are like, got it,
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: I'm accountable to my constituents, I must deliver. Tell me
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: what's up on this? And so we had an educated
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: and ready to rock crew of people that were ready
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: to do some bold action that they knew would be controversial. Right,
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: raising revenue is not for the faint of heart. And
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: guess what, like we're already seeing the primary all of
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: our childcare champions got elected because we were there supporting them,
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: saying thank you. You put your butt on the line
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: to vote for this, thank you. So those are the
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: secret sauce elements. You can tease some CTAs from there. Right,
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: find out who in your community or your state is
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: doing work in childcare. Is there a coalition, is there
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: an organizing you know group, is there you know, an
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: early educator association? Who's doing it? And if no one's
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: doing it that you can sort of raise your voice
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: and be part of this sort of movement that I
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: think it will take to make such huge transformative change
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: in our states in this country. Call your legislator you're
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: not your national and your local legislator and say childcare
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: is essential infrastructure. We cannot afford to live without it
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: in this country or in your state whatever. And by
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: the way, it pays for itself over a lifetime and immediately,
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: so look into it. Right, I really think that's what
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: we have to do. Is that we need to elevate
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: this issue in our communities and nationally to a fever
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: pitch and then push it through. So yeah, and if
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: you're a business, become a policy advocate. You know, I
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: really think that businesses have a unique ability to do this.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: And if you're a parent, right, raise your voice, right
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: and not bed talk to your neighbors. It's good old
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: fashioned organizing. We're seeing this in the electual work. It's
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: true for social issues as well.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Welly, this was a delight. I feel incredibly fired up
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: and that I think everyone else is going to feel
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: fire it up. Also, you guys are doing amazing stuff.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: I'm so happy to hear that it should take off.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: This is an important one and I just so appreciate
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: you seeing that and elevating it and having the chance to.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: Talk with you.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you amazing, Thanks for being here.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Parent Data is produced by Tamar Avishai with support from
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: the Parent Data team and PI Rex. If you have
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: thoughts on this episode, please join the conversation on my
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Instagram at Prof Emily Ost and if you want to
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• 42:49
  Speaker 2: on everything to do with parents and data to help
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: you make better, more informed parenting decisions. For example, I
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: wrote last month about a new study that showed the
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: parental leave has a significant positive impact on the health
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: of infants, specifically on the rate of contracting RSV. We
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: actually have a podcast episode coming up with the writers
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: of that paper, but in the meantime you can read all.
• 43:11
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