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Improving Early Education for Low-Income Children

September 2009

Infants and toddlers who are not exposed to high-quality early education are 30% less likely to graduate from high school and 50% less likely to graduate from college. That’s why Mary Reed, daughter of pioneering Roxbury childcare provider Bessie Tartt Wilson, created a nonprofit research and advocacy group in her mother’s name.

The Eos Foundation recently fundedThe Bessie Tartt Wilson Children’s Initiative through the Social Innovation Forum, a program that identifies dynamic, innovative organizations that will benefit from business coaching and consulting to take them to the next level.

Founded in 2002, the Bessie Tartt Wilson Children’s Initiative works to elevate and permanently sustain the quality of early education for low-income children across Massachusetts. The group has improved continuity of care for over 50,000 low-income children by successfully advocating for Massachusetts’ voucher certification period to be extended from six months to one year. They’ve reduced the administrative burden on families and agencies by pushing to eliminate onerous and duplicative paperwork requirements, and improved access to care for immigrant families by ensuring that translators and translated materials are available.

Future goals include expanding their research capabilities and building a grassroots base to push for the most effective strategies to impact low-income children’s success. Reducing the two-year waiting list for subsidized early education and extending state agency hours to accommodate working families are initial targets. And Mary Reed notes the serious challenge of retaining quality early educators, given low wages and meager benefits. “As incomprehensible as it might be – especially for a state with such a powerful academic heritage – Massachusetts has fallen well behind when it comes to retaining quality workers in early childhood education,” she wrote in a Patriot Ledger op-ed. “The state has a 26 percent turnover rate in the early childhood education workforce – a shocking number when compared to the national turnover rate of 9.8 percent.”

The Bessie Tartt Wilson Children’s Initiative is laying the groundwork to take on these challenges. To learn more or get involved, read the organization’s prospectus

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