By GEEARS
Georgia’s legislative session is a frenetic, blood-pressure-raising marathon every year and at GEEARS, we’ve got to admit, we kind of love the sprint of it.
There’s a special kind of bond we early childhood advocates share during our 40 days (and some nights!) under the Gold Dome. We compare our throbbing feet and the number of espresso shots we’ve slammed. We agree that no matter how many cardio hours you’ve clocked, there’s a particular kind of breathlessness that hits everyone between the Capitol’s third- and fourth-floor staircases. We also agree it almost never pays to wait for an elevator, not when there are so many ever-shifting committee meetings to dash to; so many coffees, lunches, and interfaces in legislative offices to schedule; so many bill and budget iterations to sift through.
Just after the scramble of Sine Die, when dozens of bills come to a vote in the wee hours of the night, it’s usually hard to enumerate all the tangible results of the session much less the big picture.
While we didn’t see all our legislative priorities advance, we have something heartening to report as we say goodbye to the 2023 session. It’s something we’ve been noting with excitement ever since the first strike of the gavel opened the legislature on January 9th.
There is a shift happening amongst legislators on both sides of the aisle—a growing awareness of, and passion for, the early years.
In particular, legislators seem increasingly cognizant of the direct pathway from high-quality early care and education to literacy during the elementary years.
Legislators are looking at, say, early childhood mental health legislation as just one critical piece of a puzzle that leads to physical and mental wellbeing, as well as academic success.
And they’re understanding both the lifelong impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the preventative role high-quality child care plays.
Sometimes during the 2023 session, we clearly saw the evidence of this shift in knowledge and values. On March 28th, for instance, Speaker of the House Jon Burns established a bipartisan House Working Group on Early Childhood Education “to better prepare children for success in the classroom from an early age.” There were also some exciting wins to celebrate for children and families, such as $2,000 raises for lead and assistant teachers in Georgia’s Pre-K; the extension of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits to pregnant women; the removal of the end date for the Family Care Act, which allows employees to use sick leave to care for family members; and funding for a home visiting pilot to support moms and babies in rural areas.
But other times, we gauged this change by the questions asked in committee meetings and conversations with legislators—inquiries that show that GEEARS’ advocacy—our statistics and our stories—are truly hitting home.
In their committee work, for instance, legislators are not simply fixating on the bottom line of third-grade reading proficiency but also on the stepping stones that must be laid to get students there.
They’re referencing Georgia’s Pre-K program as a critical mechanism to set children up for success in school—and advocating for improved access for four-year-olds across the state.
And they’re pivoting to the fact that our current economy demands flexible, family-friendly policies such as paid family leave and financial supports like TANF.
GEEARS has been laying the groundwork for this shift for many years. We’ve met with countless legislators and testified before committees about the benefits of investing in quality child care and education, how to support early childhood mental health, the importance of whole family supports, literacy, and more. We’ve presented science, economics, and human stories, sometimes told by the affected families themselves. We’ve kept our relationships with legislators going throughout the years, always alerting them to new research, constituent stories, fresh evidence.
Once our Capitol-tromping feet have recovered and we’ve indulged in some much-needed post-session rest, we’re galvanized to keep those conversations going. When we’ve said goodbye to the adrenaline rush of session, our mission continues.
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