Earlier today, Governor JB Pritzker issued his Fiscal Year 2026 (FY 2026) budget proposal, which outlines considerable funding increases for the state’s child care system, but maintains level funding for its remaining early childhood programs – a departure from the multi-year investments announced in 2023 as part of the administration’s Smart Start Illinois initiative. 

Start Early recognizes the state’s financial position, combined with uncertainties in federal funding, made it difficult for the administration to propose significant funding increases across early childhood programs. While we are pleased with the Governor’s request to improve funding for child care assistance ($160 million increase for Child Care Assistance Program; $90 million increase for Smart Start Workforce Grants), the proposal does not provide additional state funds for Early Intervention, evidence-based home visiting programs and the Early Childhood Block Grant (Prevention Initiative and the Preschool for All programs). This lack of investment will limit the state’s ability to support the early childhood workforce and ultimately, to serve more young children through strengthened programs and services. 

“We thank Governor Pritzker for his longstanding support for early learning and, particularly, the administration’s decision to prioritize child care access in Illinois,” Start Early Illinois’ Executive Director Celena Sarillo said. “Yet, when we fail to provide sufficient state funding for programs like Early Intervention and home visiting, we fail children during their most crucial developmental periods, and we leave families unsupported in caring for their little ones.” 

The Illinois Policy Team at Start Early is pleased to release our annual Illinois Legislative Agenda, a snapshot of the budget requests and legislative priorities for which Start Early will be advocating during the spring 2025 legislative session in the state.

With the new legislative session underway, our team is focused on moving forward funding requests and legislation that will support families and providers across our early childhood system.

Our goals for the year include:

• Increasing funding for the Early Intervention (EI) program, maternal and child home visiting programs, the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), the Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG) and the Early Childhood Access Consortium for Equity (ECACE)
• Supporting legislation to improve the licensing process for child care providers
• Supporting legislation to create an advisory committee on preschool special education
• Supporting legislation to creating the Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program

The Illinois Department of Public Health’s 2024 Illinois Infant Mortality Data Report sheds additional light on the critical public health challenges impacting Illinois families and emphasizes the need for a strategic policy response. As Illinois continues to work to enhance infant health statewide, a comprehensive prenatal-to-three system of support for families must be a critical piece of the solution.  

As highlighted in the IDPH report, though it has declined over the last decade in 2021, Illinois’ infant mortality rate was 5.6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, with profound disparities particularly affecting Black families. Illinois has not yet met the Healthy People 2030 goal of no more than 5.0 infant deaths per 1,000 live births and had the 28th lowest state infant mortality rate out of the 50 US states in 2021.  

Significant and concerning racial disparities in infant mortality persist. In Illinois, the infant mortality rate among infants born to Black women is nearly three times that of infants born to White, Hispanic, and Asian women. The leading causes of infant mortality in Illinois are effects of prematurity and fetal malnutrition, birth defects, sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) and pregnancy/delivery complications. 

Policymakers in Illinois have launched early care and education workforce scholarship programs in recent years, in an attempt to curb the high rates of staff turnover. At city and state levels, scholarship programs were created with the intent of providing career advancement opportunities to current staff, while also recruiting new members into the workforce. The number of scholarship applications across programs has largely surpassed the amount of financial aid available, underscoring the need to support our early learning workforce. 

Financial aid opportunities for higher education are a necessity for those aspiring to become early childhood educators. To become an early childhood lead teacher in a child care program, Illinois’s licensing standards require at least 6 semester hours/9 quarter hours of college course credit in child development or early childhood. However, child care staff are typically paid near minimum wage, making college courses financially out-of-reach without financial assistance. 

Each year the Illinois General Assembly passes legislation that can have an impact on families, or the organizations in our communities providing early childhood or related supportive services to families. Start Early leads on some of these legislative changes, often in coalition with others, and in other cases we contribute our early childhood lens and expertise to support the efforts of another lead organization. The 2024 Legislative Summary provides a listing of those bills that became law in the spring 2024 session that we thought would be relevant to families with young children and the field.  We hope that this is a resource you will download and share with colleagues and families alike. We are happy to provide additional information about any of these initiatives or connect you with other advocates where needed. Initiatives that were led by Start Early are marked “*”. 

Illinois’ Early Intervention (EI) system is currently in crisis, resulting in thousands of families of eligible infants and toddlers with delays or disabilities across the state experiencing long waitlists for services, with service delays having nearly doubled in just the past two years. EI providers, many of whom have advanced degrees, are choosing to leave EI and work instead in hospitals, school, private practice or other settings with better benefits and higher pay. The state has invested in cross-state research and cost modeling that shows Illinois provider reimbursement rates are significantly lower than other states, and far below the true cost of delivering services. This provider shortage, combined with high caseloads and low compensation have led to high turnover within the field and unfilled vacancies, all of which have a substantial impact on the children and families waiting for EI services to begin. 

To address this crisis, this October, Start Early and Raising Illinois launched the Babies Can’t Wait: We Need Early Intervention campaign with a virtual kick-off event and held nine local rallies and press conferences across the state over ten days. In partnership with our hosting organizations (Advance Preschool, Autism Society, Champaign County Home Visiting Consortium, COFI, Early Childhood Forum of Central IL, Good Shepherd Center, Illinois Developmental Therapy Association, SAL Community Services, Southern IL Coalition for Children and Families, SPARK, and United Palatine Coalition), we were able to bring over 1,000 advocates together in-person and virtually to call for the urgent need for a $60M additional investment to address the current crisis in our state’s Early Intervention program. In addition to making their voices heard at the rallies, EI families have started an online petition which has garnered over 2,100 signatures in support of the $60M increase for EI in the FY26 state budget, and many families and providers have been featured in media coverage of the campaign in outlets like Capitol News, Chicago Tonight and Chronicle Illinois. 

With just a few months left before Governor Pritzker shares his budget proposal, we aren’t slowing down! We’re proud to share that over 40 organizations have signed onto our fact sheet calling for a $60 million budget increase for EI in FY26. We urge you to join us in taking action for Early Intervention by signing the parent-led petition and by sharing your EI story. Together, we can make a better EI system for our providers and the families they serve. Our #babiescantwait. 

Start Early is excited to announce the launch of Every Child Ready Chicago’s (ECRC) Strategic Framework, a living document that will guide our work for the next several years. Building this Framework was made possible by the insights and expertise of those on the ECRC Executive and Advisory Committees. Almost a full calendar year’s worth of multiple rounds of brainstorming and feedback sessions allowed us to identify the most salient areas of work to focus our actions over the next several years in pursuit of strengthening Chicago’s early childhood system to allow it to meet the needs of all families. We would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to all of our community and city partners who contributed their time to making this Framework a reality. 

Every Child Ready Chicago is a public-private partnership led by the Mayor’s Office in partnership with Start Early working to ensure all children in Chicago enter kindergarten ready to succeed in school and life. ECRC is guided by a vision of a coherent prenatal-to-five system that provides inclusive access to supports and services that ensure the highest outcomes for our city’s youngest learners. This initiative first launched in 2019 and has continued working to build on Chicago’s robust history of investing in early learning opportunities.  

The ECRC Strategic Framework describes the next phase of our work together and the strategic action we plan to take that will be supported by Working Groups that will launch in 2025. The three inaugural Work Groups will be a Governance & Funding Work Group, a Data Work Group, and a Family & Community Engagement Work Group. 

On December 7th, 2024, Start Early partnered with the Mayor’s Office, Chicago Public Schools, and the Every Child Ready Chicago (ECRC) Advisory Committee to host the inaugural ECRC Strengthening Inclusion Symposium, which brought together nearly 100 early childhood professionals, families and advocates to explore resources, participate in professional development and engage in meaningful discussion about how to best support young children with disabilities in Chicago. This event was made possible with contributions from early childhood organizations across the city who came together to lend expertise, share resources and facilitate trainings and activities for professionals and families – and through generous support from Crown Family Philanthropies.  

For a full list of the day’s events, check out the event program.

The Symposium opened with remarks from the Mayor’s Office and Chicago Public Schools, highlighting the importance of ensuring inclusive environments for children with disabilities in early childhood settings, as well as a powerful keynote address from Jaclyn Vasquez, an advocate and parent who shared her family’s inspiring story navigating the Early Intervention and Special Education systems in Illinois.  

From there, attendees were invited to break out into sessions focused on best practices for inclusion in early childhood classrooms, managing mental health needs and alternatives to suspension and expulsion in early childhood programs and resources for navigating the transition from Early Intervention to Special Education in Chicago. These sessions offered professional development credit and were led by experts from the University of Denver, Birth to Five Illinois: Region 1-A, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago Public Schools and STAR NET.  

Throughout the day, attendees were invited to visit exhibit tables hosted by 15 organizations that answered questions, distributed materials and resources and engaged some of the event’s youngest attendees in fun, educational activities.  

Earlier this week, Governor JB Pritzker selected Dr. Teresa Ramos as his pick to run the Illinois Department of Early Childhood (IDEC). Dr. Ramos is a long-time partner and friend to Start Early, having worked with us both inside and outside state government to improve the lives of young children and their families. 

“Dr. Ramos is an excellent choice to lead the Department of Early Childhood,” Celena Sarillo, Executive Director of Start Early Illinois, said. “We now know IDEC will be headed by a smart, principled and dedicated public servant who hopes to build a state agency that works for children, their families and the entire early childhood workforce.” 

The Department of Early Childhood, of which Dr. Ramos will be Secretary pending Senate confirmation, aims to improve access to critical early learning and care services by better aligning and coordinating programs, data and policies. The new agency is central to the governor’s ongoing plans to strengthen and expand early childhood programing across the state. 

Beginning in July of 2026, IDEC will administer the Child Care Assistance Program, the Early Intervention program, evidence-based home visiting programs, as well as infant, toddler and preschool programs currently funded by the State Board of Education. It will also license and monitor child care programs.   

Start Early looks forward to deepening our partnership with Dr. Ramos and collaborating with her growing team at IDEC in the months and years to come. 

Chicago is home to a robust mixed-delivery system for early childhood education that allows families with young children to choose the school- or community-based program that best meets their needs. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the Board of Education (BOE) play a pivotal role in upholding this system and ensuring every child in Chicago has access to high-quality early childhood services from before birth through age five. By state statute Chicago Public Schools receives 37% of the total amount of the Early Childhood Block Grant, this coming school year that means about $280 million reserved for children age 0-5 in Chicago. CPS then grants out 40% of these funds to the Department of Family and Support Services, which is then sub-granted to organizations across the city to serve children ages 0-5 in community-based settings. Since community- and school-based settings both use this funding to support their programs, they all must meet the same robust evidence-based programs standards, including requirements for curriculum and teacher qualifications.

The Board of Education plays an important role in this process and is getting a new face in calendar year 2025. For the first time, Chicago voters will elect candidates from 10 districts across the city on the November 5th ballot; Mayor Johnson will appoint the other 11 members for this cycle as the city moves toward a fully elected, 21 member board in 2028. Mayor Johnson has already appointed 6 members and the other 5 appointments will come before the end of the year. The new Board of Education can best serve Chicago children under age 5 by working with community-based partners to improve the city’s early childhood education system by addressing the following priorities.