In Massachusetts, the Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative (CPPI) has successfully helped communities like Salem, North Adams, Somerville, and Sandwich plan for and implement more high-quality preschool programs.
Now it’s time for the state to strengthen its investment in this effective program.
Building on federal momentum
Initially, five Massachusetts communities—Boston, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, and Springfield—were using federal Preschool Expansion Grants (PEG) to “expand high-quality early childhood education to four-year-old children whose families earn under 200 percent (200%) of the federal poverty line,” as a Department of Early Education Report explains. This grant fully funded free, full-day and full-year preschool seats for more than 800 eligible 4-year-old children, and it provided a number of additional supports for families and educators.
The Massachusetts Legislature enabled communities to continue some of this important work by creating CPPI in the FY’16 state budget and then awarding grants in 2019. The CPPI grant was designed to maintain the mixed delivery system model and to support collaboration activities funded by PEG grants, but CPPI funding did not include a commitment to fully cover the cost of a preschool seat.
Today, CPPI “aims to provide 3- and 4-year-olds… with equitable access to high-quality preschool, while ensuring families have multiple provider options to choose from across public and community-based classrooms.”
The state’s goal: leveling “the playing field for kindergarten readiness” and “establishing coordinated curriculum and similar goals regardless of where a child is enrolled.”
CPPI funds allow communities to plan and implement across three priority areas:
- expanding access to affordable quality preschool
- increasing locally aligned quality, and
- ensuring equitable access to special education
CPPI funds can be used in a number of ways, including providing families with subsidies or scholarships; strengthening curriculum; ensuring full inclusion of children with disabilities across all settings; and providing professional development and job-embedded coaching support for early educators.
Outcomes and successes
Last year, EEC released a data brief that outlined CPPI’s impact and reach. In FY’25, the brief says, more than 3,200 children in 217 classrooms across 30 districts were enrolled in CPPI funded preschool classrooms.
In addition, the grants support partnerships with more than 100 early education and care programs. Of these:
- 77% are center-based programs
- 8% are family child care programs
- 15% are operated by public schools, and
- 59% operate in communities with fewer resources for children and families, as defined by the Child Opportunity Index
The other benefits of this work include:
- stronger partnerships between early education programs and school districts that help align instructional practices and standards and also improve shared planning and coordination
- school districts are able to hire speech language pathologists and mental health professionals who provide support for preschool children
- the increased use of data to identify service gaps and tailor support services to meet children’s needs, and
- the establishment of pay parity in some communities among preschool teachers and public school teachers, although this is achieved by using CPPI and additional public funds such as the state’s C3 Grants
CPPI in communities
Framingham, Mass., has used its CPPI grant to work with three community-based organizations to serve 81 children in six classrooms. Framingham also provides special education services and dual-language-learner support.
“Framingham is showing what it looks like when local leadership, public schools, and early education providers work in partnership to ensure every child is supported from the very beginning,” EEC Commissioner Amy Kershaw says in a press release, showing the “innovation, dedication, and inclusive spirit that make Framingham a great example of expanding universal Pre-K access across the state.”
Salem, Mass., shared its CPPI work at an EEC Board meeting. As we’ve blogged, “Salem’s strategy was to set up the Salem PreK Partnership, uniting the school district, the YMCA, Ashley’s Preschool and Daycare, and Salem Community Child Care.”
“The PreK Partnership used CPPI funding to provide tuition relief for families and increase staff salaries in community-based classrooms, moving the city closer to universal access and pay parity across the different settings in the mixed delivery system.”
“We see pre-K as our work,” Stephen Zrike, Salem’s school superintendent at the time, said at the EEC Board meeting. Zrike acknowledged the responsibility that school districts have to partner with birth-to-five providers, and he pointed to the role schools can play in helping to organize community preschool efforts. (This month, Zrike will become the state’s new Education Secretary.)
Overcoming barriers and increasing funding
Despite its successes, CPPI still has barriers to overcome and more progress to make.
Some worry that building a universal preschool program would mean shifting preschool enrollment entirely to school district preschool classrooms. However, this isn’t true. Universal preschool (or UPK) simply means that every family with a four year old in Massachusetts has the opportunity to enroll in a preschool program at low or no cost.
Massachusetts is committed to the mixed-delivery system that includes public schools, center-based programs, and family child care programs.
Next, to fully implement a universally accessible preschool program in Massachusetts, it’s vital to increase CPPI funding. Governor Maura Healey addresses this need in her FY27 budget request, proposing $32 million for CPPI, an increase of over $11 million.
Currently CPPI is in 19 of the state’s 26 Gateway Cities and in other participating districts. Increased funding could cover the remaining seven Gateway Cities and also ensure that communities that have received planning grants can go on to receive implementation grants.
The nonprofit news outlet CommonWealth Beacon covers these issues in an article—“Healey has called for universal pre-K in every Gateway City by the year’s end. Providers say they won’t get there.”—and on its “Codcast,” in an episode that features EEC Commissioner Kershaw and Strategies for Children’s Executive Director, Amy O’Leary.
Massachusetts will also need to encourage additional productive partnerships between community-based early education and care programs and school districts in the seven remaining Gateway Cities and in other cities and towns across the state.
But increasing CPPI alone is not enough. To build a truly universal preschool program, Massachusetts must also braid and blend funding streams like Child Care Financial Assistance (CCFA) and the Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) grants to fully fund access for all children, affordability for families, and pay parity for educators.
To learn more, check out our information sheet, “FY27 State Budget Advocacy for Early Education & Care and School-Age Programs.” And be sure to ask your legislators to invest in CPPI grants so that communities have the funds to build stronger preschool programs for children.