The National Women’s Law Center on Jan. 9 published the report, Progress and Setbacks: State Child Care and Early Education Updates 2025, which examined depleting federal support for the child care sector and how it has impacted state spending.
For example, researchers noted that as a result of significant funding cuts to federal programs including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, states would likely shift their resources to fill gaps in these programs, further depriving child care of funding. This leaves more families struggling to access affordable, high-quality child care — which is crucial to ensuring strong child development and allowing parents to pursue education and employment opportunities that benefit families and communities — while child care workers are left underpaid and overburdened.
However, the report also found that many states made gains in the 2025 legislative session, adopting policies and allocating funding to boost access to child care and early learning opportunities through tax credits, expand pre-kindergarten programs, create new funding streams for child care and early education, and more.
California
A state-by-state breakdown showed sizable improvements in California’s early education and child care landscape. For instance, the report highlighted that the state’s fiscal year 2025–26 budget included investments like $2.1 billion in ongoing funding to continue expansion of transitional kindergarten (TK) to make it available to all 4-year-olds; $1.2 billion ongoing to sustain 10:1 child-staff ratios in TK classrooms; and $10 million in one-time funding to support the use of English language proficiency screeners for multilingual learners in TK.
Meanwhile, the passage of Assembly Bill 753 authorized the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to issue an assistant teacher permit to individuals with at least six units that “allows the permitholder to assist with the supervision of children up to two hours a day while the supervising employee leaves the classroom for purposes of offering flexibility for classroom support, or during breaks, or while escorting children outside of the classroom,” according to the report. “Teachers can hold this permit for up to two years while they work to meet the 12 units required for an Associate Teacher Permit.”
The report also details positive changes California has made to improve pay, retirement and health care benefits for child care workers; implement an alternative methodology for setting provider payment rates for the child care assistance program; ensure public higher education institutions provide information and support to student parents and more.
