Experts on policies related to children recently discussed what's on tap for Texas' youngest residents in the next legislative session.
Children's policy advocacy group Children At Risk hosted a press conference on Thursday to discuss the wide range of bills legislators are expected to consider during the 89th Texas Legislative session in January.
The policies they discussed covered a wide range of issues, such as access to child care, children's hunger and chronic school absenteeism. Ed Wolff, who serves on Children At Risk's board, said the common theme among each issue is that they're pushing to close the opportunity gap between children.
“We shouldn’t have a disparity between a child born in one part of town and a child born in another," Wolff said.
He emphasized that overlooking the support of children's overall well-being — their health, education and safety — not only affects that child and their family, but the overall economy and community.
"When we look at the societal impact of a lack of education, it creates problems for the community," Wolff said. "We cannot maintain a society without an educated workforce, we cannot have a normal day-to-day operation without people who can't hold a job."
Policies on Texas children pave the way for national policies, experts said, because around one in 10 children under 6 years old in the nation lives in Texas, according to the nonprofit. Additionally, a majority of Texas' school children — 65% of them — are growing up in low-income households.
Some policies experts with Children at Risk said they're going to support in this upcoming legislative session include bills that push for more accessible childcare services, the expansion of children's health insurance and a bigger investment in early childhood education.
"Early childhood development is a large piece of the puzzle to ensuring that our legislative agenda looks at how we can get the youngest of our population to that level of playfield," Wolff said.
Chronic school absenteeism is another issue policy experts are hoping to address during the legislative session. The nonprofit estimates that nearly 13.1% of Texans between 16 and 24 years old are neither in school nor working.
Linda Corchado, Children At Risk's senior director of immigration, said supporting policies that increase investments into teachers is one way to keep children in school.
"Classrooms are much bigger than we would like to see, we'd like to see less teacher shortages to really ensure that emergent bilinguals have the support that they need in their classroom," Corchado said.
When it comes to health care, Clayton Travis, the director of advocacy and health policy at the Texas Pediatric Society, said he is expecting policies on vaccines to be a hot topic not only during the legislative session but throughout the upcoming Trump Administration.
"We have always had homegrown anti-vaccine hesitant advocacy groups in the state of Texas — but now it's gone national," Travis said. "I'm very, very concerned we're going to have legislation that is problematic that can't be defeated based on the current numbers and political landscape that we have in the state of Texas."
When discussing children's wellbeing, experts said it's important to look into the support parents have when raising their kids. Access to affordable child care is often a barrier that keeps parents in the workforce, which in turn limits their children's opportunities to succeed in school, said Kim Kofron, Children At Risk's senior director of education.
The nonprofit estimates that Texas families spend from 10% to over half of their annual income for infant and toddler care, meanwhile, the federal recommendation for how much a family should invest in care is 7%.
That's why Kofron said they're going to support legislation that makes child care more affordable.
"We know our educators are struggling themselves," she said. "They know parents can’t afford to pay anymore. Educators can’t afford to make anything less. Providers are stuck in the middle with trying to make sure they have a solid business. And so we gotta really kind of rethink the system."
Bob Sanborn, CEO of Children At Risk, said he's hopeful about expert's strategy and dedication to protecting the state's youngest residents.
"We're very optimistic," he said. "We don't know what's going to happen, what the outcomes are going to be, but we have to work at it."
He said part of that means working with policymakers on both sides of the aisle, and in some cases, they may have the same goals.
"I think in this new political environment that we have, one of the things that we're going to see is that the Republicans on one side of the aisle are very emboldened about this sort of very conservative way of looking at things," he said. "It's not anti-family, it's not anti-children — it's just a different frame from the other side of the aisle."
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