EXCERPT FROM: Philadelphia Inquirer
By Dan Hardy
Seeking to influence the state budget debate, about 100 social service and early childhood education providers and their allies, many still hurting from funding delays incurred last year in the protracted budget battle, rallied Thursday outside the Delaware County government center in Media.

EXCERPT FROM: The Morning Call
By Brian Callaway
Hundreds of the Lehigh Valley's poorest families will be able to afford child care while they work or undergo job training -- courtesy of an infusion of cash from the federal stimulus program.

EXCERPT FROM: PRNewswire
By PRNewswire
HARRISBURG, Pa., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Citing the academic gains Pennsylvania students have made because of the state's continued investments in quality education, Governor Edward G. Rendell today called for a $354.8 million increase in the state's basic education funding to ensure every student in every school has the necessary resources to learn.

EXCERPT FROM: Pennlive.com
By Jeanette Krebs
Like most grandparents, Bob Godshall worries about his grandchildren.
So when his 3-year-old granddaughter started going to day care, he checked out the regulations for state inspections of the facilities.

EXCERPT FROM: York Daily Record
By Erin James
The parents of children enrolled at Learning Tree Child Care in Gettysburg learned Dec. 4 the 30-year-old program would shut its doors in February because of rising costs and declining revenue.

HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Governor Edward G. Rendell and Treasurer Rob McCord today announced that the commonwealth has achieved its goal of expediting payments that had been delayed by the budget impasse, including crucial social services and education funding.

Although money from the recently passed state budget should arrive in Somerset County today, complications from the 101-day impasse remain.

On the surface, everything seems just fine at the Radcliffe Learning Center for preschool children in Bucks County's Bristol Borough.

Each day without a state budget means another day that Diane Mesiarik, Shannon Denitti and Ashley Mancini aren't getting paid for opening up their day care centers to the low-income children they serve.

SHARON HILL — Amie Mansaray knows exactly what will happen if the proposed Pennsylvania state budget passes in its current form.