Dear Editor: April 13-19 is the Week of the Young Child, a time to focus on the needs of young children and their families.
This year's theme, "Bring communities together for children -- Children bring communities together," is particularly appropriate for Madison. Over the past few years, we have seen parents' ability to access high-quality child care -- the kind that parents, teachers and other experts agree establishes the foundation for academic, social and emotional success in later life -- erode significantly.
This problem has disproportionately affected low- and middle-income families. For many reasons, high-quality child care providers in centers and in homes find that they cannot make ends meet when charging reasonable fees and face budget deficits, the need to raise funds from outside sources, or a decision to go out of business.
Funding child care cannot depend on the families alone. We need to recognize as a community that access to high-quality child care is a necessary component of the social fabric, and that we must all support it. This can be done in a variety of ways: corporate partnerships with child care providers, a citywide or countywide child care system, contacting state and federal legislators to increase funding for child care, and treating high-quality early childhood education as a basic right and supporting it as we do public schools.
Our children are our future. Let's bring the community together in support of them.