James M. Jeffords: “there is a great need to improve child care in this country. America lags far behind all other industrialized nations in…”

“there is a great need to improve child care in this country. America lags far behind all other industrialized nations in caring for and educating our pre-school aged children. We have the opportunity to make improvements, and we need to act now. I rise today, to introduce two small, but vitally important child care bills: the Child Care Construction and Renovation Act and the Federal Employees Child Care Act. The Child Care Construction and Renovation Act is as much a small business assistance bill as it is a child care bill. Child care providers are small business owners. Almost every child care provider that I have talked with over the past few years wants the opportunity to expand their services, increase their skills, and improve their facilities. But the child care business is a financially unstable endeavor. Child care centers and home-based providers are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain staff, to buy the supplies and equipment that will promote healthy child development, and even to keep their doors open. The Shelburne Children's Center in Vermont closed a couple of years ago because it could not afford to stay open. Nearly forty percent of all family-based child care and ten percent of the center-based care close each year. Parents can only pay what they can afford, and far too often that is barely enough to keep a child care provider in business.”