Political Quotes

“across the country, parents and caregivers are bending over backward to try to get their children in early education. They are paying tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket, relying on family, friends, and neighbors, or are simply giving up work or their own educations because they can't find a childcare program with an opening. At the same time, overworked and underpaid providers are struggling to prop up childcare programs, burning themselves out, and leaving empty, shuttered classrooms behind them. The system is broken, and if we leave it broken, we are failing multiple generations of people who are relying upon us to fix it--to fix the broken system. As Marian Wright Edelman said, investing in children is not a national luxury or a national choice; it is a national necessity--a national necessity for our future. If we want the 21st century to be better than the 20th century, we don't have a choice--it is a necessity. When the pandemic began, Congress stepped up and provided the largest ever onetime investment in the childcare sector through the American Rescue Plan, and it worked. In Massachusetts, childcare providers received higher pay; programs stayed safe and open in more places and for more hours through the day. We kept classrooms open and prevented families from trying to decide how to continue working and finding a safe place for their children to learn, to grow, and to thrive.…”