Early Childhood Education and Why We Should Care

Considering that ⅔ of American families with children have 2 working parents, most parents are going to have to make a decision on whether or not to put their child in daycare. Some say that when you put your child into daycare that you lose quality bonding time, and it may feel like someone else is raising your child, or cause you to feel that your child prefers their teacher over you. While others say that daycare is a valuable experience that enriches children, allows them to experience social interactions with kids their own age, and gives them a good foundation for education later in their life. When we look at the statistics, there are a lot more supporting the latter opinion. Three studies were recently done and reported on by the New York Times, two of them showed evidence of long hours spent in quality centers resulting in higher reading and math scores. The other showed that daycare centers are far safer than in-home centers. This is why I believe we need to make high-quality centers more affordable and accessible, not only is it beneficial to children but if we increase access to high-quality centers people will not need to turn to unlicensed in home centers. Not only that but those who would benefit most from childcare don’t have access to it because it costs so much money. Only 44% of children who had attended preschool in 2016 were living in poverty, and of that 44 %, their test scores shot up when compared to other children in poverty who hadn’t attended preschool (The Atlantic). I can personally attest to this, as I have seen struggling children who refused to eat and couldn’t talk, to forming sentences and eating with the rest of the kids in the span of a couple of months.

I firmly believe that we as Americans need to support our early childhood education system far more than we do now. Creating a system in America that supported our preschools would bring education and support to the children who need it the most, and would make it so that parents wouldn’t have to turn to unsafe alternatives, like unlicensed centers, in order to support their family. We need to elect someone in the 2020 election who prioritizes early childhood education and has a plan for creating a reliable, universal, affordable program.