Cutting investments in children will do more harm than good.
by Pat Willis, Executive Director, Voices for Georgia’s Children

More and more children are suffering in the shadows.

If a child goes to school hungry and he suffers in silence, can we claim he has a fair chance of learning anything?  If a mother leaves her preschooler with her sixth grader because she has no money for child care, can we claim there is no waiting list for child care subsidies?  If a family turns to the ER for a daughter with asthma is it because they have no insurance?

With declining revenues for state services and rising numbers of families trapped in a down economy, too many children are suffering in the shadows.  Yet, in many cases, they are not counted among those statistics that tell us we have problems.  But we will be forced to count them later when they fail in school, or when a neighbor calls DFCS, or when a child is admitted to the hospital.

State agencies have been making tough decisions.   The governor has asked them to make cuts in their budgets to match the cuts in revenues he sees every month.  State legislators will take on these decisions in January as they convene to address the current red ink and decide what to fund in the next year’s budget.  We want to assume that Georgia’s policymakers are taking a compassionate yet smart approach when they face these painful choices.  We hope they’re asking themselves honest, tough questions. Questions like:

Are we funding what works? If research proves that a program gives the results we want, don’t cut it.

Are we focusing on prevention?  Problems that never happen don’t cost us money tomorrow.  Programs for very young children and their families, such as home visiting, HeadStart and PreK, can mean lower costs for remediation, more kids staying in school, and fewer dropouts and less delinquency later.

Are we encouraging better collaboration between state agencies? When two, three or four state agencies support different services for the same child, we need to require them to plan together, share resources, and then evaluate their collective impact.

Is quality our top priority? Reducing staff should mean redefining priorities so that we deliver effective services.  Otherwise, all services, effective and ineffective, decline across the board.

Even after applying these basic principles, the simple truth is, we can’t cut our way into a budget that saves lives and respects basic human dignity.

Our lawmakers have a responsibility to identify new, innovative revenue sources to meet the current needs of all our state.  They also have an obligation to make essential investments in our most precious resource—the boys and girls and young men and women who will grow up in ten and twenty years to run households, businesses and communities all over Georgia.

If we cut too many lifelines during this critical period, then long after the rest of the America pulls out of this downturn, Georgia will be paying a heavy price throughout the next decade and beyond.  It will pay the price for having far too many kids with physical and emotional scars that keep them from being able to graduate from school, and keep them from finding jobs, buying homes and joining the trained, flexible workforce that 21st century global employers demand.

The following press release was issued Thursday, October 1, 2009 regarding child care training standards vital to our kids.
Follow this link to the Opinion page of AJC.

The end of summer and return to fall schedules brings lots of challenges to Georgia families, especially those trying to find decent child care. It’s hard.

Today, more than 65 percent of families statewide use some form of child care, and the number grows annually — particularly around this time of year when more parents struggle with the demands of working outside the home.

More families with younger kids are seeking child care, too. More than 470,000 of Georgia’s children under 6 are currently in the care of someone other than their parents for as much as 10 hours a day.

The demand for quality child care is obvious. So where’s the corresponding investment and oversight? This year, Georgia was ranked 49th in the U.S. by the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies because of weak regulations for child care centers.

One of the most glaring problems is that day care providers aren’t required to be adequately trained on the developmental and educational needs of the young children in their care.

That brings down the overall level of quality and puts kids at risk.

A true quality child care program is one where teachers genuinely understand how kids learn — especially young ones. By age 3, 85 percent of a child’s brain is hardwired, setting the groundwork for all future learning.

Birth to age 5 is when children learn to relate to others, develop their emotions and get ready to conquer the three Rs. There are no do-overs.

Fortunately, the state of Georgia seems to understand this. Georgia would for the first time require that directors and lead teachers in child care centers throughout the state have a minimal level of formal training, under a plan proposed by Bright from The Start Commissioner Holly Robinson at the Department of Early Care and Learning.

Currently, lead teachers in day care centers need only be 18 years old and possess a high school diploma to care for children.

Higher standards is an idea long overdue, and any real hope of getting Georgia out of the child-care basement rests in part on making this happen.

It’s an important first step toward ultimately addressing other related needs, such as a statewide compensation system for providers — one that rewards performance and offers incentives for their professional development.

Right now, the state is making final decisions about whether to adopt the proposed rules. Strong public support will help assure that happens.

Now is the time for citizens to weigh in with the governor and local legislators. We hope many will, for the sake of our kids.

Stronger standards won’t solve all of Georgia’s child care problems. But it’s a start.