child care crisis/2 steps to take today!

What's going to happen with the child care situation?

How in the world did we get to a place where the US ranks number 35 out of 37 developed countries in it's support of care and education for young children under the age of 5?

It's not like we don't know the importance of early care and education. Take a look at this illustration from Harvard.

People might call the way we care for our children outside the home a failed system but I call it something else.

A huge mess.

My Story

Once upon a time, about 47 years ago, I took a philosophy 101 course at my community college. One day, in class, the professor was talking about how simple philosophy is. And also how complex. All we have to do is figure out what the best life is and pursue it with everything we have.

Well, I was also learning about rapid brain growth during the early years in child development, educational psychology and sociology. I put 2 and 2 together and realized that early childhood experiences were key to positive experiences over the lifespan.

Fast forward 47 years to today. Over the years, I have been a parent, a child care provider, a kindergarten teacher, a Head Start teacher, a child care teacher/director, family child care business owner, after-school and summer day camp teacher, tutor and grandparent.

That's because I've decided that focusing on doing the best for our children helps every single person in our society whether they know it or not. After earning a BS in education and and a MA in human development during my working years, I can firmly say that science agrees with me.

But society doesn't. At least not past lip service. This is why we need a change.

Nanci J. Bradley, founder, early childhood rocks non-profit organization

Imagine if the public school system was completely defunded today and from now on we had to pay for all buildings, maintenance, teachers, staff, equipment, books, land and programs with parents tuition. That's how we run child care in the US today.

We don't have a system for child care . Not since the end of WW2. Many don't realize that this is the problem. Having been in academia and also the real world of child care, I'd be the first to say that there's a huge gap between what's being taught in the universities and what's happening to children in real life situations. That's due to a lack of public funding for child care.

At early childhood rocks, non-profit organization, we have a PLAN for children and one for teachers, parents and administrators, too.

Here are 2 things you can do today to support early care and education.

one

We found an easy way for you to contact you government officials about the issues. this only takes a minute and can do a world of good.

click here

two

Donate a very small amount of money and get a really cool presentation as a gift. Browse our donation page here!

browse

At early childhood rocks, we know that we can unite and finally build a system for child care that works for children, parents, teachers and administrators. We deserve it!

Nanci J Bradley is an early childhood and family educator, author, teacher, family aerobics instructor, and an all-around fun-loving person. She believes in the power of sleep, healthy eating, lifelong learning, and most of all, PLAY!  She studied early childhood ed at Triton College and received her BS in education in 1986 from NIU. She received her MA in human dev from Pacific Oaks College in 2011. She lives and teaches in Madison WI and is the founder of early childhood rocks, a non-profit org dedicated to creating change through early childhood education.