Parenting is the most important and challenging job any of us will ever do – and parents have never done it by ourselves. Our extended families, our health care providers, our faith institutions, our broader communities and our government help make sure our children grow healthy, safe and eager to learn.
We all know it’s the right thing to offer every child the best chance in life we can. We sometimes miss that it’s the smart thing, too. Because when we work together to support all our kids, we create a brighter future for all of Connecticut.
Supporting All Our Kids Builds Prosperous Communities
As parents, we work hard to find quality, affordable early care and education for our children because we know it’s the best way to give our kids a good start. When when work together as communities to support the structures that help us help our kids, our entire community raises children who are more successful in school and in life.
Quality early learning opportunities benefit us all. Communities can prosper when children enjoy reliable health care, quality early learning programs, strong schools, and creative out-of-school opportunities.
Public Investments in Young Children Make Sense in Any Economy
Investments made early to support our kids’ growth and development puts all our kids on the right track. Government at all levels recognizes that it makes a lot more sense to support our parenting than to pay to fix problems later. This is why we have federal tax credits and pre-tax dollar subsidies for the wealthy and working; provide vouchers, like Care4Kids, and public programs like Head Start for low-wage families and the poor; and increasingly are providing early learning opportunities for all in our local public schools.
Connecticut Is Backsliding
Parents and communities in Connecticut have pioneered a number of approaches that help us raise healthy and happy kids. We have been a strong leader in nurturing and growing many of these family supports that get our kids off on the right start. Yet in recent years, we’ve been falling behind.
Many of these successful systems and services that help kids become productive, contributing members of our community are threatened by the tightening of state and local budgets. We know that short-sighted weakening of effective programs will set our kids – and our future – back.
We also know that Connecticut can do a better job of managing the public funds it puts into some of these structures. With smarter coordination and management, we can do more - and we can do better.
The bottom line is that if we want to ensure that all of our kids have the best chance in life, as a state we’ve got to get refocused.
How You Can Make Sure Connecticut Continues its Strong Support for Our Youngest Children?
By joining the “I Care About Kids and I Vote” campaign you can help remind our elected leaders that:
- We need strong leaders who will take charge of Connecticut’s early care and education initiatives and help our children succeed.
- We should spend dollars for kids where it makes sense and really helps.
- We must make sure that Connecticut’s early care and education opportunities are easy to access and parent friendly.
