For Immediate Release
Contact: Peter Clark, pclark@txchildren.org, 512-473-2274
23 Texas Groups Deliver Letter Urging State Leaders to Improve Child Care Quality
Austin – Today 23 organizations with expertise in early childhood development and safety delivered a letter to state legislators, the Governor, and health and human services agency leaders urging them to improve child care quality following the revelations made in a recent Austin American-Statesman investigation into the consequences of lax state policy and oversight of child care.
The letter notes that the Statesman’s 12-part “Unwatched” series reported that, “In the last 10 years, thousands of Texas children have suffered serious injuries and nearly 90 have tragically lost their lives as a result of abuse or neglect while in unlicensed or licensed care.”
The letter urges state leaders to support child care reforms that will improve safety and “ensure that more kids have the positive early childhood experiences they need to be academically, socially, and behaviorally ready to start school when the time comes.”
The groups urged state leaders to support efforts in five key areas during the legislative session that starts on January 8, 2019: improving access to high-quality child care for infants and toddlers that would otherwise attend low-quality child care; better leveraging the state’s current Texas Rising Star child care rating system; improving the use of child care data; collecting data on and reducing child-to-teacher ratios in child care; and strengthening the state’s child care oversight workforce.
The following organizations signed the letter:
Alamo Colleges District, San Antonio College, Campfire Fort Worth, CHILDREN AT RISK, Children’s Defense Fund, Collaborative for Children, Commit Partnership, Dallas Early Education Alliance, Early Learning Alliance, Early Matters Dallas, Early Matters Houston, First 3 Years, Leadership ISD, Momentous Institute, Read Fort Worth, Save the Children, Texas Assoc. for the Education of Young Children, Texans Care for Children, T. Howard and Associates, United Way for Greater Austin, United Way Metropolitan Dallas, United Ways of Texas, Voices for Children of San Antonio
