School and early childhood education are both equally important

School and early childhood education are both equally important, fostering brain development and a foundation for life-long learning.  This Opinion piece in The New York Times argues that our country’s education systems should give them equal weight. Several cities around the US have helped parents of elementary school students with the lack of childcare when their school districts went remote by placing children in open-air, supervised environments. Yet, many childcare providers never shut down and were forced to figure out how to keep their doors open while keeping everyone safe. “The dichotomy we’ve set up between the two doesn’t serve anyone now, but it didn’t work under normal circumstances, either. Separating child care from the larger K-12 educational system forces many of us to live with an expensive, patchwork, private system for children up to age 5,” the columnist Bryce Covert says. Private child care should be considered as essential as public school. Several of ACS’ clients – PRE4CLE, Idaho AEYC, and the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children – work tirelessly to ensure all families have access to affordable, high-quality preschool so that children enter Kindergarten ready to learn.

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