NC Early Childhood Issue

One of our local news programs aired a story about Bill 539 in the NC Legislature that proposes to merge Smart Start and More at 4 programs. The lady in a county near me who is the county director or overseer of all the More at 4 programs based in public schools gave a brief interview in which she snubbed her nose at the idea because Smart Start supports licensed "day care" centers who do nothing but babysit. Wow, Are the early childhood professionals around here hopping mad over that comment. I would love to know this lady's credentials, as would many others who left a response to the post on the WECT news web site (http://www.wect.com/Global/story.asp?s=10070972 ) People in the field from family childcare providers to MAF teachers to college professors have weighed in on this issue. 

This director's comment is the attitude that divides our profession. Our ultimate goal is to seek the best QUALITY care and education for all children. I feel that North Carolina is seeking to advance their efforts by combining the two state funded initiative for a more cohesive and positive outcome for children and their families. A big issue a few years ago on capital hill was the drop out rates of middle and high school students. The NAEYC group I was with who went to our legislators on the hill with the Early Childhood information spoke with them about the reality of starting children early with quality care and hands-on exploration & education will lead to a lifetime love of learning. To do that we in the field need to understand child development and cooperatively set goals for our children to help guarentee we accomplish this. We can not do this if one group is looking down their nose at the other group, or if the news media shows prejudices in the story against one group of the same profession.