Week of the Young Child

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, it is said that we should judge a society by how it cares for its young, its old, and those who have difficulty caring for themselves. We have done much in the United States to care for our young citizens, but justice calls on us to do much more.

We know that, from 2000 to 2006, poverty increased by 10.7 percent, leaving 12.8 million children living in poverty. We know that one in three black children and one in four Latino children lives in poverty. We know that almost 12 million children under the age of five participate in some type of regular child care weekly. And we know that research demonstrates that high quality, comprehensive educational care for infants and toddlers can eliminate the achievement gap that exists between middle class and lower-income children.

Together these facts highlight that Federal support for quality care in the earliest years via Head Start and CCDBG is critical to help young children from low-income families arrive at kindergarten ready to learn and obtain a strong foundation for success in life. Despite the importance of early childhood care and education, Federal funding for these programs continues to lose ground. With nearly flat funding over the last several years, Head Start is serving fewer children than it did in 2002. Despite an increase in the percentage of children under six with only working parents, Federal funding for the Child Care Development Block Grant has been effectively frozen since 2001.

These cuts affect Chicago and Illinois in very real, negative ways. In Chicago, just under 41,000 families with children under 5 live under the poverty line, yet only 17,000 of these children are served by Chicago Head Start. In Illinois, CCDBG served an average of 82,200 children in 2006, which is 20,000 fewer than it did just five years ago.

As policymakers, we should invest in families and children by bringing funding for Head Start, Early Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) at least up to the inflation-adjusted levels at which they were funded in 2002. History will judge us harshly if we withhold key resources that we know can provide essential supports for our youngest citizens. During this Week of the Child, I urge my colleagues to reverse this trend and invest in children.

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