Statement by Sandra Feldman,
President of the American Federation of Teachers
on Education Week's QUALITY COUNTS 2002

With 11.9 million young children spending time each day in the supervision of people other than their parents, it is a national shame that there are no quality standards for early-childhood education and care. What exists -- tremendous variability in the settings where children are developing their social, cognitive and language skills, astronomical child care costs that parents bear the burden of paying and the lost opportunity to better prepare millions of children to start school ö is unworthy of us as a nation. That there is a wide variety of programs and that resources, though inadequate, are funneled into them, clearly demonstrates the need. But we have to do a lot better.

Quality Counts 2002 reaffirms what AFT already knew -- that we need strong, high-quality early-childhood education programs across the nation that groom our children to learn. Anything less hobbles our children's ability to excel in school and beyond. Citizens in countries around the world enjoy the benefits of safe, affordable and stimulating early-childhood education programs, provided by qualified, early-childhood teachers. We are long overdue in establishing an early-childhood education system that affords our children the same chance to compete and succeed.

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