Two Children for Every Available Seat: Delaware’s Unmet Child Care Demand
Affordable, accessible child care is a foundational necessity for supporting families and the economy.
But statewide data has showed us that as many as 80 percent of Delaware parents and caregivers are holding back from advancing their careers, pursuing education, or buying a home because they cannot access or afford child care. What...
New Bills Target Child Safety
As we wrote in March, a handful of tragic incidents across the state have shone a spotlight on child safety and abuse risks at child care centers. Health and safety complaints to the Office of Child Care Licensing are up 30 percent over the last year, according to the Department of Education, which oversees child care licensing.
In...
Early Literacy Efforts Remain Front and Center in Delaware
Delaware continues to focus on early literacy, a critical benchmark for a child’s educational development, and an area where Delaware (along with most of the nation) has declined in recent years. Recent focus has been on the NAEP scores, which have put Delaware below most other states and well below some of our neighbors, and with one of...
Tragic Child Care Incidents: Wake-Up Call for Delaware
Although Delaware has some of the strongest licensing policies in terms of what types of child care are required to be licensed (almost no program is exempt) and what the requirements are for the workforce, several incidents of injury and even death of children have occurred in recent years. These include murder, smothering, physical abuse...