During coronavirus, childcare providers need the support they’ve always deserved | Opinion

Healthcare access, educational inequities, racial disparities, workers’ rights: COVID-19 in the United States has brought new urgency to these issues and more. That’s the nature of a crisis: it exposes and exacerbates flaws in our systems, pushes support structures to the brink, and forces us to see even more clearly where we need to do better.

Early learning and childcare professionals know this well. They serve families across income brackets, giving parents the ability to go to work and children the early learning experiences they need for a strong start in kindergarten and life. Yet despite their important role, many childcare providers are struggling to stay afloat in a system with cracks that have been papered over for too long.