In July, PBS NewsHour aired a weeklong series, “Raising the Future: America’s Child Care Dilemma.” The NewsHour crew traveled across the country, exploring the many child care challenges facing the nation and some promising solutions. One segment featured Nebraska and an interview with one of the Buffett Institute’s leaders.
The NewsHour crew visited McCook and Shickley, two Nebraska towns that recognize how essential child care is for local families, employers, and economies and were selected for their innovative, community-driven approaches. Residents there are working on home-grown initiatives to improve and expand early childhood education so their children get the best start in life. In McCook, leaders worked with the Nebraska Children and Families Foundation on a plan to increase child care availability in the community. For Shickley, the solution was creating a child care program operated by the public school district.
The NewsHour crew came to the Buffett Institute offices, where they interviewed Dr. Kate Gallagher, director of research and evaluation, about the state of early childhood care and education in the United States and how valuable this is to our young children.
The PBS series also traveled to Mississippi, spotlighting a job training and child care program, and to Virginia, featuring the child care and education program that is operated by the U.S. military for members of the armed forces. You can find segments from Raising Our Future: America’s Child Care Dilemma at pbs.org/newshour/tag/raising-the-future.