Disclaimer: I know many of the people and/or organizations I reference in this piece.  Nothing about this is personal about any of them.

Today’s Brattleboro Reformer has a nice, acceptable piece about early childhood educators struggling with budget cuts, but it misses some key elements.  I’m not going to quote from it here, because there’s very little in the piece which goes beyond the surface treatment of the issue.  

The two people they chose to talk to weren’t bad people to talk to, but they present a limited picture.

I also want to say that I don’t know what the version of the piece the reporter submitted looks like.  This may be criticism of his work or the editing or some combination.  I just don’t know.

But, really, the concern I have is with the people they didn’t talk to, or at least who didn’t make it into the printed version.

As I’ve posted before, there’s an effort to unionize child care workers in Vermont.  A comment from them would have been great here.  

There are people in Waterbury who are responsible for administering these cuts.  Why not ask them about where we’re headed?

There are local Resource and Referral Agencies.  They weren’t available for comment?

There are individuals who work as child care providers who aren’t members of the legislature and have no power base.  Are none of them available to talk?  

I guess I just read that piece and felt kind of empty after.  I think we can do better than that.  This issue is important enough that I’d like to see more than “cuts to early childhood are bad, and here are two people we talked to with some knowledge who can tell you why.”