Sign up for TPR Today, Texas Public Radio's newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each morning.
The education advocacy nonprofit Children at Risk kicked off a 12-stop tour across the state on Monday to address the need for equitable access to child care.
Each stop will focus on child care deserts, give updates from the 89th Legislative Session regarding early childhood education, and discuss the current state of early childhood in each region.
Child care deserts are areas defined as zip codes with at least 30 children under the age of six, where demand for child care is three times greater than the availability of child care seats.
The latest analysis by Children at Risk found that 56% of low-income children under the age of six with working parents live in a child care desert.
In San Antonio, there are 36 child care deserts — a 20% increase from the previous year.
“Texas is in trouble when it comes to child care,” said Bob Sanborn, the president and CEO of Children at Risk. “We’ve made progress on improving quality, but when it comes to access … we seem to be moving in the wrong direction.
The analysis also found child care deserts have continued to increase, with a loss of nearly 75,000 child care seats across the state.
Despite the addition of nearly 300,000 new seats, more than half of low-income working families in Texas lack access to quality care.
Melissa Jozwiak, professor of early childhood at Texas A&M San Antonio, said a recent city-funded study in San Antonio found that the top reason child care centers are unable to operate at capacity is because of the workforce.
“They don’t have sufficient staff and sufficiently qualified staff,” she said. “We must continue to put money into workforce development because it’s key to improving the downward trend.”
There are several bills up for consideration in the Texas legislature to support the early childhood education workforce.
This includes SB 1755, which would reduce the barriers for Pre-K partnership and SB 462 to establish a child care services waiting list priority for the children of certain child care workers.
