“Massachusetts should expand access to high-quality early education and invest in early educators. They are not babysitters. They are among the first teachers a child will ever know.
“But if our early childhood strategy stops at childcare seats, it will still be incomplete.
“Every child has two classrooms. One is the formal classroom: the childcare center, preschool, Head Start site or early learning program. The other is the home: the kitchen table, the bedtime story, the grocery store, the playground, the pediatrician’s office, the library and the neighborhood.
“Public policy has spent years debating the first classroom. We have paid far less attention to the second.”
“Even children enrolled full time in high-quality early education spend most of their waking hours somewhere else. Many children are not in formal programs because of cost, waitlists, work schedules, family preference or lack of access.
“Those children are still learning. Their brains are still growing. Their parents and caregivers are still doing the developmental heavy lifting, often without enough guidance or support.
“Massachusetts needs a broader vision.”
— “Gaskin and Ferguson: Every child has two classrooms,” by Ed Gaskin and Ronald Ferguson, The Boston Herald, July 12, 2026