The Child Care Gubernatorial Forum was a success.
Last Sunday, Madison hosted something Wisconsin hasn’t seen much of lately: a forum dedicated entirely to child care, with all five Democratic candidates for governor in the room, taking questions directly from the people living this crisis every day.
Parents. Providers. Advocates. All in one place, all asking the same underlying question: what are you actually going to do about this?
Why This Forum Mattered
Child care in Wisconsin isn’t a side issue. It’s the thing that decides whether a parent can go to work, whether a small business can find employees, whether a rural town keeps its one early education program or loses it for good.
The numbers back that up. Since 2013, Wisconsin has lost 40% of its family child care providers. Early educators average just $13 to $14 an hour, among the lowest wages in the state, even though the research is clear that quality early care depends entirely on the people delivering it. And state child care stabilization funding ran out on June 30, with no permanent replacement in place.
Organizers warned that without new investment, as many as one in four child care providers in Wisconsin could be forced to close or cut services. That’s not a distant hypothetical. That’s a countdown clock.
Local news outlets covered the event too, with WKOW and WMTV both reporting on the candidates’ proposals and the urgency driving the conversation.
What Was Asked
Mandela Barnes, Joel Brennan, David Crowley, Francesca Hong, and Kelda Roys faced seven direct questions from the community:
- In your first year, what’s the single biggest child care problem you take on first?
- What would you do to raise wages and benefits for early childhood educators?
- Child care is becoming a luxury good, especially for the “missing middle,” families who earn too much for Wisconsin Shares but still can’t afford care. What’s your plan for them?
- In much of rural Wisconsin, Head Start is the only early education option, and those towns are already child care deserts. If federal funding is cut, what would you actually do to keep those doors open?
- Infants and toddlers have the fewest care options of any age group. How would you expand care for them?
- Every idea on that stage takes real, ongoing money. What funding source would you actually pursue?
- What gives you hope about Wisconsin’s children and families?
Jennie Maurer, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, explained just how thin the safety net already is in rural Wisconsin. Head Start serves about 12,000 Wisconsin children through 245 sites, much of it in communities where it’s the only option available. It runs on roughly $204 million in federal funding, with just $6.2 million in state supplement. About 70% of providers in Northern Wisconsin already report waitlists. When one program closes in a town like that, there’s no backup. Care simply disappears.
Why This Matters Before August 11th
Wisconsin’s primary election is August 11th. Whatever your priorities are this election cycle, child care is worth understanding, because it touches nearly every family in this state, directly or indirectly, through the parents, providers, employers, and communities that depend on it.
This forum gave candidates a chance to lay out real plans, in their own words, on exactly how they’d approach it. That’s the kind of information worth having before you walk into a voting booth.
Not sure if you’re registered to vote, or need to check your polling location? You can confirm your registration, register if needed, and find your polling place at MyVote Wisconsin. It takes just a few minutes.
Watch It Yourself
The full forum recording is now available, along with shorter clips broken down by question, in case you want to jump straight to the topic you care about most.
Watch the full recording: https://youtu.be/hL0RU3uAGs4
Watch by topic:
- Biggest child care problem to tackle first
- Raising wages for early childhood educators
- Support for the “missing middle”
- Protecting Head Start in rural Wisconsin
- Expanding infant and toddler care
- Funding sources for real solutions
- What gives candidates hope
This forum was organized by Heather Murray of Arthouse Preschool, and sponsored by the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, Wisconsin Child Care Administrators Association (WCCAA), Wisconsin Family Child Care Association, and Wisconsin Head Start Association.
Thank you to everyone who showed up, asked questions, and pushed for real answers. This conversation isn’t over, and we’ll keep sharing updates as it continues.
