Remarks by Speaker Sheldon Silver

"The Child Care That Works Campaign"

ESP, Well Of The L.O.B., Albany, NY
Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Carol Saginaw. Karen Schimke. Members of The Child Care That Works Campaign. My Friends.

On behalf of Assembly Members:

• Roger Green, the Chair of our Committee on Children and Families;
• Steve Sanders, the Chair of our Education Committee;
• Susan John, the Chair of our Labor Committee;
• And the entire Assembly Majority;

As I always do, let me thank each and every one of you for taking the time to come to Albany.

We appreciate that you are here to stand up for New Yorkers who cannot be here and cannot fight for themselves in this government.

We urge you to make the most of your visit to the Legislative Office Building.

If you travel west on Washington Avenue about 3 or four miles, you will see an oddly shaped building with green windows near the University at Albany.

That structure is the home of Albany Nanotech. It is a monument to the rapidly expanding knowledge economy.

Behind those green windows, the jobs of tomorrow are being developed; the jobs that our children - and our children's children - will be competing for in the decades to come.

Several times over the last few years, we have seen the Governor at Albany Nanotech, talking about his administration's efforts to make this State a global center for technology.

Seldom do you hear him talk about the resources, the programs, the services our children will need to become world leaders in this knowledge-based economy.

All he can see in those green windows is his reflection.

That's what the battle over the funding of education, from pre-K to Ph.D. is all about.

Our children are our greatest resource.

We know that for a great many New Yorkers, the challenge of giving children the best possible start, means day care.

Finding a safe, healthy, nurturing child-care provider in whom you can entrust your most precious children while at the same time, holding down a job or going to school or job training can be a very difficult and exhausting task particularly in a State where the good people we need to be child-care providers are so under compensated.

This is why the frustration builds up.

How can a State that is striving to become a world technological center not make the care and education of children (our future leaders and future workers) one of its very highest priorities?

Providing our children with the best possible day care, the best possible education system, the best possible health care should be a quest for this State, not a burden that we are guilted into carrying.

I am proud to say that the Assembly Majority has a long and distinguished record of advocating on behalf of children. Among our members are some of the great champions of families and children.

This year - and for as long as I am Speaker of the Assembly - we will be striving to ensure that every working family in this State that needs child care can get child care.

We will be striving to ensure that child care workers are provided compensation that reflects the critical nature of the job they do.

We will be investing to ensure that we have child-care facilities that are safe and accessible.

And we will always support funding for quality child care at our SUNY and CUNY campuses.

Hopefully, if we work together; if enough of us speak up, we will be able to provide all working families and all children with the government and the quality of life they deserve. Hopefully, the Governor will see through the error of shortchanging our children and their future.

On behalf of the Assembly Majority, I thank you for supporting us over the years. I thank you for standing with us.

Good luck with your Lobby Day activities. Let's work together to put our children on the right path to the future.