Think Act Lead encourages elected officials and candidates to pledge themselves to these reforms as part of a "Children's Bill of Rights!"
We need an expansion of prenatal care, early childhood nutrition programs, and free vaccinations to give children a healthy start.
Unilke President Bush, I support maintaining sufficient supplies of vaccinations during annual flu seasons.
With more single parents working and more two-income families, we are facing a crisis in affordable, accessible, quality child care. I favor increasing the tax credit for working families using child care.
Parents need the peace of mind that their children are in good hands when they are in child care. So, we must advocate the development and distribution of a federal database of criminals and sex offenders to screen child care employees.
We need child care options at universities, businesses, and community centers through new tax incentives.
We should develop a Learning Early Enrichment Program (LEEP) that consolidates and expands Head Start and other early educational opportunities through direct federal funds and tax incentives.
We need community education "townhalls" that bring together parents, educators, businesses, retirees, and other stake holders in the community to help find ways of addressing the crisis of before/after school opportunities.
A healthy start for children means improving nutrition. I favor an expansion of the School Lunch program – which often provides the only nutritious or warm meal needy children receive in a day.
We need more nutritious lunch services in schools. Schools should not serve sodas, candy, and junk food either at lunch or in vending machines on property to our children. Vending machines should never be such a fundamental source of income for schools that principals are forced into a question of needed funds or healthy students.
We must provide students with accurate sex and health education in schools. Despite the noble intentions upon which the abstinence movement was based, the fact of the matter is that it is harming awareness of sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) and pregnancy.
