Op-Ed: Ed Victor, SVP Boulder County
In Boulder County, there are child care spots for only one in four infants who need them.
In a guest opinion in the Daily Camera, Ed Victor, SVPI board member and longtime partner at SVP Boulder County, lays out what that shortage means for local families. Early childhood education can cost as much as college tuition, and even families who can afford it often can’t find a spot until their child turns three. Meanwhile, ECE teachers earn 25% less than K-8 teachers on average, which drives turnover and makes it even harder for providers to expand.
Ed points out that this isn’t just a burden on individual families. When parents leave the workforce to care for young children, the whole community loses, to the tune of roughly $200 million a year in Boulder County alone. He makes the case for Brighter Start Boulder County, a ballot initiative to expand affordable, high-quality child care.
His perspective comes from more than a decade with SVP Boulder County, working with nonprofits across food security, early childhood education, and affordable housing. That breadth is part of what makes his argument land: he’s watched rising costs ripple across all three, and seen firsthand how closely a community’s future is tied to whether young families can afford to stay.
Ed’s piece is part of a series of op-eds from SVP network leaders, developed through SVPI’s OpEd Project sessions.
