Dear President Skorton:

Bright Horizons Family Solutions, Inc., the company that runs the Cornell Child Care Center, is a multinational corporation that operates hundreds of childcare centers across North America and Europe. Based in Massachusetts, Bright Horizons is a for-profit entity and is owned entirely by Bain Capital, one of the largest private equity firms in the world. Its profits are not publicly disclosed, nor its executive compensation.

Cornell pays Bright Horizons hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees every year, money that could be used instead to enrich the university and the local community. Current non-profit providers in Tompkins County provide the same (or better) quality of care in their off-campus locations. They are transparent, governed by parents, and committed to using their entire budgets to support teachers and students, with no concern for profit margins or for the private investors who seek them.

We, the undersigned, call on you to conduct a new competition for a provider to run the Cornell Child Care Center when the current contract with Bright Horizons expires in August, 2013. We further call on you to reach out to existing local non-profit childcare centers to ensure that they submit proposals to manage the center. This competition should be transparent, democratic, and faithful to the highest ethical standards.

President Skorton, the children of Cornell faculty, staff, and students are the university’s most precious resource and deserve the highest quality early childhood education—education that is aligned with the university’s unique public mission and free from corporate interests.  

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