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News

18 Mar

Posted at 23:10h in News by

NBC San Diego
By Amber Frias
March 18, 2023
Child care and early education programs are a crucial part of children’s well-being and necessary for many families who have to work. According to the most recent data from the Kids Count Data Center, around two-thirds of children under the age of six in the U.S. have both parents in the labor force. The people who care for children are one of the main factors in quality early education, yet they rarely feel acknowledged as such. Sandra...

18 Mar

Posted at 23:08h in News by

The Wall Street Journal
By Harriet Torry
March 18, 2023
Many lower-income Americans who left the workforce when the pandemic began three years ago are staying on the sidelines because of a lack of child care, a factor contributing to worker shortages and historically low unemployment. An estimated 380,000 Americans in their prime working years, aged 25 to 54, held jobs before the pandemic but no longer did late last year, according to estimates from Bank of America. Bank economists said the lack of...

18 Mar

Posted at 17:58h in News, Tomorrow's Hope by

WTTW
By Erica Gunderson
March 18, 2023
The Robert Taylor Homes in Bronzeville were at one point the largest public housing development in the country. As many as 27,000 families lived in the buildings, which were demolished in the late 1990s. But even amid the chaos that characterized the last decades of the Robert Taylor Homes, an ambitious early education program helped the children who lived there flourish. “We decided that we’re going to bring the services where the people are,” said Portia Kennel...

17 Mar

Posted at 23:27h in News by

NPR WFYI
By Adam Yahya Rayes and Sydney Dauphinais
March 17, 2023
Families across Indiana lack access to child care. Several bills were introduced this legislative session that aim to make child care more affordable and widespread. Yet all seven bills failed to advance in the Statehouse despite broad support from employer and welfare groups as well as lawmakers of both parties. The latest state data available, from Early Learning Indiana in 2019, shows Indiana only has the capacity to serve around 44 percent...

16 Mar

Posted at 23:02h in News by

Chalkbeat Philadelphia
By Carly Sitrin
March 16, 2023
Citing “inadequate” wages and warning of an impending mass exodus from the field, early childhood education advocates in Philadelphia and statewide say their sector is “on the brink of a breakdown.” Those advocates are urging state lawmakers and Gov. Josh Shapiro to add more funding for childcare and early childhood education in the state budget this year. Without more money, they say employees will leave, programs will close, and children, families, and businesses in Pennsylvania will...

15 Mar

Posted at 22:50h in News by

Politico
By Madina Toure
March 15, 2023
The New York City Department of Education has received more than 40,000 applications for 3K — early childhood education for three-year-olds — amid parent demand for the program, the agency told the City Council on Wednesday. There were 42,000 3K applications, compared to 33,000 in 2021 — a 27 percent increase, according to Kara Ahmed, the DOE’s deputy chancellor of early childhood education. Pre-K applications are also up, approximately 54,000 applications, compared to 50,000 last year. Schools...

15 Mar

Posted at 17:33h in News, Zaentz Initiative by

Early Learning Nation
By Mark Swartz
March 15, 2023
Early education advocates cheered when President Biden’s State of the Union address noted that children who attend preschool are nearly 50% more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a two- or four-year degree, no matter their background. Shortly after the speech, Early Learning Nation magazine (ELN) spoke to Nonie K. Lesaux, co-director of the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, about seizing this momentum and informing policy through research....

09 Mar

Posted at 17:49h in News by

Business Insider
By Juliana Kaplan and Ayelet Sheffey
March 9, 2023
Right now, the US is one of just six countries without paid leave. President Joe Biden wants to change that with his next budget through mandating time off — and making childcare cheaper across the country. In his budget for fiscal year 2024, Biden is proposing establishing a national paid family and medical leave program, which would give workers up to 12 weeks off to tend for a newborn, recover, or care for a family...

09 Mar

Posted at 17:45h in News by

Education Week
By Libby Stanford
March 9, 2023
President Joe Biden hopes to expand funding for high-need schools, early childhood education, and students with disabilities in the next fiscal year. The president released his 2024 budget proposal Thursday, requesting $90 billion to fund education, a $10.8 billion increase from the Education Department’s budget for fiscal 2023, which started last fall. In a March 9 speech about his spending priorities, Biden focused on preschool, including a proposed program that aims to provide all 4-year-olds with...

09 Mar

Posted at 17:40h in News by

Ed Source
By Karen D'Souza
March 9, 2023
President Biden’s 2024 budget plan aims to boost childcare and early childhood education funding by billions of dollars, as Reuters reported. The proposal, which Biden will deliver to Congress today, revisits key items from the president’s 2023 budget proposal that were later removed during negotiations with Congress. However, prospects may well be even slimmer this year, as Reuters noted, given the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. The White House argues that lack of access to childcare is...

08 Mar

Posted at 17:53h in News by

NPR WFYI
By Sydney Dauphinais
March 8, 2023
Early Learning Indiana announced a new initiative Wednesday to expand early childhood education across the state. The Early Years Initiative is a grant program for organizations that serve children from ages zero to three. The program makes $50 million available for eligible social service providers, child care providers, and nonprofits across the state that serve young children’s developmental needs. “We have a real opportunity to help children get started on the right foundation,” said Maureen Weber, CEO...

08 Mar

Posted at 16:57h in News by

EdSource
By Karen D'Souza
March 8, 2023
Toddlers are famous for throwing tantrums, stomping their feet and screaming as tears roll down their chubby cheeks. It’s par for the course of life as a preschool teacher, child care worker or parent that you will have to cope with your fair share of developmentally-appropriate misbehavior, including hitting and biting. And yet not all small children get the benefit of the doubt when they act up in class or on the playground. Some of them...

06 Mar

Posted at 16:59h in News by

EdSource
By Karen D'Souza
March 8, 2023
Toddlers are famous for throwing tantrums, stomping their feet and screaming as tears roll down their chubby cheeks. It’s par for the course of life as a preschool teacher, child care worker or parent that you will have to cope with your fair share of developmentally-appropriate misbehavior, including hitting and biting. And yet not all small children get the benefit of the doubt when they act up in class or on the playground. Some of them...

27 Feb

Posted at 23:56h in News by

New America
By Aaron Loewenberg
February 27, 2023
While child care and early learning have been underfunded in this country for decades, the pandemic took a major problem and turned it into a full-blown crisis. Even prior to the pandemic, parents were paying more than they could afford for child care and early educators were earning poverty-level wages. The pandemic only worsened many of these trends: According to Child Care Aware of America, about 9,000 child care centers and 7,000 family child care programs...

27 Feb

Posted at 23:55h in News by

World Health Organization
Department News
February 27, 2023
The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a new package of measures, the Global Scales for Early Development (GSED), to monitor the development of young children at population level up to three years of age. The new GSED methodology allows for a comprehensive assessment of the development of young children up to 36 months of age, capturing cognitive, socio-emotional, language and motor skills. The GSED provides a developmental score (D-score), a new common unit to measure...

27 Feb

Posted at 19:51h in News by

The New York Times
By Jim Tankersley
February 27, 2023
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration plans to leverage the federal government’s expansive investment in the semiconductor industry to make progress on another goal: affordable child care. On Tuesday, the Commerce Department will announce that any semiconductor manufacturer seeking a slice of nearly $40 billion in new federal subsidies will need to essentially guarantee affordable, high-quality child care for workers who build or operate a plant. Last year, a bipartisan group of lawmakers passed the CHIPS...

23 Feb

Posted at 00:01h in News by

KRWG
By Amber Wallin, MPA
February 23, 2023
The year was 1940. As the U.S. was entering World War II, women were being recruited to fill factory jobs that men were leaving so they could enlist. “Rosie the Riveter” was born and Congress passed the Lanham Act, which took care of an issue that was central to getting women into the workforce: providing care for their children. That was the first time – and the last – the federal government made a concerted...

21 Feb

Posted at 21:10h in News by

Ed Surge By Emily Tate Sullivan
February 21, 2023
While the national labor force has long since rebounded from the pandemic, the child care sector has lagged behind, experiencing a slow recovery that continues to this day. In the three years since the arrival of COVID-19, families have struggled to find high-quality, affordable child care for their children. Child care providers have been hard-pressed to find qualified workers to fill their open positions, often because retail and service industry employers have emerged as better-paying competitors. And...

20 Feb

Posted at 00:06h in News by

The Colorado Sun
By Erica Breunlin
February 20, 2023
Colorado’s rollout of expanded preschool has community-based providers across the state fearful they will lose critical revenue and struggle to keep their doors open as more children shift to free school-based programs. Operators of community-based preschools worry that 3-year-olds who leave their centers to attend a school district program won’t come back once they turn 4 to continue preschool before they enter kindergarten. Colorado currently has 3,405 providers licensed to educate preschoolers, and they need...

19 Feb

Posted at 21:06h in News by

Mass Live
By Carolyn Robbins
February 19, 2023
After a decade of planning, the Springfield Public Schools have achieved the goal of making free universal pre-kindergarten education available to every 3 and 4 year old in the city - becoming the sole school district in commonwealth to do so. The city believes providing early education opportunities to urban students – many of whom are disadvantaged compared to their suburban counterparts - is a proven way to help level the academic playing field, says Patrick...