The American Prospect

Clark’s grant is part of $39 billion in funding that the ARP sent to the child care sector in stabilization grants to keep programs from going under. The money has done precisely what it promised, keeping providers’ doors open and children enrolled. But it also did something else: It served as a test run for what it would look like if the federal government decided to make a substantial, ongoing investment in child care and early-childhood education. And it proved that such an investment would work.

On top of that, many states, controlled by both Democrats and Republicans, are putting the ARP child care funds toward the kinds of investments that Democrats had envisioned in the original Build Back Better package.

“That tells us there is an opening for additional resources that support those kind of policy changes,” said Anne Hedgepeth, deputy chief of policy at Child Care Aware of America.

Many states and providers put the grants toward higher compensation to try to solve the staffing issue, but when the money dries up, providers will once again be strapped to pay their teachers competitively. That will mean the return of wait lists and classroom closures. “We’ll see programs having to shutter their doors,” Hedgepeth said. Providers will have no choice but to keep increasing prices on already-stretched families.

“Every state will have now managed a robust grant program in their child care systems where they reached thousands of programs and providers,” Hedgepeth said. The kind of investment that would have been made through Build Back Better “really lends itself to leveraging the systems that have been built under the American Rescue Plan Act funding.”

Read the full article.

U.S. News & World Report

Child care is one of the biggest expenses for working parents. In over half of states, full-time care for an infant costs more than college tuition, according to Child Care Aware of America, an organization that advocates for more affordable child care. But costs vary hugely depending on where you are in the country, from around $5,400 a year to take care of a 4-year-old in Mississippi to almost $17,000 a year in Massachusetts.

uh-PARENT-ly podcast (WGN Radio/Chicago)

Dr. Lynette Fraga, CEO of Child Care Aware, joins uh-PARENT-ly hosts Tracy Weiner and Anne Johnsos to talk about what quality childcare looks like and why everyone should care about quality of and access to services.

Listen to the podcast

 Child Care Aware^® of America’s 2022 Symposium on May 1-4 in Arlington, Virginia, will bring together Child Care Resource and Referral professionals, child care providers, parents, policymakers, funders and the business community to tackle complex issues and strategize ways to transform the child care system during this pivotal moment. 

Featured speakers will include Indra K. Nooyi, who served as CEO and chairman of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2019 and is one of the world’s most sought-after advisors to entrepreneurs, executives and governments. She is also revered as a role model for women and immigrants, and celebrated for her empowering messages on inclusivity. 

The symposium will also feature Ai-jen Poo, a next-generation labor leader, award-winning organizer, author and a leading voice in the women’s movement. She is the Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Director of Caring Across Generations, Co-Founder of SuperMajority and a Trustee of the Ford Foundation. 

The symposium will include tracks on:  

• Innovative Programs and Practices 
• Transforming Child Care Through Data, Research and Policy 
• The Business of Child Care 
• Transforming Child Care Into an Equitable System 

It will also include an Advocacy Day, giving participants an opportunity to meet with their elected officials’ offices to share critical on-the-ground perspectives from the child care field that will help inform long-term investments in federal child care funding. 

For more information and to register: https://hubs.li/Q016TVdB0 

Child Care Aware of America joined the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, along with 45 civil rights and education organizations, to release Civil Rights Principles for Early Care and Education on March 9. The principles outline how decision makers at all levels can ensure an education system that offers meaningful equal opportunity and success for all children, especially those who have been historically marginalized.

"CCAoA is proud to have contributed to the development of these Civil Rights Principles for Early Care and Education," said Mario Cardona, CCAoA Chief of Policy and Practice. "They identify fundamental elements of early learning that protect civil rights and advance equity for children, families, staff and providers."

CCAoA is the first organization focused on child care to become a member of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. 

Learn more about the Civil Rights Principles for Early Care and Education.

Your Valuable Home (podcast)

There’s a childcare problem across the U.S., which is preventing lots of working moms from going back to work. Are grandparents a partial solution, as they were at the height of the pandemic? Listen in on this vital discussion with Donna Butts, Executive Director of Generations United and Dr. Lynette Fraga, CEO of Child Care Aware of America. Some possible solutions surfaced during this interview.

Listen to the podcast (segment starts at 34:00)

USA Today

The growth in child-care prices exceeded the annual rate of inflation in 2020 and 2019, according to a report by Child Care Aware of America, a national nonprofit network of more than 400 agencies to help people access child care.

Inflation, low wages and workforce shortages are making it so that the industry cannot recover and offer pre-pandemic levels of child care to American families, said Mario Cardona, chief of policy and practice at Child Care Aware of America.

"These staff shortages are causing such emotional distress among the existing child care workforce that one in five early educators is considering leaving the child care field entirely," Cardona said.

Read the full article. 

The 19th

The funding also came with a big promise to stabilize an industry that was in total collapse. About 1 in 3 child care workers lost their jobs at the onset of the pandemic, and more than 16,000 centers in 37 states had closed permanently by March 2021.

Anne Hedgepeth, the deputy chief of policy at Child Care Aware, a leading child care advocacy organization, said the funding has given states the flexibility to address key pressure points in their child care systems. Most states focused the bulk of their funding on worker retention, bonuses and raising staff pay. But the funding has also gone to make infrastructure and technology upgrades, create training programs, reach families in child care deserts, expand eligibility qualifications for families, lower costs, grow mental health consultation and create scholarships for workers seeking additional education.

“Where we find effective strategies, we’re gonna push every policymaker who will listen to help make those permanent,” Hedgepeth said. “Even resourcing something now will lead to long-term changes [through] just using the evidence that we’re gaining.”

Read the full article. 

CNBC.com

Child care is getting more expensive than ever, forcing parents to spend an increasingly large portion of their paychecks on it, according to a recent report from Child Care Aware.

The “Demanding Change” report found that the national average annual cost of child care in 2020, the latest data available, was $10,174. That figure represents more than 10% of the median income for a married couple, and more than 35% percent of the median income for a single parent.

“One of the repercussions for parents that we’re starting to see is the exit of women from the workforce,” Child Care Aware senior data analyst Kristina Haynie tells CNBC Make It. “Sometimes it’s just not worth it to work because the money that you’re making is all going toward child care.”

Read the full article. 

Child Care Aware of America CEO Dr. Lynette Fraga was featured on actor Wilmer Valderrama's podcast, Essential Voices, which is about essential workers.  

Dr. Fraga talked about the benefits of early childhood education and bilingual education, and she told new parents Wilmer and Amanda: "You have a degree in loving your child. That's the most important degree to have." 

The podcast episode also features Carolina Reyes, owner and director of the Arco Iris Bilingual Children's Center in Laurel, Maryland, who shared her passion for early childhood education even during the pandemic. 

Listen to the podcast episode.