Today, President-elect Joe Biden announced the nomination of Connecticut Commissioner of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona to serve as U.S. Secretary of Education. Lynette M. Fraga, Ph.D., CEO of Child Care Aware® of America—the nation’s leading voice for child care—released the following statement: 

Child Care Aware® of America is pleased to see Connecticut Commissioner of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona nominated to serve as U.S. Secretary of Education. Cardona has demonstrated a commitment to advancing an agenda that supports children from birth and even served as co-chairperson of the Connecticut Birth to Grade Three Leaders Council, according to his state biography. We couldn’t agree more with Cardona’s statement that, “For far too long, we’ve spent money on interventions and band aids to address disparities instead of laying a wide, strong foundation of quality, universal early childhood education, and quality social and emotional supports for all of our learners.” CCAoA looks forward to more closely examining his record and urge the Senate to quickly consider his nomination. 

Fatherly

So what do working parents really need? We rounded up six experts all of whom have different expertise about the needs of working parents, and asked each of them just that. Answers ranged from far-reaching policy changes to simple respites from the grind of working from a home filled with stir-crazy children. Here’s what they said.

Working Parents Need a Working Child Care System

America’s childcare system was in tatters before COVID. The U.S. spends less than 0.5 percent of our GDP on child care, far less than most industrialized countries. American child care funding relies on a patchwork of funding sources, often overburdening parents and keeping quality care inaccessible for low income families. The number of child care providers fell short of the demand for child care before the pandemic and dwindled further as centers shuttered under lockdown. Child Care Aware of America CEO Lynette M. Fraga says America urgently needs to repair its broken child care system.

Read the full article.

This week, Congress officially approved both federal funding for the remainder of FY2021 and COVID-19 relief, providing support to child care and other early learning programs.  

Funding for FY21 included:  

• $5.911 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) – an $85 million increase from FY 2020; and  
• $10.748 billion for Head Start/Early Head Start – a $135 million increase from FY2020.  

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 combined full-year funding with relief in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The relief funding included $10 billion dedicated to child care, $250 million in support for Head Start, $284 billion in loans for small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program, $166 billion in direct payment checks, and an extension of unemployment benefits.  

In response, Lynette M. Fraga, Ph.D., CEO of Child Care Aware® of America—the nation’s leading voice for child care—released the following statement: 

We are grateful that child care was one of the industries to receive targeted COVID-19 relief in the package. This critical funding will help providers address the financial burdens associated with increased operating costs and decreased enrollment during the pandemic. However, $10 billion is far from what the child care system needs to survive the pandemic. This will only provide short-term relief on the long road to recovery for child care. 

Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) today announced that Mario Cardona is joining CCAoA on January 4, 2021, as its new Chief of Policy and Practice.  

Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) welcomes five new Board members and four new Board officers who will assume their positions in January 2021.    

This week, President-elect Joe Biden announced the nomination of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Lynette M. Fraga, Ph.D., CEO of Child Care Aware® of America—the nation’s leading voice for child care—released the following statement: 

Child Care Aware® of America is pleased to see California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a leader with a track record in support of child care and early learning, nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. If confirmed, he would be the first Latino to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We look forward to more closely examining his record and urge the Senate to quickly consider his nomination to ensure that the country has a leader at the helm of one of our most critical agencies during this time of crisis. 

Associated Press

“Prior to the pandemic, the child care system was fractured,” said Lynette Fraga, CEO of Child Care Aware of America. “Now, it’s shattered.”

Even before the coronavirus, many parents already faced an impossible choice — caring for their children or earning a living. But COVID-19′s impact on the system has worsened that, Fraga says, and its effects risk creating “child care deserts,” leaving parents unable to return to work, reducing incomes and taking away early education opportunities crucial for a child’s development.

The U.S. child care industry has long relied on Black and Latina women, with women of color making up 40% of its workforce, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. These women have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. A July survey from the National Association for the Education of Young Children stated half of minority-owned child care businesses expect to close permanently without additional assistance.

“The pandemic has unveiled how little access to support many of these women have,” Fraga said. “It’s exacerbated and spotlighted the inequities we’ve always known existed here.”

Read the full article.

Spokane Spokesman-Review

Op-ed by Lynette M. Fraga, Ph.D., CEO of Child Care Aware of America, and Deeann Puffert, CEO of Child Care Aware of Washington.

This is a critical time for our economy. It is also a critical time for the most important workforce support of all – child care. Parents cannot work, no matter how essential they are, if they do not have child care for their children. Earlier this spring, nearly 6% of Washington nurses who responded to a survey reported they had to use sick time, or not work at all, due to not having child care.

Now, with many K-12 schools offering remote learning only, many more children are in need of child care who previously attended elementary schools. Yet our state’s child care programs are struggling to keep their doors open, and many have closed.

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High-quality child care programs don’t just fall from the sky whenever they are needed. They are built over time upon a foundation of trust, health and safety guidelines and small business ingenuity.

That’s why Child Care Aware of America and Child Care Aware of Washington are asking Congress to invest in the long-term stability and success of our country’s child care system.

We would never expect our K-12 educational system to struggle month after month with only stopgap funding, and then expect it to be 100% ready for in-person instruction when the pandemic subsides.

We cannot expect it of our mostly privately funded child care system either.

Investments reveal what matters. Investing in America’s children, families and workforce matters.

For Washington’s and the nation’s economy to reopen after the COVID-19 threat subsides, millions of families will need safe, affordable child care. Let’s make sure it will be there for all with robust public investment.

Read the full op-ed.

New York Times

In a report of U.S. child care facilities released on Sept. 24, Child Care Aware of America, a nonprofit advocacy group for providers, found that nationwide, 35 percent of nonresidential child care centers and 21 percent of in-home child care facilities that had been open before the pandemic had closed by July.

According to the largest study of its kind, published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers from Yale and Columbia surveyed more than 57,000 child care providers across 50 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico between May and June. They found no relationship between working in day cares and contracting or being hospitalized for Covid-19, regardless of race, ethnicity or other factors.

“Child care providers who reported to work during the first three months of the pandemic were no more likely to contract Covid-19 than those who did not report to work,” said Walter Gilliam, a psychologist and early childhood and education policy researcher at the Yale Child Study Center, who led the study. Most facilities in the study followed careful safety protocols.

But, he added, “If the transmission rate is high in your community, of course it’s going to get into your child care program.”

Read the full article.

Cheddar

First large-scale study finds child care is not associated with the spread of Covid-19. Cheddar's Hena Doba is joined by Yale University Professor and lead on the study, Walter Gilliam, and Child Care Aware of America CEO Lynette Fraga.

Watch the interview.