Early Learning Nation

Child Care Aware of America’s Symposium brings together individuals from across the country to discuss research, policy and practices related to the early child care and education community. Taking place May 1-4 in Arlington, Va., this year’s four-day event offers opportunities to connect with thought leaders, Congressional staff and early education professionals from across the nation.

Early Learning Nation asked participants and speakers, What does the symposium theme Unite/Disrupt/Transform mean to you? 

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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.”

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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

The Hill

Op-ed by Mario Cardona, Chief of Policy & Practice at Child Care Aware of America and Denise Forte, interim CEO at The Education Trust, an advocate for the high academic achievement of all students, particularly those of color or living in poverty. 

The truth is that our system of child care has historically overlooked and marginalized people of color, indigenous communities, rural communities, shift workers, differently-abled children, infants and toddlers and immigrant families.

It is past time that those of us involved in justice work strive with a common purpose to build a more affordable, accessible, high-quality system of early learning. That effort is inexorably bound to making advancements toward, at minimum, racial justice, gender equity and disability rights. The principles released by the Leadership Conference are an important step, as it guides advocacy on federal activity. 

Read the full op-ed. 

The Hechinger Report

Op-ed by CCAoA CEO Lynette M. Fraga, Ph.D. and Dr. Renée Boynton-Jarrett, a pediatrician and social epidemiologist, an associate professor at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine, and Vice President of CCAoA's Board of Directors.

Who will care for our nation’s children as we seek to recover economically?

Our parents, early learning providers and program administrators are overwhelmed, overburdened and under-resourced, and our kids are feeling the impact. Cumulatively, this puts the mental health of all at stake.

Too many parents also struggle to pay for child care. Children get the care their parents can afford, and the costs rival those of in-state college tuition. All the while, early educators manage the costs of providing care through low wages and strained working conditions. Quality suffers.

We must transform our approach to child care and early childhood education.

Read the full op-ed.

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.”

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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.