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.”

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.

MarketWatch

With inflation at a 40-year high, families are feeling the pinch of higher prices at the grocery store checkout, on their home heating bill, and when they pay rent.

But there’s another expense that’s been growing even faster in recent years: child care. The growth in child-care prices exceeded the annual rate of inflation in 2020 and 2019, according to a new report from Child Care Aware.

EdSurge

Nearly 16,000 child care programs across 37 U.S. states have permanently closed since the pandemic began, representing a 9 percent decline in the total number of licensed child care providers, according to a new report published this month by Child Care Aware of America.

Though perhaps less severe than some of the worst-case scenarios laid out in early 2020, the loss of thousands of providers reflects an ever-worsening crisis in the field of early care and education, accelerated by—but not originating with—the arrival of COVID-19.

These closures are sure to have major effects on everyone touched by the child care industry, says Mario Cardona, Chief of Policy and Practice at Child Care Aware of America, a national membership association that works to improve child care and the early childhood profession and that conducted the survey which was the basis for the new report.

Read the full article. 

Bloomberg

After the pandemic struck and lockdowns ensued, Congress included $3.5 billion for childcare in its initial rescue package in April 2020 and another $10 billion in a second bill that December. But at $39 billion, “the scale of the ARPA funding is very different,” said Anne Hedgepeth, senior director of federal and state government affairs at Child Care Aware of America, a network of childcare care resource and referral agencies.

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Providers faced additional challenges. Keeping employees and children uninfected is an expensive endeavor. Social distancing and other precautions necessarily limit the number of kids who can be safely accommodated—which in turn limits potential revenue. While most of the U.S. economy has suffered greatly as a result of the crisis, the childcare industry has been in the eye of the storm. 

And the storm isn’t over yet. “There’s a desperate and ongoing need for a lifeline,” Hedgepeth said.

Read the full article.