What if K-12 education were as fragmented as early child care and education?

If you have time for only one read today, let it be this one: a useful thought exercise regarding the absurdity of how early care and education is treated in the U.S.

Tuned In will take a break next week and will be back in your inbox Friday, February 23.

QUOTABLE & NOTABLE

“In reality, in most of the United States, communities invest in public school buildings that have room for all high-school age young people, and they at least adequately fund the administration, data systems, and supplies necessary to run those schools. K-12 schools generally have stable funding through local property taxes, with some help from state and federal programs that are also relatively stable. Parents don’t have to pay anything to send their kids to a public high school, and high school teachers earn an average annual wage significantly higher than the U.S. median. None of that is true in early education and care, a fragmented non-system that has been mired in perpetual crisis for decades now.

“... Across the country, the early education non-system is weak in every area that we take for granted in K-12, for example, physical infrastructure, administrative oversight, and data systems for tracking children’s progress and their transitions from one type of care to another. Above all, early education and care lacks the kind of sustainable financial model that makes K-12 schools a public good rather than a private expense to be borne by families. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Who:

Nonie Lesaux, Emily Wiklund Hayhurst, and Jon Wallace

Where: “A Fragmented Non-System: Highlighting the Lack of Sustainable Funding for ECE in America” published by New America

FACT OF THE WEEK

More than 14.4 million children under age 6 — which represents 68% of all children in the U.S. — have all of their “available” parents in the workforce according to a new data dashboard developed by Center for American Progress. These data underscore the need for a stable and sustainable child care system.

POLICY RADAR

Ohio announced this week that it would fund the costs of about 4,000 eye exams and glasses for K-12 students who need vision care. The program will be administered by the Ohio Optometric Foundation. A Statehouse News Bureau article published last year outlines the pressing need for vision care among Ohio children.

EVENTS & HAPPENINGS

The Columbus Metropolitan Club is hosting a panel on “understanding the new landscape of child care” on February 14; register here.

BEYOND THE BUCKEYE STATE

Bipartisan Policy Center published a tool for examining how licensing requirements for early childhood directors and teachers differ from state to state.

ProPublica highlights the child care crisis in Utah — a larger proportion of Utah families live in areas with few or no licensed care facilities than in any other state. State lawmakers have been resistant to investing in child care, and the ProPublica article explores how political, cultural, gender and generational divides in the Beehive State complicate efforts to win support for bolstering child care.

WHAT WE'RE READING

A new paper by the Early Childhood Scientific Council on Equity and the Environment published by Harvard examines the consequences of extreme heat on children’s development and health.

This article describes how the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has reduced weekly child care fees for DOD-run programs — as low as $54 weekly for those in the lowest income bracket. The fee structure change is a result of an executive order from President Biden in 2023 requiring adjustments to child care fees for service members. Some have touted the military’s child care program as a model worth learning from, described by The 74 as “a dedicated, sustained public investment in child care across multiple settings.” Also of interest (though behind a paywall): The New York Times wrote in 2021 about lessons from the military for child care policy. (Did you know child care is considered essential to “military readiness”?)

This article from New York Magazine’s The Cut serves as a good reminder that many American families utilize patchwork rather than formal arrangements for child care — some out of financial necessity and some by choice. In fact, care provided by a relative other than a parent was the most popular form of child care, according to data from the U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey.

RESEARCH ROUND-UP

Hechinger Report outlines new research from economists that indicates too much overscheduling can be detrimental for children’s mental health. It’s an interesting and important analysis, but it curiously groups time spent on homework with extracurricular activities — both are considered “enrichment” in the analysis. It would be interesting to see the effects of sports, music or art lessons separate from homework time, the latter of which seems to have clear diminishing returns when scheduled in excess.

This edition was written by Jamie O’Leary.

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