Tuned In is taking a week off and will be back in your inbox on July 15.  

The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) has published individual fact sheets showing how each state would fare under the recent child care funding proposal (by Sens. Murray and Kaine as part of the federal budget reconciliation package). Ohio’s is here. 

Here is a great read about Oklahoma’s pre-K program – which has been open to all four-year-olds regardless of income since 1998 – its history as well as best practices and lessons in a politically divided climate.  

This opinion piece from a psychologist and father of two discusses the alarming amount of research on children’s declining mental health, prompting the The U.S. Surgeon General to declare a national crisis in mental health last year, and the correlation with time spent on screens and smartphones. The author’s family foundation has provided funding to UNC Chapel Hill to conduct longitudinal research examining “how technology use may be associated with changes in adolescent brain and social development, including increased risk for behavioral health disorders such as depression and anxiety.” 

The Dispatch describes Franklin County’s new RISE program, which is providing child care scholarships for those otherwise facing a benefits cliff as well as rental assistance for child care staff. 

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Notre Dame and Texas A&M – described here by K12 Dive – found that Head Start had “large scale intergenerational effects” that are worth taking into consideration when reflecting on the ROI of such programs. Specifically, among children born to parents who were the first participants of the 1965 Head Start program, researchers found decreases in teen parenthood as well as criminal engagement and increase in high school graduation and college enrollment, as well as corresponding wage increases later in life. The authors note that “These results imply that cost-benefit analyses of Head Start and similar early childhood interventions underestimate the benefits of such programs by ignoring the transmission of positive effects across generations,” and this “has important policy implications for optimal investment in these types of programs. Each disadvantaged child society helps now will lead to fewer who require assistance in the future.” The full paper can be found here as published in the Journal of Political Economy. 

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