Here’s yet another reminder from research that learning is a natural state for babies, who do best when adults follow their lead. 

Quotable & Notable

“One of the things that needs to be done frankly is to have better child care in the state, make it more accessible.... The one area where frankly we’ve [the Ohio legislature] had a disagreement and where I think we need more resources is in the area of child care.”

Who:

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine

Where: “‘We need more resources’: Gov. Mike DeWine on child care” published on Cleveland.com

Fact of the Week

Ohio lawmakers are proposing an end to the state income tax by 2023 — a move that would reduce tax revenue by $13 billion. Options to offset this revenue loss presumably include sales tax increases, spending cuts or other measures.

Policy Radar

A proposal in the U.S. Senate would significantly increase the amount that eligible families could receive in tax credits for child care expenses — up to $4,000 per child, instead of the current per-child cap of $600. Specifically, it would make permanent the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) expansion changes that were enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

First Five Years Fund highlights a series of changes to federal tax provisions being sought by U.S. House representatives (who are part of the Bipartisan Pre-K and Child Care Caucus) that would “leverage the tax code” to help families better afford child care. They are seeking changes to the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, Dependent Care Assistance Program, Employer-Provided Child Care Credit and Child Tax Credit — programs which are further described here.

Crane in the News/New from Crane

Ohio State News highlights a study by Crane research specialist Dr. Jing Sun and colleagues examining the impact of kindergarten transition on children’s development and later skills.  

Crane’s Read Together, Grow Together, an initiative that provides literacy resources for reading aloud with children and has been created in partnership with ReadOhio and the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, is also being shared on the website of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.

A practitioner brief from the Crane Center and our Schoenbaum Family Center partners describes how our researchers devised and tested the Kindergarten Screening Assessment, a tool to measure school readiness in a relatable way for parents and families.

Beyond the Buckeye State

Nearly 6,000 more families in Illinois will have access to pre-K through the Smart Start initiative — a state program that infused $250 million into early childhood education programs for eligible children.

Ohio is not alone among states in its push for science-based reading methods. An article by K-12 Dive outlines a recent report from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), which praises those states with policies that strengthen implementation of the science of reading — and indicts several states for having too little policy guidance for how teachers teach reading.

What We’re Reading

Elliot Haspel cautions that an overhaul of the federal Child Tax Credit — while good policy to assist families financially and combat child poverty — does not negate the need for Congressional action on child care.

Crain’s Cleveland Business offers two timely reads about child care. The first article describes the challenges facing child care providers through the lens of one provider in northeast Ohio. The second is an op-ed further describing the market failures inherent to the current system and what’s being done to address it.

This edition was written by Jamie O'Leary.

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