Tuned In will be off next week. Here are some resources on National Native American Heritage Month we wanted to share. 
Quotable & Notable
“It’s been really challenging [for] some of our 3- and 4-year-olds... You know, they were 18 months old when the pandemic hit. So they were in their homes; their opportunity to socialize with others wasn’t as readily available. And so they’re coming to us with some different kinds of behaviors and in a very different place than they have in the past.” 
who:
Erika Forti, superintendent of public schools in East Haven, Connecticut  

where:
Fact of the Week
This week, the Treasury Department and the IRS announced that they had distributed the fifth monthly child tax credit payments, totaling more than $15B to families of 61 million children. Since the expansion was only for 2021, these payments will stop in December unless an extension is granted by Congress. 
Policy Radar
City 
Columbus Mayor Ginther revealed details for the City’s 2022 budget. Among the plan’s strategic priorities are investments in public safety, a “parent enrichment” collaboration between the Columbus Urban League and Franklin County Municipal Courts, and a “Birth to 5: Watch Me Thrive” effort to encourage health child development. 
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Federal 
The just-passed federal $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill – not to be confused with the yet-to-be finalized Build Back Better Act – includes several provisions that would improve environmental health for children. Specifically, the Act would replace lead pipes in schools and thereby improve the quality of drinking water in schools. A 2018 report found that 43% of school districts tested for lead and of those, 37% found elevated levels.  
New from Crane
Crane faculty associate Dr. Arya Ansari is the lead author of a new study examining the possible link between school uniforms and elementary school students’ behavior. The authors found that students in schools which required uniforms did not exhibit better social behavior or attendance compared to students in schools without uniforms. However, low-income students who attended schools with a uniform requirement did exhibit better school attendance.  
Beyond the Buckeye State
ZERO TO THREE explains Oregon’s equity-centered paid family and medical leave policy. Oregon’s program will be fully implemented in 2023.  
 
San Antonio’s pre-K program is making headlines as a possible model to others, if the Build Back Better Act passes. The program is described as “a stunning example of the difference preschool can make.”  
Events & Happenings
Join Children’s Funding Project on December 1st at 2 pm for “Kids in the Polls: National Voter Support for Children and Youth Services”, a webinar to examine the findings of a national poll which yielded optimistic results of voter support for cradle-to-career programs and services. Register here. 
 
The College of Education and Human Ecology’s superintendents in residence will present three upcoming discussions for school leaders. The first panel will be on December 10th at 10 am and will be moderated by Superintendent in Residence Talisa Dixon, EdD to discuss educational equity and access. Learn more and register here. 
What We're Reading
Nancy Mendez from the Ohio child care referral agency, Starting Point, penned an opinion piece for Crain’s Cleveland Business that calls for the state to release more of its non-discretionary federal relief funds to keep child care providers in business. 
 
This article describes the personal toll taken on child care workers, many of whom are choosing to leave the sector. 
 
An article by a Children’s Defense Fund Ohio legal intern describes how the newly expanded federal Child Tax Credit is helping families better feed their children, with evidence showing a sharp decrease in reported food insecurity after the payments were issued. 
 
A new report from the Center for Maternal and Young Child Health at Groundwork Ohio shares findings from a recent landscape analysis, which looked at 20 early childhood mental health stakeholders “to explore how our state is supporting or failing to support the mental health of our youngest children and their families from the prenatal period to age five.” 
Research Round Up
This working paper, “Evidence-Based Decisions and Education Policymakers,”seeks to describe the “mental models” used by state and local policymakers in the United States when presented with research evidence and faced with decisions about how to apply it in their decision-making. Researcher Nozomi Nakajima discovered that while policymakers do have preferences for larger studies as well as those conducted in similar contexts as their own locales, they did not seem to prefer experimental studies over, say, observational ones. Another intriguing (and possibly counterintuitive) finding was that policymakers “were significantly more likely to incorporate research evidence in their decision-making process if they are able to follow and understand how these estimates were derived in the research presented to them.” In other words, they may care more about research design than we realize. 
This edition written by: Jamie O'Leary, Associate Director of Policy and Caitlin Lennon, Communications & Policy Specialist
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