Tuned In will be taking a short break and will resume in early January. Wishing you joy, health, and wellness this season. 
Quotable & Notable
"Helping family caregivers is not just good policy — it’s good politics. New polling from the 2020 election, commissioned by the Women Effect Action Fund, shows that a rising class of “care economy voters” — including those battered by COVID-19 and facing personal and financial strains — are focused on the need for child care, elder care, family and medical leave, and paid sick days to stay in the workforce and care for loved ones. Millions of these care economy voters played a decisive role in the 2020 election."
who:
Lisa Guide, opinion contributor


where:
Fact of the Week
According to researchers from Amplify, a digital learning company, 40% of first graders arrived at school this fall “significantly behind in early literacy skills” particularly around phonics. Education Week has more on the youngest students experiencing the “COVID slide.” 
Policy Radar
State and local 
COVID-19 
It’s not yet clear who exactly will have access to the new COVID-19 vaccines, but many early childhood advocates are pushing for child care workers to be prioritized.  
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Data 
Dispatch editor Alan Miller describes the DeWine Administration’s new data initiative, which compiles many datasets and makes them more accessible to the public than ever before. He also reminds readers of our right to all public records, not just those in public-facing portals or dashboards. 
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State priorities 
In a year-end interview with Gongwer News, Gov. DeWine said that his second biennial budget will emphasize the same priorities as his first. That is, he plans to maintain his commitment to wraparound services for K-12 students; combatting infant and mother mortality (especially for Black children and mothers); improving water quality; and expanding drug treatment (and helping the children who are impacted by Ohio’s drug epidemic), among other areas. The executive draft of the state budget is expected in January or February. 
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Beyond the Buckeye State
Here’s a look at Alabama’s pre-K program and how it pivoted during the pandemic to meet the needs of children and families.    
 
California’s paid family leave program, the first state program like it in the country, is set to receive an expansion under the state’s new master early childhood plan.  
 
File this under one of the more unexpected headlines we’ve read in a while. This “night kindergarten” class at a KIPP school network in New Jersey was created to meet the needs of working families. 
What We're Reading
Hechinger Report shares some good reminders on how to talk to young children about the frustrations and uncertainty of the pandemic. 
 
Here’s what a “Marshall Plan” for tutoring students could look like, “to enable Title I schools nationwide to substantially advance the achievement of their students who suffered mightily from COVID-19 closures and related trauma.” 
 
The 74 Million offers a worthwhile read as we reflect back on the year: 16 charts that changed the way we thought about America’s schools this year. (Shout out to OSU professors Vladimir Kogan and Stephane Lavertu whose research was covered here.)  
Research Round Up
This piece published by the Child and Family blog argues that play in childhood is more important now (during the pandemic) than ever. It points to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ first-ever statement on the importance of play as well as research showing that “rough-and-tumble play improves children’s social cognition, social competence, and spatial ability, and imaginative or pretend play can improve children’s creativity and psychological and moral development.” 
 
A newly published study in the “Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis” found that Black teachers were scored more harshly during classroom evaluations than their white counterparts. Hechinger Report explains the study, which can be found in full here. 
This edition written by: Jamie Davies O'Leary, Associate Director of Policy and Caitlin Lennon, Communications & Policy Specialist
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