Franklin County Commissioner Erica Crawley describes the new RISE initiative and investment in early childhood education. 
Quotable & Notable
“There are no magic answers in parenting, just as there is no magic number of words a baby must hear. But there are two crucial and specific things children need to build a healthy foundation of cognitive and socio-emotional skills that will serve them throughout life: nurturing interaction with caregivers and protection from toxic stress.... But the issue facing our country is that we’ve made it almost impossible for far too many parents to meet those two basic needs. We’ve erected barriers in front of almost everyone — from the mundane to the monumental. And we’re only going to move the needle on improving outcomes for kids with systematic reforms, not individual choices. I actually think this is precisely why parents feel that every decision is so critical: when you have no control over the most important things, you tend to focus on the smaller things you can control.” 
who:
Dr. Dana Suskind 

where:
Fact of the Week
CDC data from 2020 show Ohio has the 10th worst infant mortality rate in the country. To address this, $2.25 million in state funding will be dedicated to expanding a pilot program that provides housing to pregnant women dealing with or at risk of homelessness. 
Policy Radar
Columbus
Council President Pro Tempore Elizabeth Brown recently sponsored an ordinance that would provide $500,000 in grant funding to the United Way of Central Ohio to establish a program for third-grade reading success. 
• • • • • • •
State 
A bill being heard in the Ohio General Assembly (HB 508) would make significant changes in child custody cases, with shared parenting becoming the new default. “Although HB 508 would set a presumed outcome for child custody cases, the bill also explicitly states the factors and scenarios, such as incidents of domestic violence or neglect, that would contest the presumption of equal parenting.”
‌
Crane in the News
NBC4i wrote about an Ohio bill that would establish universal preschool, and I (Jamie) spoke to them about it – specifically the body of evidence (not just a single study) that shows that pre-K helps children get ready for schooling, and why it’s so important that we invest in early educators. 
Beyond the Buckeye State
Colorado is poised to finalize legislation that would soon offer universal preschool for four-year-olds in the state. Note, however, that the definition of universal preschool would be to provide just “10 hours per week of preschool services for children in the year preceding eligibility for kindergarten” with more hours offered for families with low incomes or those meeting other “qualifying factors.” 
 
A new Urban Institute report examines the various state rules and requirements for early education teachers and argues that the wide variety of policies from state to state “could have long-term impacts on the diversity of the field [of ECE].” 
What We're Reading
Akron Beacon Journal describes efforts to curb chronic absenteeism in the district, where nearly half of kindergartens were marked as such this school year. 
 
The Chronicle of Higher Education highlights the unique challenges faced by faculty with young children who have not been given opportunity for vaccination yet. The author shares her own challenges, as well as the obstacles facing faculty of color or first-generation faculty and the long-term implications pandemic circumstances may have “for the future of academe.” 
 
The Dispatch describes drops observed in Ohio student reading scores – as well as trends nationwide. The Hechinger Report describes reading interventions attempted to mitigate those learning losses. 
Research Round Up
This is exactly the type of headline that underscores just how long-reaching the adverse impacts of the pandemic may end up being for young children who lived through it: New Research: Babies Born During COVID Talk Less with Caregivers, Slower to Develop Critical Language Skills. Researchers from Brown and Columbia Universities and from the LENA research project found that children born nine months into COVID-10 “produced significantly fewer vocalizations and experienced fewer serve-and-return interactions in the first months of life than those born before the pandemic." The reductions in early indicators of speech were also lowest for those in families of the lowest income quartile. 
 
More research on the possible adverse effects of the pandemic: This article (with OSU’s Dr. Keely Pratt as co-author) looked at the associations between shelter-in-place regulations and remote learning on factors related to obesity risk among a sample of youth ages 2-17 years. The authors found that there were increases in weight especially for low-income youth, with median weight gain the greatest among those already experiencing severe obesity as well as those who were younger (ages 2-9), female, and of an ethnic minority. 
This edition written by: Jamie O'Leary and Caitlin Lennon
• • • • • • •
If you like this newsletter, forward to a friend! Subscribe here.
• • • • • • •