Columbus Recreation and Parks Department is offering free mobile produce markets from now until December for eligible families (200% or below of FPL).  
Quotable & Notable
"In fact, this is the first time in the history of the KRA where we have more than a quarter of all incoming kindergartens who are in the lowest readiness level."
who:
Eben Dowell, interim director of ODE’s Office of Research, Evaluation and Advanced Analytics 

where:
Fact of the Week
The Ohio Department of Education recently reported that prior to the pandemic (fall 2019) less than 23% of students were in the lowest readiness level on the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA), but by fall 2021 that had increased to more than 28% of students.  
Policy Radar
Early learning in Ohio cities 
Columbus City Council President Pro Tem Elizabeth Brown recently sponsored ordinances to extend summer programs for the Early Start Columbus initiative, which funds eligible 3- and 4- year-olds in Columbus to attend high-quality preschool, as well as for Crane and Schoenbaum’s Summer Success at home reading program.  
 
Commissioners in Lucas County just voted to authorize $1.5 million in federal funds to go toward expansion of Toledo public pre-K programs. 
Beyond the Buckeye State
Michigan launched a public preschool pilot for three-year-old children, but funding for the program is set to expire and state leaders have yet to prioritize continuation of funding. 
 
California is one of just a few states without a teaching credential focused on early childhood. Last week, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing announced that they will create a new teaching credential for pre-K - 3 that will require literacy training for teachers. 
 
To address teacher shortages in the state, Alabama’s Board of Education plans to vote on lowering the Praxis teacher qualification test score needed to gain a teaching certificate. This means the state would accept a below-passing score on the Praxis, but those teachers would have to provide additional evidence of training, such as a higher college GPA or 100 hours of high-quality professional learning. 
What We're Reading
A working paper just published in National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that expansive child care subsidies like what the Biden Administration proposed in the Build Back Better Act would send over a million American moms into the workforce. It would also enhance wages for child care professionals. 
 
Child and Family Blog reviewed 39 studies on reading digital storybooks and found that digital books can promote story comprehension more than the same paper version, but only when digital books are equipped with content-related enhancements. On the other hand, the review also found that digital books without enhancements actually have less effect than a paper book and that some enhancements in digital books can interfere with comprehension.  
 
New America’s Better Life Lab has a page of resources exploring the structural and cultural barriers to men taking on a more equitable role in caregiving.  
Research Round Up
University of Michigan researchers conducted brain scans of a sample of children and adolescents and found that rates of neighborhood disadvantage had an effect on brain activity – specifically on the amygdala, which is responsible for threat detection and emotion-processing. The researchers also examined the role played by neighbors and other adults when they have shared norms in relation to crime and violence prevention, finding that an absence of these norms or social processes (or a permissiveness toward safety) affected the fear region of children’s brains. The Conversation explains the study and why this line of research is important. 
 
According to a new study from Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research which examined achievement data from over 2 million U.S. students, the pandemic widened learning inequality for students in high-poverty schools. Remote learning was a primary cause of this. The Hechinger Report explains more here about these sobering trends.   
This edition written by: Jamie O'Leary and Caitlin Lennon
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