News: December 2011 Archives

Excerpt: "There's a new generation gap in Canada, and it's over money, a new poll shows. Younger adults would like the government to invest in programs for seniors as well as programs for young adults, while Canadians over 55 overwhelmingly said they would prefer the money be spent on seniors, the poll found. "I was totally blown away when the numbers came out. I had assumed that the generational tensions had emerged in Canada because older Canadians simply were not aware of the fact that the standard of living had declined for those who follow," said Paul Kershaw, a University of British Columbia professor. "But these polling data show a very different story. They show that Canadians over 55 are clearly aware of the problem, but that knowledge isn't translating into a shift in their priorities.""

Excerpt: "The province has opened the door to exploring big changes in the child-care education system. Departments like Community Services have begun discussing reforms such as more spending on public daycare and a phasing out of public funding for private operators. "It won’t happen overnight," said Community Services Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse, who joined representatives of the Canadian Union of Public Employees at a news conference Thursday.... The union is calling for an expansion of public child-care education, regulation of fees and wages earned by early childhood education workers, and phasing out of provincial funding of for-profit daycares."

Back to top>

Excerpt: " A question must be answered: given the proportion of mothers of young children in the work force, should child care not be considered an essential service? Child care services are vitally important to the well-being of society, and ultimately ensure a sound "economy." And those who take care of our children and grandchildren have very important jobs. The down side of this story is that the work of child care workers, largely made up of women, is undervalued and underpaid. Contrary to popular belief, this work is much more than baby-sitting."

Let Parents, Not Ideology, Choose Daycare for Their Children
Source: Globe and Mail, December 15, 2011 (editorial)

Excerpt: "With a shortage of regulated daycare spaces frequently declared to be one of the most pressing public-policy issues in the country – estimates put the gap at up to 165,000 spaces – one might think the appearance of a new and energetic operator of daycares would be cause for widespread celebration. And yet the entry of the Alberta-based child care firm Edleun Group Inc. into Ontario this week has been met with hand-wringing from public sector unions and various child-care advocates. Chief among the complaints is that there’s something unseemly or contradictory about looking after kids for a buck."

Back to top>

ON: Forget Big Brother, School Boards Want to be Big Mother
Source: The Record, December 15, 2011 (editorial)

"The common conceit about local politics is that it’s the most democratic and pragmatic level of government.... The machinations of municipal government are animated by the exact same ideological urges that energize federal and provincial politics. The only real difference is that bureaucracies exert much greater control over decisions locally.... In recent federal elections, both Liberals and NDP advocated multi-billion dollar child care schemes while the Harper Conservatives offered a parent-based subsidy of $100 per child per month. Given the current Conservative majority, it seems Canadian democracy has rejected the notion of universal daycare and instead favours parental freedom. And yet Waterloo Region’s two taxpayer-supported school board systems appear unhappy with such an outcome. Both the Catholic and public board have announced plans to monopolize the care of four- to seven-year-olds within the school system..."

ON: Daycare for the Masses, Brought to You by Big Government
Source: National Post, December 14, 2011 (editorial)

Excerpt: "Actually, the provision of poor service is rarely a successful model for companies seeking to stay in business. Generally the goal is to provide quality products at a fair price, and thereby built a base of satisfied customers who will return in the future, and send others as well. This applies to daycare as much as it does any other service. The notion that private companies exist only to exploit trapped buyers suggests the blinkered views of someone who has never experienced the private sector first hand."

Excerpt: "Three award-winning Windsor-based Montessori centres have been purchased by a large Alberta day care company in a move that critics fear could lead to the commercialization of Ontario’s early childhood education system…. Julie Roy, who operates the Windsor Children’s House Montessori Centres, said the quality of services provided to local children and families will not diminish under the terms of her deal. In fact, she says, educational opportunities are more likely to improve. "The staff is extremely excited about this” she said. "It's a great opportunity for Windsor.""

Back to top>

Excerpt: "Small children are about to be big business in Ontario, as an acquisition-hungry Western child-care company takes its controversial blueprint to a province whose daycare industry is struggling to keep up with demand for space. Edleun Group Inc. will spend millions to acquire seven Montessori daycares in the province – four as-yet-undisclosed centres in Toronto and three in Windsor. Parents may not see prices drop when they take over, the company says, but they also won’t rise as fast as they might have otherwise."

ON: Big-Box Child Care Buys Ontario Centres
Source: Toronto Star, December 12, 2011

Excerpt: "Calgary-based Edleun Group Inc., which began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange in early 2010, announced plans Monday to acquire seven daycares in the province, including four in the Greater Toronto Area and three in Windsor. Edleun’s expansion into Ontario comes at a time when the province’s patchwork of mostly non-profit daycare programs is teetering on the verge of collapse due to municipal cuts, chronic provincial underfunding and the loss of 4- and 5-year-olds to all-day kindergarten…. "From the point of view of children and families, this is one of the worst things that could possibly happen in Ontario," warned Canadian daycare expert Martha Friendly, of the Child Care Resource and Research Unit."

Back to top>

Excerpt : "A million women are "missing" from the UK workforce because childcare provision and family policies fail to match those of other developed countries, a major report reveals today. Britain is ranked 15th, lower than Slovenia, for female employment among the 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries because of a lack of funding for childcare, unbalanced parental leave and the way tax credits and allowances do not sufficiently encourage women to return to work, the report says."

Excerpt: "There is no other way to spin it. Waterloo Region’s two school boards are scrambling to regain control of the escalating acrimony in the battle over the future of extended daycare programs at local schools. Their unprecedented push to take over before- and after-school child care programs for kindergarten kids from third-party providers has enraged some parents and mobilized potentially displaced daycare operators. The school boards have a fight on their hands now. At least partly, they can blame themselves."

Back to top>

QC: Private Daycares May be Forced to Close
Source: Montreal Gazette, December 9, 2011 "test"

Excerpt: "Owners of private daycares fear they might be forced to close if the status quo remains with Quebec's subsidized daycare program. "If there are other installations that offer $7 daycare, people will go there," said Priscilla Boily, who runs a private daycare in Terrebonne…. Boily is part of a newly formed coalition of private daycare operators who are incensed that they cannot apply for the thousands of new subsidized spots the Liberal government has promised to create."

ON: MPP Takes Daycare Dilemma to House
Source: Cambridge Times, December 7, 2011

Excerpt: "Newly minted MPP Rob Leone is hoping to offer some political clout to help parents crying foul over local school boards' handling of extended daycare programs. The Cambridge and North Dumfries MPP introduced a private member’s bill in the provincial legislature Wednesday to garner support in his bid to prevent public and Catholic schools from taking before- and after-school daycare programs away from third-party childcare providers already established in schools."

Back to top>

Toronto, ON: Proposed Budget Could Mean $522 More for School Daycare Fees
Source: Toronto Star, December 6, 2011

Excerpt: "Thousands of Toronto parents with children in school-based child care centres will see their annual fees jump by more than $500 under the city’s 2012 budget, advocates warn. The increase comes at a time when daycares are already raising fees to cover the loss of 4- and 5-year-olds to all-day kindergarten, says Jane Mercer of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care. "How much more can cash-strapped daycares and parents endure?" said Mercer, who will address the city’s budget committee on the issue Wednesday. "This is cutting the budget on the backs of young parents and children who can least afford it," she added."

Excerpt: "A group of parents are saying thank you to nine day-care workers who spent six weeks caring for their youngsters without pay. The employees at Les Petits Marins, a francophone day-care centre attached to Saint-François Xavier school, are now out of work. The not-for-profit centre, which opened in 1996, closed its doors on Nov. 30 with a $30,000 deficit."

Back to top>

So There's a Corruption Probe - But is Quebec Daycare Still a Model for Canada?
Source: Winnipeg Free Press, December 2, 2011

Excerpt: "A prominent economist has a message for anyone disgusted by allegations of corruption in Quebec's landmark $7-a-day daycare system: Please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. With the program now under investigation for irregularities, following allegations of political cash exchanges and influence-peddling, he says he still expects other provinces to consider copying it. Pierre Fortin says four provincial governments have contacted him for information about the program, with good reason."

Excerpt: "The Minister of Education would like to hear from more Saskatchewan parents before the government makes a decision about all-day kindergarten. It's not a topic all parents agree on, Donna Harpauer said. "You know there's that mix of whether or not it's best for your child," she said. "I think to have early opportunities available is good." "

Back to top>

A Life Devoted to Healthy Development for All: J. Fraser Mustard
Source: NIEER, November 28, 2011

Excerpt: "The Toronto Star recently reported the sad news that Canadian physician and researcher Dr. James Fraser Mustard died in his home at age 84. In addition to being a part of the research team that discovered aspirin could help reduce the likelihood of heart disease, Dr. Mustard studied early childhood development with his research influencing his home province’s education policy. His Early Years Study was used by the Ministry of Education in Ontario when it established a program to offer full-day kindergarten throughout the province. His broader body of work influenced early childhood policy around the globe. Dr. Mustard was a strong global disseminator of the science base for public investments in early childhood development..."

Quebec's Corruption Squad Adds Daycare to its List of Probes
Source: Globe and Mail, December 1, 2011

Excerpt: "Quebec's $7-a-day public daycare program, considered a landmark piece of legislation in the province and a potential model for the rest of the country, is being probed for possible corruption. The province's new anti-corruption body issued a statement on Thursday saying it plans to examine the program. The province's auditor general has reported irregularities in the awarding of contracts for 18,000 subsidized daycare spaces. So an investigative body created to examine the province's scandal-plagued construction industry is turning its magnifying glass onto those responsible for cookies and naptime."

Back to top>

Quebec Auditor Sees Flaws in $7-Daycare System
Source: Montreal Gazette, November 30, 2011

Excerpt: "Renaud Lachance, presenting his final report Wednesday as Quebec's auditor-general, noted "subjective" criteria and a flawed process in granting new $7-daycare places. The province promised an additional 18,000 daycare spots in 2008, but by September 2010, 43 per cent of the new places had not been created. By September 2011, 23 per cent of the promised new places did not exist."

QC: Public Health Agency Stresses Need for More $7/Day Daycares in Low-Income Areas
Source: CTV Montreal, November 28, 2011

Excerpt: "Giving underprivileged kids a strong start can keep them from dropping out of school later in life, Montreal's public health agency said Monday. With that, it recommends Quebec ensures there are enough seven-dollar-a-day daycare spots for those who need them to give them access to quality childcare, said Dr. Richard Lessard, director of the Montreal Public Health Department."

Back to top>

Excerpt: ""If they close it down, I’d have to stay home. We don’t want to go back on social assistance," Ayalew said after learning St. Mark’s is among three city-run child-care centres that could close next August under Mayor Rob Ford’s proposed 2012 city budget. If approved by council, the centres, serving 100 children, would close to save the city $670,000 in 2012 and $1 million by 2013, the budget says. Councillor Janet Davis, vice-chair of the community development and recreation committee, said Toronto can’t afford to lose any child-care spaces when 20,000 families are waiting for subsidies and those who can afford full fees are scrambling to find spots. Under the city’s long-term plan, daycares that are losing children to all-day kindergarten should be retooling to serve younger children, Davis said."

ON: Region Fears Losing ECE Staff to School Boards
Source: St. Catherines Standard, November 30, 2011

Excerpt: "Wary of early-childhood educators jumping to better-paying full-time kindergarten jobs, Niagara Region could appeal to the province for help. The Region's public health and social services committee recommended Tuesday that Regional Chair Gary Burroughs write the Ontario government seeking competitive wages plus better benefits and training for the child-care sector. With the looming threat that they will jump ship to better-paying school board jobs, councillors hope those improvements will help recruit and retain workers."

Back to top>

Excerpt: "Saskatchewan School Boards want to see full-day kindergarten classes become mandatory. Tuesday afternoon, a resolution was adopted to lobby the provincial government to mandate full-day classes. Some school divisions already provide the curriculum at their own discretion. But the Saskatchewan School Boards Association says a provincially mandated program at all schools would benefit children in the long term."

AB: The Best Way to Help Children is to Take Their Rights Seriously
Source: Edmonton Journal, November 27, 2011 (Op Ed)

Excerpt: "With the release of the annual report of Alberta's Child and Youth Advocate this past week, we are all reminded of the very significant problems faced by far too many children and youth in our province. The timing of the release - on the day following National Child Day - may have been coincidental, but it is entirely appropriate. The intent of the Office of the Child and Youth Advocate is "to be a champion for child and youth rights; to amplify child and youth voices; to enable child and youth participation." Similarly, the purpose of National Child Day is to focus on the rights of children and our collective obligations to see that these rights are met.""

Back to top>

Excerpt: "Recent media commentary has created confusion and doubt in the community about what is actually happening here in Waterloo Region regarding the government’s plan. Specifically, the media has said the Waterloo Catholic District School Board is one of only two boards in the province choosing to run the government’s extended day program themselves. This is not true. There are at least eight school boards across Ontario taking this approach. We have important reasons for being among those eight boards."

Small Changes to Daycare Policy Has Big Impact on Jobs
Source: Globe and Mail, November 25, 2011

Excerpt: "As a labour economist, I pay attention to the government’s role in structuring childcare programs and ultimately the implications for Canada’s productive capacity and gender equality. Recently, Ontario has introduced several changes to our Early Childhood Education programs including the introduction of full day kindergarten programs for 4 and 5 year olds. They are, however, leaving many important details up to local school boards. These details matter and the Province should be paying more attention."

Back to top>

Excerpt: "Not-for-profit childcare providers have formed a coalition hoping strength in numbers will help counter a looming school board plan to take over extended daycare at elementary schools. The Waterloo Region Early Learning Coalition was founded two weeks ago by representatives of several childcare agencies who stand to lose business when public and Catholic school boards in the region take over before- and after-school care for children age four to seven. Agencies argue boards have taken away the bulk of their business and will force them to charge more to offset losses, or will drive them out of business completely."

Canadian Research Chair on Education
Source: The Morning Show, Global Toronto

Back to top>

Special Issue: Early Literacy in Contested Spaces
Source: Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2011 (subscription required)

Description: Guest editors of this special issue are María Paula Ghiso & Tamara Spencer. Articles include  'Scribbling away the Ghosts: a Bakhtinian interpretation of preschool writers and the disruption of developmental discourses' (Casey Y. Myers & Janice Kroeger),  'Challenging Dominant Discourses across Geographies in Early Childhood' (Joyce M. Duckles & Joanne Larson) and 'Native Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices: choosing language and cultural revitalization over uniformity and standardization' (Tarajean Yazzie-Mintz).

Short-Term Impact Analysis of an Expansion of Regulated Early Learning and Care in Nova Scotia
Source: Centre for Spatial Economics, December 2011

Excerpt: "In this issue of Fascinating Families we take a look at how we use our time. How much time do we spend on paid and unpaid work?. Is there a difference between time spent by men and time spent by women on care and housework? What have the trends been over the last 10 years? Our families may be getting smaller but we are spending more time on childcare than 10 years ago."

Excerpt: "Families are often faced with a range of different, complex health and psychosocial problems. Place-based approaches aim to address these complex problems by focusing on the social and physical environment of a community and on better integrated and more accessible service systems, rather than focusing principally on the problems faced by individuals. A place-based approach targets an entire community and aims to address issues that exist at the neighbourhood level, such as poor housing, social isolation, poor or fragmented service provision that leads to gaps or duplication of effort, and limited economic opportunities. By using a community engagement approach to address complex problems, a place-based approach seeks to make families and communities more engaged, connected and resilient."

Description: " To learn more about the relationship between play and learning, we invited Annie Murphy Paul -- journalist, author and mother of young children -- to talk with us about what she has uncovered in the reporting of her forthcoming book, Brilliant: The New Science of Smart.   We talk about some recent research on play-oriented learning by Alison Gopnik, a psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley, and her colleagues, which suggests that 4-year-olds learn more about how an object works when they are able to explore it instead of being told how to use it..."

The Missing Million: The Potential for Female Employment to Raise Living Standards in Low to Middle Income Britain
Source: Resolution Foundation (UK), December 10, 2011

Description: "The rise of female employment has been a central chapter of the story of living standards in the past 40 years. Yet even while reliance on women’s work has grown, the absolute pace of growth has faltered. After rising 7.4 percentage points in the 1980s, the UK female participation rate rose just 1.4 percentage points in the 2000s, leaving the UK ranked only 15th in the OECD on female employment and just 24th on a full‐time equivalent basis. Further gains in female employment present a rare opportunity to boost living standards in the years ahead. Yet although such gains are achievable, they will not come easily. They will only be won through a concerted effort to apply the lessons from the academic evidence and from the best performing countries around the world."

Back to top>

PPT: What is the Future of Learning in Canada?
Source: Paul Cappon, Canadian Council on Learning, October 2011

Description: PowerPoint presentation by Paul Cappon covers Canada's learning paradoxes, positive developments across the lifecourse, troubling trends, education processes and structures, learning to know, learning to do for skills development, Aboriginal learning, the way forward, learning from the EU and restoring a national learning agenda without the CCL.

Description: "In January and February of 2011, the Health Council of Canada held a series of seven regional sessions across Canada to learn what programs and strategies are making a difference in the health of Aboriginal mothers and young children. A large proportion of participants were frontline health care workers; the commentary offers a window into the experiences and insights of people who work with and provide care to Aboriginal women and young children. The goal of the report is to create a better understanding of and support for programs and initiatives that have the potential to reduce health disparities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians."

Back to top>

Description: The Encyclopedia has published a number of new resources, including a new synthesis on prenatal and perinatal stress and the introduction of three new topics: Emotions; Immigration; and Divorce and separation. The Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development is intended for policy-makers, service planners and service providers and for parents. It brings together articles written by internationally renowned experts on topics having to do with the psychosocial development of young children, from conception to the age of five.

Back to top>

New YouTube Channel: Balanced Literacy Diet
Source: Balanced Literacy Diet

Description: "We are pleased to introduce a new Head Start resource, Partnerships for Sustained Learning: A Guide to Creating Head Start–School Partnerships. This Guide represents one important part of a larger Head Start school readiness agenda and focuses on the importance of creating better continuity across Head Start and the early years of elementary school. Research and experience have taught us that when children’s experiences build on what has come before and connect to what comes next, they are more likely to be successful long-term learners."

Back to top>

Restoring Our Schools: The Quest for Equity in the United States
Source: Education Canada, Canadian Education Association

Excerpt: "The poor U.S. standing on international tests is a product of unequal access to the kind of intellectually challenging learning they measure. While other nations have been expanding educational access to more and more of their people and revising curricula, instruction, and assessments to support the more complex knowledge and skills, the U.S. has been turning its attention to standardized testing..."

Online Prenatal and Parenting Class Series
Source:  The Phoenix Centre for Children and Families

Description:  "Introducing... www.welcometoparenting.com!  Originally created by the experts of Invest in Kids, this newly converted, all-online Prenatal and Parenting Class Series is a one-of-a-kind program! A series of online prenatal and parenting classes for expectant and new parents - all you need to know about pregnancy, labor and delivery and becoming parents."

Back to top>

Health, Not Health Care – Changing the Conversation
Source: Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, December 1, 2011

Description: "In fall 2010, the Foundation released a discussion paper entitled 'In the Best Interests of Children and Families: A Discussion of Early Childhood Education and Care in Alberta'.  The paper was developed to stimulate discussion on how Alberta might best approach the funding and delivery of early childhood education and care in Alberta.  Following release of that paper, the Foundation, with support from its local partners, hosted five regional forums across the province to consider the ideas presented in that paper.  This current report summarizes the key themes that emerged from those discussions and provides a synthesis of participants' thoughts and responses to the discussion paper."

Back to top>