News: February 2012 Archives

Ontario’s Focus on All-Day Kindergarten Ignores Looming Child-Care Crisis
Source: Toronto Star, February 18, 2012

Excerpt: "The only program the McGuinty government ruled out cutting among the dozens targeted in last week's Drummond report was full-day kindergarten. Since he made it a cornerstone of his 2007 re-election campaign, Premier Dalton McGuinty has trumpeted the $1.5 billion initiative as the most important development in public education in a generation. But as school boards across the province begin kindergarten registration for next fall — when half of Ontario's 4- and 5-year-olds will be offered the full-day program — many parents and child development experts are begging the question: What about the 0- to 3-year-olds?  Once touted as the most important developmental years in a child's life, Queen's Park seems to have completely forgotten them."

Excerpt: "Changes to provincial child-care subsidies may mean more Albertans can afford day care for their children. As of April 1, the family income required to qualify for the province's maximum child-care subsidy will increase to $50,000 from $35,100, the provincial government announced Friday. Nearly 5,000 more Alberta families are expected to be approved for the subsidy as a result of the higher income threshold, announced as part of this year's budget. The Alberta government plans to spend a total of $264 million on child care this year, an 8.4 per cent increase since last year, according to the department of Human Services."

Excerpt: "The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has signed a new collective agreement with Kids and Company, a private child care provider, with over 40 centres in 14 cities across Canada. In Ontario, 15 Kids and Company centres in Toronto, Mississauga, Ajax and Ottawa are represented by CUPE. The 200 child care workers, members of CUPE Local 4823, fought off major concessions and received wage increases in each year of the five-year agreement.  CUPE Local 4823 had been without a contract for a year and bargaining since the spring of 2011."

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Excerpt: "Ontario’s education system would be set back a decade if the province were to implement the tough measures recommended by Don Drummond, warned educators who were left reeling by his call for cuts to full-day kindergarten, larger classes and even charging some students to ride the school bus.... Yet even changing it would remove many benefits, insisted Kerry McCuaig, the fellow in early childhood policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. “What is worrisome is the recommendation that full-day kindergarten be delivered without early childhood educators” who are trained specifically in early childhood development, she said."

Excerpt: "On February 28, Scott Podrebarac, System Administrator - Early Learning Program, will be honoured as one of Canada's Outstanding Principals for 2012 - an award presented by The Learning Partnership and recognizes the leadership role Principals play in building great school communities. "We are so fortunate to have Scott's exceptional leadership in our Board," states Linda Fabi, Director of Education. “Scott makes an outstanding contribution to schools and families through his leadership of the Early Learning Program. We are very proud of Scott's accomplishment - it is well deserved!""

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Drummond Recommends More Pain but No Gain for Early Childhood Education
Source: Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario (AECEO), February 16, 2012 (news release)

Excerpt: "In the wake of the Drummond report release the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario (AECEO) commends the Provincial government for publically stating full day kindergarten will not be cancelled....The AECEO believes the Premier should continue to support the vision for the program by ensuring that vital components are not removed for the sake of saving money in the short term.  Removing the registered early childhood educator (RECE) from the classroom would have the most profound impact on full day kindergarten. Registered early childhood educators are specialists in early child development and care.  Their partnership with teachers is instrumental to the success of the early learning initiative that is supported by research, government and parents."

ON: Education Cuts
Source: CBC Toronto, February 15, 2012

Excerpt: "Parents reacting to the Drummond Report. That's because some of the recommendations included higher class sizes and annual fees for using school buses… and early educators in kindergarten classrooms would also be cut…. [Says Eduardo Sousa,] "By removing all of these extra staff and all of these supports we're setting these children up for failure."" (video)

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QC: Quebec Daycare Strike Suspended
Source: CBC, February 16, 2012

Excerpt: "Full-day kindergarten could be circled for scrapping or revamping. Tuition rebates for undergraduate post-secondary students could be underlined for rolling back. The “victory lap” option of a fifth year of high school may be earmarked for erasure. The choices will be hard. Who gets priority in an atmosphere of education cutbacks — kindergartners or college-minded teens?  "There’s going to have to be some political courage to do the right thing for students," said Catherine Fife, the chair of the Waterloo Region Public School Board and president of the Ontario Public School Boards Association.  "Pitting our youngest students against our oldest students is not necessarily the best route to take.""

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Is All-Day Kindergarten Really a Leg Up?
Source: Globe and Mail, February 14, 2012 (editorial)

Excerpt: "Ontario's finance minister says the province will sell the LCBO headquarters in downtown Toronto but will not scrap full-day kindergarten... "Mr. Drummond does recommend closing it, we think that’s a priority program," Duncan said Monday.  "Since the election, whenever a minister spends more money, we have to identify specific offsets, so we will continue to do that as well.""

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From House to Crèche, Women are Still Juggling Bébé and Work
Source: Globe and Mail, February 10, 2012

Excerpt: "Try to dispel the image of children as tiny veal calves shoved into pens by callous farmhands, if you can, and instead consider that in many parts of the world it’s perfectly acceptable, even favourable, to have other people raise your children. That is, if the government has invested in a system where child-care workers are valued, where children’s well-being is valued, and – this is crucial – women's ability to work without bankrupting themselves or losing their sanity is also valued."

Transcript: "Advocates of early childhood learning met with the Minister of Education today. They're trying to convince New Brunswick to expand publicly funded education and care to all 2- to 5-year-olds. Several pilot projects have already shown that preschoolers thrive in school-centred daycare programs and that they perform better in school later in life. Margaret Norrie McCain has been a relentless proponent of early education, spending her own money and time on research and pilot projects to prove the point. She joins me now from Frederict..."

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Rethinking Daycare in New Brunswick
Source: CBC TV New Brunswick, February 10, 2012 (video - length: 2.5 minutes - runs from minute 8:30 to 11:00)

Nurturing Moms May Help Their Child's Brain Develop
Source: U.S. News, January 30, 2012

Excerpt: "Preschool children whose moms are loving and nurturing have a larger hippocampus, an area of the brain involved in learning, memory and stress response, when they reach school age, a new study finds. "It is to our knowledge the first study that links early maternal nurturance to the structural development of a key brain region," said study author Dr. Joan Luby, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "It provides very powerful evidence of the importance of early nurturing for healthy brain development and has tremendous public health implications.""

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Drummond Commission: Taking Ontario Out of Commission
Source: rabble.ca, February 13, 2012

Excerpt: "Don Drummond, a former executive and chief economist at TD Bank (a major investor in Public-Private Partnership schemes in Ontario) is heading what has become known as the Drummond Commission. The recently retired financier has been instructed to only consider strategies for cutting costs, not methods of raising revenue. Drummond must have been delighted by the challenge, as he has already authored a number of reports calling for the privatization of social services, and currently opines such views on the boards of various pro-privatization organizations. Meanwhile, the Ontario government has failed to open up the process to public input, failed to establish legislative committees on the topic, and failed to ensure the inclusion of pre-budget hearings.  This is not to say that McGuinty will adopt all 400 recommendations of the Commission into his 2012 budget. Rather, Drummond's gloomy economic forecast and extreme proposals will likely be used to scare Ontarians into accepting a milder but no less callous plan."

Excerpt: "Megan Vanderlee hopes all three of her children have the opportunity to attend full-day kindergarten. The Virgil mother said her five-year-old son, John, currently spends full days in class at St. Michael's School and loves it. Not only is he having fun, he’s learning, she said. "His reading skills are phenomenal," she said. "It blows my mind every time he reads." A QMI Agency report said the provincial government's full-day kindergarten program will be on the chopping block when Don Drummond releases results of his study Wednesday on how to wrestle down Ontario’s $16-billion deficit and $200-billion accumulated debt. "It would be a shame to go backwards," Vanderlee said. She said her four-year-old son, Sam, attends junior kindergarten on Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other Friday. "Sam wishes he could go every day with his brother," she said, noting she plans to eventually enrol Sam and eventually her daughter Claire, 2, in all-day kindergarten."

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Excerpt: "It shouldn’t be any surprise to those following the all-day kindergarten file that the grand project has caught the attention — and scalpel — of economist Don Drummond, charged with recommending how Ontario can pare back its spending. Since all-day kindergarten was hatched in 2009, I and others have asked how Ontario will pay for it. I asked the same question during last fall’s provincial election, and there were next to no answers, from any major party, even though all three said they’d keep rolling the plan out."

Excerpt: ""Full-day kindergarten is an important investment that's helping make Ontario's education system one of the best in the world," said ETFO President Sam Hammond in the wake of rumours that Drummond will recommend the program be cut. "Full-day kindergarten, along with other government initiatives like reducing primary size classes, is providing children with a definite advantage and head-start when it comes to developing literacy, numeracy and social skills." "We've indicated to the government that there are other savings that would actually contribute to more productive and engaging classrooms," said Hammond. "For example, EQAO testing could be eliminated, changed or moved to random sample testing.""

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Description: "According to a report in a local newspaper, full day kindergarten could be on the chopping block to help the province deal with its deficit. Laura spoke with Charles Pascal, the man behind the creation of all-day kindergarten find out why he thinks it's…" (Video)

Kindergarten Defenders
Source: CBC, February 10, 2012

Description: "Toronto residents say the cash-strapped province should keep its budget cuts away from all-day kindergarten, Nil Koksal reports." (Video)

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Full-Day Kindergarten on Chopping Block: Drummond Report Exclusive
Source: Toronto Sun, February 10, 2012

Excerpt: "Parents love it. Critics call it free all-day babysitting. Love it or hate it, the government’s costly new full-day kindergarten program is on the chopping block. Don Drummond will propose axing the all-day school program for tots in his much anticipated report on ways to control government spending, a senior Queen’s Park source says. Drummond, a former TD bank economist, has been given the job of finding ways to wrestle the government’s whopping $16 billion deficit and $200 billion accumulated debt under control." (Text and video)

ON: Drummond to Suggest Scrapping All-Day Kindergarten
Source: CP24, February 10, 2012

Excerpt: "A highly-anticipated spending review by a former TD bank economist will suggest scrapping all-day kindergarten in Ontario to save hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a report. In a lengthy report set to be released next week, Don Drummond will propose axing the full-day program for four year olds…"

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Excerpt: " Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects."

NS: Crime Prevention Starts in Early Childhood
Source: Chronicle Herald, February 8, 2012 (editorial)

Excerpt: "Youth (12-17 years of age) crime is higher in Nova Scotia than the Canadian average: 8,903 per 100,000 people in 2010 compared to a national rate of 6,147 (Statistics Canada). In response, politicians, professionals in the justice sector and other stakeholders have devised various programs for "at-risk youth…. Research tells us that these intensive programs are costly, don’t reach all who need them, and start too late. It turns out that it’s much easier and less expensive to start in early childhood, a life stage that is rarely mentioned when people talk about crime prevention."

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Excerpt: "The majority of Canadians think the feds should invest more money into making it easier for Canadians to start and raise families, according to new research from the University of British Columbia. According to a McAllister Opinion Research poll, 85% of Canadians want to spend more time with their families and 60% want the government to enact policy changes that make it easier to raise a family."

The Real Daycare Challenge: Making Money
Source: Globe and Mail, February 8, 2012

Excerpt: "Edleun sees a huge opportunity in a deeply fragmented industry where, it says, the other five biggest operators have just 1 per cent of Canada’s child-care centres. Growth can come, Edleun says, from both acquisitions and building new centres. Citing Statistics Canada, Edleun says fewer than 20 per cent of Canada’s children under the age of six with mothers in the work force have access to a licensed child care space. This creates a “child care gap” of 2.2 million spaces, Edleun argues.... Filling this need sounds like a fabulous plan, which leads one to wonder: If all this is so obvious, why hasn’t anyone done it before?"

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AB: Corporate Caregiver, Kids and Company, Opens in Edmonton
Source: Edmonton Journal, February 8, 2012

Excerpt: "Working parents in Edmonton have a new child-care option that offers a bright, airy downtown facility, guaranteed placement, emergency backup care, nutritious meals, education programs, no late pickup fees, and even eldercare services. The catch is, you can’t use it unless your employer has signed up to be a client, and paid an annual fee starting at $5,000 for membership per company. Kids and Company, a Toronto-based corporate-sponsored child-care provider, is opening its first Edmonton location, at 10304 108th Street, in the warehouse district. They offer full-time, part-time or emergency child care."

Quebec's Second Daycare Strike Planned for Friday
Source: Global Montreal, February 7, 2012

Excerpt: "MONTREAL - A union leader says workers at Quebec's publicly run daycares will launch a province-wide one-day strike Friday if no progress is made on contract talks in the next few days....
The work stoppage closed 119 daycares in Montreal, Laval, the Montérégie, the Mauricie and central Quebec regions. The workers at Centre Petit Enfance (CPE) daycares in these areas took the day off to protest against what they say is the slow process in negotiating a new contact. The old one expired two years ago."

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Excerpt: "We are writing to you on the sixth anniversary of your announcement of the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) to make a proposal about this fund. We make this proposal in the current fiscal, social and economic context. In this context, the continuing high rate of child poverty and the acute need of Canadian children and working families for adequate child care must be foremost priorities. Specifically, we propose that the $2.5 billion annual federal government UCCB expenditure be divided between provincial/ territorial/ Aboriginal ECEC programs and the National Child Benefit for low and modest income families."

Excerpt: "Frustrated with a lack of development on provincial and national childcare programs, advocates are taking their concerns above the British Columbian and Canadian governments and going straight to the United Nations.  In a confidential meeting today in Geneva, Susan Harney and Lynell Anderson of the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC (CCCABC) will join a number of Canadian children's advocates making presentations to the UN working group on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Canada signed in 1990."

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Excerpt: "The rollout of full-day kindergarten; how’s it going?  It seemed like a pretty simple question at the time. But after a few days of research, and numerous phone calls to school principals of Toronto District School Board (TDSB) that either already have the full-day kindergarten programs, or are about to get them, the answer is unclear. What is clear is that the seamless day that was touted by Charles Pascal in his 2009 report is not really happening yet, and where pre-and-post kindergarten programming has been implemented, or is about to be implemented, the implementation is messy and confusing. From a working parent’s perspective, the idea of full-day kindergarten is viewed as a panacea..."

Excerpt: "Daycare company Edleun is teaming up with one of the nation's largest landlords to bring much-needed new childcare spots to apartment buildings. The move is the latest piece in the Calgary firm's aggressive expansion of its controversial model of for-profit daycare centres…. "We see opportunity to bring more availability of childcare to families that might not have access to childcare centres," he said. "These are in established neighbourhoods where we couldn’t get in otherwise." Edleun’s plan is to eventually build daycares in Capreit properties across the province."

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Excerpt: "Developmental psychologist and best-selling author Dr. Gordon Neufeld has thoughts about early childhood education that may come as an unwelcome surprise to parents of preschoolers and education policy-makers. Neufeld is against four-year-old kindergarten. He's also against five year-old kindergarten. And possibly even six-year-old kindergarten. Unless, of course, kindergarten is all about play and not at all about results."

Excerpt: "Almost six years ago, Stephen Harper scrapped a national early learning and care program, putting an end to arguably what would have been the most important contribution to nation-building since universal health care. In a report that came out Tuesday, Fraser Mustard (who passed away a week ago) and two colleagues suggest that when it comes to supporting early child development, we may be back to building a better Canada one province at a time.  Using the thin veil of "choice" for parents, Harper substituted a so-called child-care program to provide parents 100 bucks per month for each child under 6 — enough to buy Aunt Emma a nice gift for minding the kids — and seriously impeded the ability to build consistently available and affordable early learning and care centres across the country that so many Canadian parents desperately need. Given that Harper has turned Ottawa into an evidence-free zone — with his crime bill as the latest example — he ignored the social, economic and scientific evidence regarding the important return on investing in early learning. Many thought Canada would be left even further behind as a result."

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Lifelong Payoff for Attentive Kindergarten Kids
Source: Nouvelles (University of Montreal), January 30, 2012

Excerpt: "Attentiveness in kindergarten accurately predicts the development of “work-oriented” skills in school children, according to a new study published by Dr. Linda Pagani, a professor and researcher at the University of Montreal and CHU Sainte-Justine. Elementary school teachers made observations of attention skills in over a thousand kindergarten children…. Over time, the researchers identified the evolution of three groups of children: those with high, medium, and low classroom engagement."

Excerpt: "Third-party daycare providers can stay in the region’s Catholic schools…. The Catholic board, along with the public board, is still going ahead with unprecedented in-Ontario plans to run its own kindergarten extended day programs in all schools. It intends to offer the program in 22 of 45 schools next fall. But, in an about-face on Monday, the Catholic board gave third parties the option to carry on in their current school locations."

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Excerpt: "Daycare is an ongoing issue in Ontario, and MPP Cheri DiNovo said parents and daycare providers in Parkdale-High Park know this community is one of the worst hit when it comes to wait times, daily costs, and new openings…. DiNovo, who hosted the town hall Jan. 26, explained that in addition to the shortage of childcare spaces, providers can't cut through the red tape to open new spots, while the cost is becoming prohibitive for some families. Even the families who can afford childcare are waiting, sometimes for years, to find a space for their child. Compounding all of this, the implementation of all-day kindergarten will have massive impacts on the existing childcare system, she said."

Excerpt: "Peel regional council has put off the closure of 12 daycare centres amid protests from dozens of angry parents. Council decided unanimously Thursday to defer a decision and set up a task force to look at their options, CBC's Charlsie Agro reported from Region of Peel Headquarters."

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Podcast: Abecedarian Study Tracks Impact from Infancy to Age 30
Source: New America Foundation, February 20, 2012

Description: "Among the growing pile of influential studies on early education, a few have become landmarks…. The Abecedarian Project -- an early childhood program for children from infancy through age 5 -- is one of these famous studies. Last month, in an article in the journal Developmental Psychology, researchers released results of a study on later outcomes for the children in the Abecedarian project, giving us fresh information on their well-being at age 30.  In our podcast today, we talk with Craig Ramey, an internationally renowned scholar of early childhood research who created the Abecedarian Project in the 1970s. "

Description: The Drummond report (Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services) makes two recommendations about the full-day kindergarten (FDK) element of early childhood education and care (ECEC) but includes very little of the other key element--child care. This analysis responds to the FDK recommendations and to the virtual omission of child care from the perspective of efficiency and evidence-based practice, two of the Commission's declared approaches.

Excerpt: "Alberta's families are further stressed by lack of access to affordable quality childcare. According to a Parkland Institute March 2010 fact sheet, the government of Alberta allocates the lowest number of dollars for regulated child care spaces, per 0-12 aged child, in Canada, and has done since 2003. Only 17% of children aged 0-5 in Alberta have access to a regulated child care space; Alberta is in the bottom three in Canada. Alberta's total number of regulated childcare spaces has not grown appreciably since 1992, though the population and the economy have both grown substantially. High working hours, low vacation entitlement, and lack of childcare is not a recipe for a healthy productive workforce or community."

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Excerpt: "Sweeping changes recommended in the report from the Drummond Commission could increase schools’ reliance on parents as fundraisers and could disadvantage some students.  People for Education, an organization which conducts research on education in Ontario and provides support to thousands of parents, has raised a number of concerns about the recommendations."

Description: " British women are paying a shockingly high price for motherhood as they are forced into lower-skilled, part-time work after having children, according to the findings of our new survey with Netmums. The poll of over 1,600 part-time working mothers revealed almost half (48%) of mothers on low to middle incomes take a lower-skilled part time job on their return to work after having children. Even those mothers that held a degree could not find work which paid a salary commensurate with their skills: 42% of degree holders said they had taken a less skilled job because of working part time. "

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Description: "Blending, combining and harmonizing are just a few of the ways in which we balance our ever changing work and family responsibilities. In this issue: Nora Spinks and Donna Lero look at managing our work and family responsibilities; Peggy Berndt discusses the inequities that Indigenous Peoples face in the workplace; Mélanie Bourque and Nathalie St-Amour explain how Quebec supports its families; [and] Lauren Akbar shares her work-family story."

Abstract: "For many families in Canada - a country of rich diversity - the year is punctuated by celebrations, holidays and traditions. The blending of traditions and creation of unique new multicultural one's contribute to Canada's rich cultural mosaic."

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Description: "Understanding how higher education contributes to teacher performance is a complex undertaking. It requires identifying which variations in program content and delivery are most relevant to student learning and teacher practice with young children. This necessitates appropriate research methodologies that can illuminate key program variations, which are re essential for generating solid evidence to inform policy and practice."

Public Services for Ontarians: A Path to Sustainability and Excellence
Source: Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services, Government of Ontario, February 15, 2012

Excerpt: "The Commission appreciates the research and analysis performed by Dr. Pascal. There is substantial evidence that investments in early childhood education produce significant socio-economic benefits in the long term. The Pascal report offers a plan that reduces gaps in child development policy, supports student achievement, and promotes better long-term economic, health and social outcomes.

...Recommendation 6-11: Given the difficulties with such an approach, and the prohibitive cost of the program overall at this time, the Commission recommends cancellation of the full-day kindergarten (FDK) program, without prejudice to schools that already had FDK before the introduction of this government strategy.

.... Recommendation 6-12: If the government decides to continue the implementation of the full-day kindergarten program, then the Commission recommends delaying full implementation from 2014–15 to 2017–18 and reducing program costs by adopting a more affordable staffing model, involving one teacher for about 20 students... "

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Childcare Markets: Do They Work?
Source: Childcare Resource and Research Unit (CRRU), February 15, 2012

Description: "This paper explores some of the conflicting priorities between childcare by for-profit entrepreneurs and non-profit or state systems. The paper considers the limitations of using the market as a workable model for the organisation and delivery of childcare. It presents a brief overview of the reach of economics as a basis for making decisions about childcare, and describes changes in ideas about the application of market principles to traditional welfare contexts."

Maternal Support in Early Childhood Predicts Larger Hippocampal Volumes at School Age
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, January 30, 2012 (subscription required)

Abstract: " ....In a longitudinal study of depressed and healthy preschool children who underwent neuroimaging at school age, we investigated whether early maternal support predicted later hippocampal volumes. Maternal support observed in early childhood was strongly predictive of hippocampal volume measured at school age. The positive effect of maternal support on hippocampal volumes was greater in nondepressed children. These findings provide prospective evidence in humans of the positive effect of early supportive parenting on healthy hippocampal development, a brain region key to memory and stress modulation."

>> See related news article:  "Nurturing Moms May Help Their Child's Brain Develop"

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Solutions: How the Ontario Government Can Rescue and Ensure the Viability and Quality of the Province's Child Care System
Source: Quality Early Learning Network, February 8, 2012

Excerpt: "With this well researched paper, QELN is offering the Ontario government a comprehensive plan to ensure the on-going viability and quality of the province's child care services. The paper outlines the significant financial challenges facing the sector as well the research evidence documenting the significant economic, social and educational benefits derived from an accessible, high quality child care system. Finally, it sets forth recommendations for short, mid-term and long term actions. These recommendations are based on several critical assumptions including: a) full day kindergarten is a positive initiative; b) the transformation and viability of the child care system will require significant additional investments and a new base funding model; and c) child care should be delivered through
non-profit and public agencies."

Description: "In her first interview with Steve Paikin since becoming Minister of Education, Laurel Broten talks about her new role as minister and the roll-out of full-day kindergarten in Ontario."

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Excerpt: "The early years are an important time for developing good habits that lead to good health. One way you can help your child is by increasing his or her level of physical activity…. It is also just as important to reduce sedentary behaviour, or activities that cause your child to sit for long periods at a time…"

Abstract: "A growing number of studies examine the influence of classroom behavior on teaching and individual children’s behavior. However, limited work has examined the effects of classroom behavior on academic achievement. The present study used 14,537 children in 2,109 classrooms from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study -Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS -K) to examine the association between attention, aggressive behavior, and achievement at two levels --the child and classroom. Children with low attention, alone or in combination with aggressive behavior, made fewer gains in test scores during kindergarten. The achievement gap between children with low attention and those without was larger than those based on low-income status or race/ethnicity. Additionally, having more children in the classroom with low attention was negatively associated with achievement gains…."

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Working Towards a Seamless Integrated System
Source: eceLink, Winter 2012 (permission to re-distribute granted by the AECEO)

Excerpt: "As this article goes to print, thousands of families will be registering their four year old children for the first time in kindergarten…. In short, there will be more well-paying, stable employment opportunities for ECEs than ever before. Yet much gloom abounds in the child care community, occasioned primarily by uncertainty about the future of child care and, unfortunately, lack of clarity about the government’s vision on the future of child care…. The current situation is further exacerbated by lack of unity among stakeholders in the sector. Many seem either anxious or unwilling to support the changes needed to improve a flawed system…."

Seamless Full Day Early Learning: A Parent’s Call for an Equitable System
Source: eceLink, Winter 2012 (permission to re-distribute granted by the AECEO)

Excerpt: "Since becoming a parent, and finding such an amazing childcare option, I have grown deeply committed to the issue of childcare and the need for a better and more equitable system for families and children but also for those working in the childcare sector. It makes me incredibly angry and sad that our society so deeply undervalues the women (and some men!) who provide education and care to the youngest members of our community. Despite all of the research and literature that clearly demonstrates the absolutely critical role that early childhood educators play in our children’s lives, we continue to underpay and undervalue their efforts."

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The Future of Families to 2030
Source: OECD, December 22, 2011

Description: "Since the 1960s the family in the OECD area has undergone significant transformation…. Recent demographic projections performed by many OECD countries suggest that the next 20 years are likely to see a continuation and even acceleration of changes in household and family structures.  In particular, the numbers and shares of single-adult and single-parent households are expected to increase significantly, as is the number of couples without children. This report explores likely future changes in family and household structures in OECD countries; identifies what appear to be the main forces shaping the family landscape between now and 2030; discusses the longer-term challenges for policy arising from those expected changes; and on the basis of the three subsequent thematic chapters, suggests policy options for managing the challenges on a sustainable basis."

Synthesis report>

Call for Nominations: Ruth Atkinson Hindmarsh Award
Source: Atkinson Charitable Foundation, January 31, 2012

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