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Look in the Mirror: Just Substitute "Canadian" for "American Child Care Hell"
Source: Child Care Canada Now, April 24, 2013
Excerpt: "Jonathan Cohn, the author, reports research that "deemed the majority of operations to be "fair" or "poor" and notes that while "day care is a bruising financial burden for many families", "only minimal assistance is available to offset these expenses. And so many parents put their kids in whatever they can find and whatever they can afford, hoping it will be good enough". The article chronicles how President Richard Nixon's presidential veto of a national child care program back in 1970 had ended movement towards a child care system in the US…Does this all sound familiar? To me, it's like looking at a mirror image of our own child care situation. Reading Cohn's story, I found myself substituting "Canadian" for "American", and expect that others with an interest in early childhood education and child care, young children and social policy in Canada will be doing the same."
Tax Help for Canadian Families
Source: Brandon Sun, April 23, 2013
Excerpt: "The Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) provides families with $100 per month ($1,200 a year) for each child younger than six. The UCCB allows parents to choose their preferred care option: spend the money on daycare, stay with a relative, or have a parent stay at home. The decision rests with the parents."
ON: Ontario Budget 2013 Should Boost Child Benefit to Help Poor Kids
Source: The Toronto Star, April 22, 2013
Excerpt: "Toronto single mom Mariyah Pilon wants the Wynne government to keep its promise to kids in this spring’s provincial budget. Specifically, she says it must make good on its pledge to raise the annual Ontario child benefit from $1,100 to $1,310 this year, as planned in the province’s poverty-reduction strategy."
Forty Award Finalists Recognized in Early Learning and Child Care
Source: Government of Alberta, April 19, 2013
Excerpt: "Alberta’s Early Learning and Child Care Professional Awards of Excellence has selected 40 finalists who inspire children and families. These individuals work in child care, early childhood services or Parent Link Centres across the province….More than 140 nominees were scored on their leadership, creativity, innovation and collaboration in their work; and their contribution to positive and stimulating learning environments that motivate children and families to exceed their own expectations."
Well-To-Do Families Should Not Be Receiving Child Care Benefits
Source: The Record, April 19, 2013
Excerpt: "Under the child care allowance, parents are given $1,200 annually for each child under the age of six to help offset the costs of child care arrangements. The universal benefit is poorly designed because it provides assistance in roughly equal measure to the affluent and the needy alike. Millionaire parents are given the same $100 cheque each month as a family living below the poverty line."
UK: Government Funds £5m Early Education Study
Source: Nursery World, April 18, 2013
Excerpt: "The first major early years research to begin since 1997 will look at the impact of free early education from the age of two on the development of thousands of children. The £5m eight-year research project will track children from before they start nursery, from the age of two until the end of Key Stage 1."
BC: Today Adrian Dix Outlined his Party’s Response to the Well Documented Need for Action on Early Care and Learning
Source: Coalition of Child Care Advocates, April 18, 2013
Excerpt: "The initiatives tabled in the NDP platform are good first steps" said Sharon Gregson, spokesperson for the Coalition of Child Care Advocates (CCCABC). Most importantly they recognize and address the high cost of parent fees for families with very young children and the need for more quality spaces. Dix acknowledges that child care is the 2nd highest expense next to housing for families and lack of child care is a major barrier form women re-entering the workforce."
ON: Finding Local Childcare Made Easier with Centralized Registry
Source: Kingston Herald, April 17, 2013
Excerpt: "The City of Kingston and the County of Frontenac have made it safe, fast and convenient to find childcare with the Centralized Childcare Registry and Information Service (CCRIS), which launched this week at kingstonchildcare.ca."
Ontario Needs to Fix Another Full-Day Kindergarten Mess: Editorial
Source: The Toronto Star, April 18, 2013
Excerpt: "For some daycares, the financial and operational complications created by the new before-and-after-school care — for four- and five-year-old kindergarten students — have made the program almost impossible to provide. For parents, it means higher costs, lost hot lunch programs and ongoing uncertainty about whether the programs will run during summer months when working parents need help the most."
Announcement:
The School of Early Childhood at George Brown College is pleased to announce a partnership with the Toronto District School Board to establish a new early learning and child care centre at the Nelson Mandela Park Public School in downtown Toronto.
George Brown College and the TDSB have a strong historical partnership in their commitment to serving families and their children in other communities.
Additional details to follow.
People for Education Website
"People for Education is your strong voice for public education. We conduct vital research, answer parents’ questions, make policy recommendations and ensure there is broad coverage of education issues in the media. Together we make Ontario’s schools great!"
SK: Let's Invest in Early Education, Not Tests
Source: The StarPhoenix, April 17, 2013
Excerpt: "Heckman's work with developmental psychologists, economists, neuroscientists, statisticians and others proves that investing in early childhood development has a highly positive impact on the economic and social outcomes of citizens. Heckman tells policymakers to invest in the front end of education because that offers the best return by way of increased high school graduation rates."
ON: School-Based Daycares Fear Eviction for Refusing to Run Before- and After-School Programs
Source: The Toronto Star, April 16, 2013
Excerpt: "Toronto daycares in schools say they are being told if they refuse to run before- and after-school programs for full-day kindergarten students, they risk being replaced by another operator."
Ethnography, Multiplicity and the Global Childhoods Project: Reflections on Establishing an Interdisciplinary, Transnational, Multi-Sited Research Collaboration
Source: Global Studies of Childhood, April 16, 2013
Excerpt: "This article offers a description and rationale of the Global Childhoods Project, initiated by a group of researchers from Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand and Australia. This transnational and interdisciplinary network embarked on a collaborative research endeavour concerned with investigating questions of childhoods and globalization in the Asia-Pacific region. A central premise of the group is that researching global childhoods is best conducted by local researchers with knowledge of their own culture and contexts."
*Please note a membership or a fee is required to view the full article
Views From Somewhere: Situated Knowledges and Partial Perspectives in a Hong Kong Kindergarten Classroom
Source: Global Studies of Childhood, April 16, 2013
Excerpt: "This article demonstrates an engaged situated methodology by drawing from an exploratory study of literacy activities in a Hong Kong kindergarten classroom. Bringing together feminist understandings of situated knowledges and Asian critical cultural studies ideas about ‘Asia as method’, the authors recognize that all aspects of knowledge production are situated individually and globally."
*Please note a membership or a fee is required to view the full article
Becoming Literate in Taiwan: Kindergarten Experiences as the First Part of a Long Literacy Journey
Source: Global Studies of Childhood, April 16, 2013
Excerpt: "The lifeworlds of children incorporate home, school and community locations. They are different environments and each has different contexts and goals. In Taiwan, while school is more focused on an overt exchange of teaching and learning, home is more informal and generally characterized by unstructured contexts and parents’ attention that encourages and enhances their children’s learning with practical knowledge. Consequently, while literacy is taught in school via a well-planned curriculum, at home it is expected to happen via everyday communications and family activities that promote a close parent-child relationship."
*Please note a membership or a fee is required to view the full article
US: (Almost) Everything You Wanted to Know About Pre-K in the Federal Budget
Source: Preschool Matters…Today!, April 13, 2013
Excerpt: "Since President Obama announced his goal of quality early education for 4-year-olds in his State of the Union address, the education world has been buzzing for more information. Details provided earlier this month indicated that the president’s plan would call for funding the program through an increase in the tobacco tax from $1.01 per pack to $1.95. The release of the president’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2014 provides significantly more insight into the administration’s Preschool for All initiative."
NS: Access to Children’s Services Widens
Source: The Chronicle Herald, April 10, 2013
Excerpt: ""Having early interventionists, early childhood educators and educators together in one department and working more closely can better prepare our young students for (Grade) Primary," Christine Lane said Wednesday, whose child received early intervention support."
The Power of Talking to Your Baby
Source: The New York Times; The Opinion Pages, April 10, 2013
Excerpt: "By the time a poor child is 1 year old, she has most likely already fallen behind middle-class children in her ability to talk, understand and learn. The gap between poor children and wealthier ones widens each year, and by high school it has become a chasm. American attempts to close this gap in schools have largely failed, and a consensus is starting to build that these attempts must start long before school — before preschool, perhaps even before birth."
ON: Ottawa’s Child Care Tax Deduction is Out of Touch With Reality
Source: The Globe and Mail, April 10, 2013
Excerpt: "While economists like to model the world with the assumption that everyone has full information, the reality is that most people learn the details of policy with experience. As Canada Revenue Agency’s 2012 income tax filing deadlines loom, many of us are learning our income tax parameters."
AB: Almost One in Five Children Not Ready for Kindergarten
Source: St. Albert Gazette, April 6, 2013
Excerpt: "About 80 per cent of local kids have the skills they need for school, says new data from a provincial report, but almost one in five are struggling to get through kindergarten."
AB: Early Childhood Development Important
Source: The Vulcan Advocate, April 5, 2013
Excerpt: "Young Vulcan County children are developing better than the average Canadian and Alberta kids and provincial average, but there’s room for improvement, say members of the Vulcan County Early Childhood Development Coalition."
Australian Kids Doing Better in Key Development Indicators
Source: Australian Early Development Index, April 4, 2013
Excerpt: "Australian five-year olds are developing better than they were three years ago and have improved in four of the five key development indicators, according to the latest round of data from the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI)."
NS: NS Budget Misses Opportunity to Reshape Child Care Services-CUPE
Source: Marketwire, April 4, 2013
Excerpt: "CUPE NS Vice-President Mike McNeil says, "Well directed public spending on child care is a public investment, not a public cost and is part of the solution to Nova Scotia's economic challenges. Every $1 million invested in high quality child care creates 47 jobs and brings a $2.23 million return in short- and long-term benefits to Nova Scotia -including educational benefits as well as increased earnings and reduced social costs.""
ON: Can Niagara Families Afford Child Care?
Source: Brock University, April 2013
Excerpt: "Good quality licensed child care is expensive for Canadian families and waiting lists can be long. This impedes the employment of (mainly) women, affecting economic output and social assistance rolls, and leaving the early education of our children to ad hoc processes. Canada lags far behind other industrialized nations in terms of spending on early childhood education and care (ECEC). This problem is far from new, yet governments at all levels have not sufficiently addressed the issue, mainly due to the high cost."
Langley Township Council Urged to Support $10 A Day Daycare
Source: Langley Times, April 1, 2013
Excerpt: "The campaign for a $10-a-day daycare system in B.C. came to Langley Township council's March 11 meeting. "This plan is the solution to the child care crisis," said Sharon Gregson of the Coalition of Child Care Advocates."
Compass: Parents as Teachers Program is a Worthy Investment
Source: Anchorage Daily News, April 1, 2013
Excerpt: "Babies are born ready to learn and we believe parents are their child's first and most influential teachers. Yet, we also understand that babies are not born with instructions, and often, parents, regardless of experience or demographic, could use a helping hand. Offering such support is the Parents as Teachers (PAT) program, an evidenced-based parent education and home visiting model that serves families throughout pregnancy until their child enters kindergarten. Grounded in the most recent research of children's brain development, the program aims to support families through direct interaction with children and parents in the most intimate of settings: their home."
The Child, The Tablet and The Developing Mind
Source: The New York Times, March 31, 2013
Excerpt: ""We really don't know the full neurological effects of these technologies yet, " said Dr. Gary Small, director of the Longevity Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of "iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind." "Children, like adults, vary quite a lot, and some are more sensitive than others to an abundance of screen time."
Launch of the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA)
Source: Ministry of Social and Family Development, March 27, 2013
Excerpt: "ECDA will oversee the regulation and development of kindergarten and child/infant care programmes for children below the age of 6. It will be established as an autonomous agency jointly overseen by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), and administratively hosted by MSF. This will allow ECDA to develop children holistically, nurture positive attitudes towards learning, facilitate the transition of pre-schoolers to formal education, as well as increase efforts to support and strengthen Singaporean families."
Report Finds Preschool Program Has Lasting Benefits
Source: Education Week, March 26, 2013
Excerpt: "In 1998, New Jersey mandated universal early childhood education starting at age three for all children in 31 of the state's urban school districts. A recent report found the effects of this early education to be lasting."
Childcare Advocates Concerned Over Axing Grant
Source: CTV News, March 25, 2013
Excerpt: "While provincial funding for childcare in Alberta was increased in Budget 2013, childcare providers are sounding the alarm after learning a grant that's been in place for a decade is on the chopping block and there are concerns it could affect the cost of childcare for families."
The Touch-Screen Generation
Source: The Atlantic, March 20, 2013
Excerpt: "Young children—even toddlers—are spending more and more time with digital technology. What will it mean for their development? "
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