2018-05-18

10
Child Care
continued from page 3
in recent years, five states and the District of
Columbia passed laws to create paid family
leave programs. Both universal preschool
and paid family leave programs are important
for promoting children’s development.
But what warrants much greater investment
and policy attention is the gap between age
8 weeks – when parental leave ends – and
ages 3 or 4, when preschool begins.
Learning gaps start early
High-quality care during the infant and
toddler years is particularly important when
you consider the research that shows the
most rapid period of learning and brain development
takes place during the first three
years of life. There is growing evidence that
the gaps in test scores between children from
low-income and high-income families begin
well before students enter kindergarten.
One likely contributor to these achievement
gaps is the gap in center care and
preschool attendance between children
from low- and higher-income families. For
instance, in 2005, 22 percent of 1-year-olds
from families with moderate incomes attended
center-based care, compared to just
11 percent of 1-year-olds from low-income
families, federal statistics show.
Decades of research show the many benefits
of high-quality early care and education.
Right now, unequal access to high-quality
child care is exacerbating social and economic
inequality. Speaking as a researcher in
the field of child care for more than a decade,
I believe that access to high-quality early
learning opportunities needs to be expanded
to narrow achievement gaps.
Labor costs and salaries
So how is it that it costs more to drop
your baby or toddler off at day care than it
does for your young adult child to attend
college?
It’s not that child care teachers are paid
generously. The median hourly wage for
child care workers was only $10.18 in 2016
– less than the median hourly wage of $10.45
for parking lot attendants. Many earn salaries
so low they are eligible for or receive public
assistance.
But it is still the cost of teachers that
makes child care cost more than college. The
majority of child care expenses cover labor
costs. That’s because child care teachers
– for numerous health, safety and developmental
reasons – are only permitted to be
responsible for small groups of children.
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The allowable child-to-teacher ratios vary
from state to state. For example, Early Head
Start programs require ratios of four infants
to one caregiver and cap class sizes at eight
children.
Simply put, many ordinary business
principles – such as increased productivity
among workers or economies of scale – simply
do not apply in the world of child care.
Greater investments needed
So what can be done to both improve
the quality and increase the affordability of
child care? My co-authored book, “Cradle
to Kindergarten: A New Plan to Combat
Inequality,” provides a comprehensive plan
for doing so. The book recommends a mix of
paid parental leave, enhanced child care subsidies,
universal preschool and a reimagined
Head Start to begin at or before birth.
At a minimum, I believe there should
be greater investment in the early years,
particularly in expanding the child care
subsidy system to serve more children and
families and to pay child care providers
amounts that reflect the price of high-quality
care. The additional $2.9 billion for the Child
Care and Development Block Grant program
included in the recent budget deal is a great
first step, and could serve an estimated
230,000 additional children in 2018.
States should use these funds to support
child care for infants and toddlers, the group
for whom care is most expensive and hardest
to find. States could also use funds to help
train and retain high-quality teachers, including
providing compensation that matches
their educational qualifications.
But this is just a down payment in what
needs to be a sustained, substantial effort.
Parents and their employers lose out when
kids attend low-quality, unreliable child
care. When child care breaks down, parents
can’t work. A recent report from Louisiana
estimates that the state’s economy loses $1.1
billion a year due to child care issues.
Policymakers increasingly recognize
the need for more affordable child care. For
example, Sen. Patty Murray’s Child Care
for Working Families Act, introduced this
past fall, would ensure that all low-income
families and many, if not most middle-class
families, would pay no more than 7 percent
of their income on child care.
As elected officials debate potential
investments in infrastructure, child care
should be seen as an essential part of the
equation. Just like transportation, workers
need child care to get to work. Employers
and the public have vested interests in
ensuring that the workers and taxpayers of
tomorrow receive high-quality early care and
education today.
Taryn Morrissey is Associate Professor
of Public Administration and Policy, American
University School of Public Affairs
Taryn Morrissey’s work has been supported
by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
the Bainum Family Foundation, the
Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Heising-
Simons Foundation, the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services, and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. She is also a
Non-resident Fellow at the Urban Institute
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) is very upset
that Democrats think racial discrimination
is still a problem. Days after a House floor
clash with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) over
the House Republican majority’s decision
to rescind Obama-era protections against
auto lending discrimination, he complained
on Tuesday morning’s Fox & Friends that
claims of modern day racial inequalities are
not American.
Kelly, an automobile dealer, argued that
at a time when the economy is good, House
Democrats should not raise this issue. “We
have seen the economy take off,” he told Fox
& Friends. “I just think that if you come to
the floor and there are 60 minutes to debate.
30 minutes on each side. But as I was sitting
there, I had 30 minutes of Democrats coming
down and talking about how bad automobile
people are because they discriminate against
nonwhite buyers. I said that’s not America.
We don’t talk about those things.”
Kelly then credited President Trump
for having united America and purportedly
ending racial strife.
Orlando Advocate |May 18 - 24, 2018
Congressman says it is un-American
to acknowledge that racism exists
Solar Setback in North Carolina
continued from page 6
WARN want to challenge. Proponents of
small-scale solar power want to expand the
options available to customers throughout
the region.
The effort, and subsequent legal battle,
began three years ago when NC WARN
paid $20,000 to install solar panels on the
roof of the Faith Community Church. The
organization then charged the church 5 cents
per kilowatt-hour, selling the community
clean solar power in the sunny state. That
price is notably lower than the equivalent
offered by Duke Energy, which charges 11
cents per kilowatt-hour, according to Inside
Climate News, an intentional difference
meant to gauge whether regulators would
allow NC WARN’s efforts to continue.
Rev. Nelson Johnson, the church’s pastor,
supported the act as an environmental
justice endeavor. “Out of our faith tradition,
when you fight the good fight, that itself is
a (way of) winning,” he said.
In 2016, a court sided with the North
byJosh Israel
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) refuses to let racism be swept under the rug in Congress.
“We are a people of diversity, but we
come together to make America great again.
When I’ve seen what President Trump has
done and you come in this area you can see
it. It is so uplifting. Look at this, you say ‘if
your only platform is hate and resistance
and not about bringing the country together
again’ — I mean, listen, we are still the
United States of America, not Divided States
of America, and if we can’t talk better than
what happened on the floor the other day.
I was disappointed and the Democrats that
came down, every single person demagoguing
and talking about how bad automobile
people are. It’s just not true.”
The rules, guidance from the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau, were established
in 2013 after studies found car dealers
often give higher interest rates markups
for nonwhite buyers than for their white
counterparts. House and Senate Republicans
voted, almost entirely on party lines, to
eliminate the guidance. President Trump is
expected to sign it.
Carolina Utilities Commission, which
argued that NC WARN was acting as a
“public utility” and threatening Duke
Energy’s monopoly in the process. During
that case, NC WARN stopped charging the
church for the power and the system itself
will likely be donated to that community.
The organization challenged the decision,
resulting in Friday’s ruling from the state’s
highest court.
Despite the setback, NC WARN
indicated the organization intends to
keep fighting Duke Energy and working
to expand solar options in the state.
Elsewhere in the country, solar opportunities
are becoming more readily
available. Last week, California issued
a new requirement mandating that all
new homes incorporate solar power.
The requirement is the first of its kind
in the United States.