Child Care

More than 60 percent of Americans have jobs that pay by the hour. One-quarter to one-third of them are low-wage jobs like waiting tables, working at nursing homes and standing behind the counter at the Rite-Aid. These employees often face unpredictable hours and less-than-full-time paychecks. And if these employees also happen to be parents, the instability and inflexibility of their work life is likely having negative effects on the health and education of their kids.

The Washington Post ran a story yesterday on the "nanny glut" and it caught our attention -- partly for what it didn't say. Turns out that the recession has led many families to let go of their nannies, usually because mom or dad no longer have a job or their work hours were cut. Then the story took an interesting tack, suggesting that this was a boon for relatively well-off, working parents.

Child care is expensive, and for many families, economic hard times have made quality child care unaffordable. Stories are emerging about how parents are being forced to pull their children out of care, find alternative arrangements, or even quit work because the cost of child care has exceeded what their paychecks provide. Other stories describe how emptier classrooms impact providers, how infants are particularly affected (because caring for infants requires more staff and is therefore more expensive), or how fewer children in well-supervised care has led to an increase in cases of child abuse or neglect. ABC News produced a video about how this is impacting middle class families who can't pay for care but still make too much to qualify for child care subsidies or Head Start. Earlier this week New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote about fewer children being able to gain access to necessary health services.

Seeking funding for research on child care centers or Head Start? Have some ideas for the creation of a federal center dedicated to research on young English-language learners? Consider submitting them to the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation for the Administration for Children and Families. The office, which is part of U.S. Health and Human Services Department, is seeking proposals this spring for three grant programs related to early childhood research.

Details -- pasted from the OPRE news listserv -- are below. Deadlines are quickly approaching. You've got until the end of this month to get letters of intent out the door.

Who's watching who's watching the children? The federal government leaves this task to the states. But states are failing to ensure that childcare centers are safe, according to a report released today by the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.

In a coincidence of timing, we published our roundup of various organizations' proposals for early childhood care and education in the stimulus package at about the same time as Pre-K Now released a letter to House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid outlining their stimulus agenda for early education--so Pre-k Now's agenda didn't make it into our roundup.

As we've previously noted, the economic crisis is hitting early childhood care and education programs, too. Parents who've lost their jobs are pulling their children out of preschool and child care programs.

• Economy Affecting Arizona Preschools, Child Care Karina Bland, Arizona Republic (November 28, 2008)
• Child Care Costs a Concern with Down Economy NACCRRA Early Childhood Focus (November 20, 2008)

Early Ed Watch is pleased to feature this guest post by Catherine Graham Hildum. Hildum covered early childhood issues for the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families during the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and currently works with Linchpin Strategies, a policy consulting firm in Washington, D.C.