School started for millions of kids across the nation this week, and with school’s start came a host of policy issues: poor test scores and a persistent achievement gap, poverty crowding out good education, systemically failing schools in metros and counties in every region. A less well-known challenge, however, is the daily struggle of many low-income people to find childcare for those hours before and after school and on the weekends. Many obstacles stand in the way of affordable, high-quality child care, and these obstacles are felt all the more acutely by low-income families, families of color, and immigrant families.
This week we featured a four-part series about the child care struggle from the Urban Institute’s multi-year low-income family study. We also examined the school-readiness of poor children compared to their better-off counterparts.
- Lindsay Giesen and Heather Sandstrom’s four-part series introduction: the child care struggle
- Lindsay Giesen on raising awareness about local child care options
- Julia Isaacs shows how much less likely five-year-olds from poor families are to be ready to start school
- Lindsay Giesen discusses an endemic shortage of quality child care, and what can be done about it
- Heather Sandstrom discusses policy related to improving child care quality and access
We at MetroTrends hope you had a good start to school and have an enjoyable Labor Day weekend.
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