Child Care Crisis Archives - Early Learning Nation

How Intergenerational Day Centers Benefit Children, Families, Seniors and Providers

Kindness Creators, a child care program housed in a senior facility in Illinois, builds empathy, fosters community and combats social isolation.

Mark Swartz·Feb 13, 2025·4 min read

Jaime Moran brings her mother, Joan Johnson, to work each day at Kindness Creators, the child care program she co-directs...

What We Can Learn From Red States’ Approaches to Child Care Challenges

Which policies have earned cross-partisan support and could be a good fit for North Carolina’s early care and learning landscape?

Katie Dukes and Liz Bell, EducationNC·Feb 12, 2025·13 min read

Policymakers across the political spectrum ran for office on child care issues in 2024. From the presidential campaigns to local...

Family Child Care Providers See Gains Under Vermont’s New Child Care Law

Act 76, the state’s version of near-universal child care, is giving family child care an overdue boost.

Rebecca Gale·Feb 11, 2025·7 min read

Chelsea Chase’s house sits on a rural road in Vermont, four miles from interstate 91. A row of cubbies filled...

For Child Care Providers, Wildfires Are Just One More Crisis

More than 500 child care spaces were in areas affected by the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires, according to L.A. County figures.

Libby Rainey·Jan 27, 2025·4 min read

In an instant, Blanca Carrillo and her daughter Aurys Hernandez lost everything. Their home in Altadena was also the place...

Pilot Program Insulates Home-Based Child Care Providers from Income Volatility

The Thriving Providers Project, backed by philanthropic dollars, deposits $500 per month into the bank accounts of participating child care providers.

Mark Swartz·Jan 23, 2025·4 min read

Carmen Reaves has worked in child care for 25 years. Parents drop their children off at her home in the...

Philanthropic Partnership Aims to Expand Access to High-Quality Child Care

The Investing in America Child Care Partnership has raised $9.6 million to increase child care supply and improve the quality of care.

Mark Swartz·Jan 9, 2025·5 min read

What do semiconductors have in common with child care? An AI query (made possible, of course, by a semiconductor or...

Election Day Proved That Voters Want Action on Child Care

On Nov. 5, a number of ballot measures supporting child care were approved. What can be learned from the ballot measures that passed and failed?

Bryce Covert·Dec 18, 2024·7 min read

On Nov. 5, voters didn’t just head to the polls to select their choice for president. Many also cast their...

How Child-Focused Ballot Measures Fared This Election

Voters largely approved funding for children, though holdouts remain.

Jackie Mader·Nov 6, 2024·2 min read

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education. Over the past few years, it’s...

2 Out Of 5 Child Care Teachers Make So Little They Need Public Assistance to Support Their Families

Wages for child care employees are lower than for animal caretakers and bellhops. In America, child care teachers earn a median wage of $13.07 an hour.

Jackie Mader·Nov 4, 2024·2 min read

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education. Caring for children during their first...

These Federal Policies Support Spanish-Language Child Care

How some states are building a multilingual child care workforce

Scout Hudson, Hechinger Report·Oct 22, 2024·4 min read

A quarter of the children in the U.S. are Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census, yet 60 percent of Hispanic...

Q&A: Why the U.S. Is ‘Catastrophically Wrong’ to Separate Early Child Care from Education

In new book, child development expert Dan Wuori dismantles notion of early child care as a form of 'industrialized' babysitting.

Amanda Geduld·Oct 15, 2024·10 min read

In Dan Wuori’s upcoming book he argues that America’s early childhood policy has been premised on a harmful myth: “This...

As Pandemic Funding Ends, New Survey Shows Parents Facing Host of Child Care Challenges

Families struggling with rising child care prices, unexpected closures and scarcity of providers.

Amanda Geduld·Oct 10, 2024·5 min read

Parents across the nation are struggling to access affordable and reliable child care almost five years after the start of...

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