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Good afternoon! Welcome to First 5 LA's Week In Review covering the top news and views in early childhood development for the week.

The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at U.C. Berkley has released new survey findings showing that the attempt to reopen the economy has only escalated the crisis in California child care. Without more public funding, the California child care industry will continue to collapse, researchers warn.

As parents of school-aged kids scramble to find solutions as schools remain virtual in the fall, some are forming what's being coined "pandemic pods," or small cohorts of children gathering in homes with supportive tutors. And while the "pandemic pod" phenomenon will work for families that can afford it, many are pointing out that it will widen the inequity gap.

This and more in today's Week In Review.
Table of Contents

Early Care and Education

Child Care on the Brink: The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at U.C. Berkley has released new survey findings showing that the attempt to reopen the economy has only escalated the crisis in California child care, reports KQED. The survey of close to 1,000 providers show that the majority of providers are juggling the increased costs associated with cleaning and staffing, with the decreased income associated with fewer kids in care, which is part of current health and safety restrictions, a scenario which Center Director Lea Austin called “unsustainable.” Two KPCC programs also covered the study: KPCC’s Air Talk, welcomed callers on the topic, with one call-in provider sharing how she’s balancing higher costs with lower income, planning to “go as long as she can”; Early Childhood Reporter Mariana Dale was interviewed on KPCC’s Take Two about the study, confirming that there is a “very real possibility” that California centers will close without additional help. KPBS in San Diego told the story of a family, eagerly waiting for their preschool to reopen, only to receive a short statement before the projected open date saying they weren’t able to reopen. "Right now, based on the restrictions for how many kids we can have in the building, we're bringing in about 60% of what we normally do but our costs exceed that,” said Sally Chenoweth, the owner of Discovery Preschools, Inc., for KPBS.

Related article:
Moms.com: Will Childcare Prices Go Up Now That Only A Few Children Are Allowed At Daycare?

BIPOC Women in Child Care: Racism and sexism in the child care industry, which is facing at least a partial collapse, was called out by POLITICO, LAist and Motherly this week, with each publication highlighting that the underpaid child care workforce is largely women of color. “Black and Latina women are suffering a double-barreled blow as coronavirus-induced shutdowns batter the industry, since they dominate the ranks of child care providers and have long struggled to gain access to the services for their own kids,” writes journalist Eleanor Mueller for POLITICO. For her piece, LAist’s Mariana Dale interviewed Dean Verna Williams of the University of Cincinnati College of Law, who says that early educators having the lowest paying jobs is a vestige of early 20th century training programs like "The Black Mammy Memorial Institute," and even further back when African American women took care of their owners' children. Heather Marcoux for Motherly says women of color are subsidizing the industry and that it “needs to stop.” "We all uplift mothers, but we don't uplift the largely Black and Brown women that take care of children," said Keesha Middlemass, associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Howard University for Motherly.

Pandemic Pods: As parents
scramble to find solutions as child care centers close and schools remain virtual in the fall, some are forming what's being coined "pandemic pods," or small cohorts of children gathering in homes with supportive tutors, reports MarketPlace and The Washington Post. And while the "pandemic pod" phenomenon will work for families that can afford it, many are pointing out that it will widen the inequity gap. In an opinion piece for The New York Times, social emotional learning specialist Clara Totenberg Green called the “pod” formation, the “latest in school segregation.” “When parents with privilege open their checkbooks and create private one-room schoolhouses for their children, they follow a long pattern of weakening the public education system they leave behind, especially in districts with predominantly black, Latinx, indigenous and low-income students,” write J.P.B. Gerald and Mira Debs for The Washington Post. Hechinger Report early childhood reporter Jackie Mader followed the story of one family in Austin, Texas who couldn’t afford the “pod” model, so one parent decided to pause their career.

Related articles:

Most California Schools Remain Online: Last Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an order that schools in counties with high cases of COVID-19 are to remain closed for in-person education this fall, report by POLITICO. The California Department of Public Health released a five-point framework for schools to reopen, and currently, more than 30 of California’s counties (or 80% of the state’s population) do not meet the criteria, reports The Sacramento Bee. KQED provided a breakdown of what we know and what we don’t know so far about schools reopening, reporting that counties on the state’s “watch list” must be off the list for 14 days before they are allowed to reopen. According to EdSource, elementary schools can seek a waiver to reopen but the framework does not state official criteria that schools must meet to be given permission by a health official. This news comes as the COVID-19 death toll reaches a new high in California and other states across the nation, as reported by KTLA 5, and after the state’s largest school districts –– including Los Angeles –– already made the decision to not open this fall, reports CNN. Despite pressure from the Trump administration for school to reopen for in-person classes, education leaders nationwide are following in Newsom’s steps, as reported by The New York Times. NPR spoke with superintendents across the country and found that while many feel a sense of urgency to reopen, safety was their biggest priority. Even if it helps slow the virus, news of school closures is bringing some parents angst and economic worry, as reported by Bloomberg. Nine parents are suing the state of California for denying kids their constitutional right to a “basic education,” as reported by CapRadio.

Balancing Act: Weighing the potential risk and reward of reopening schools is a balancing act for decision makers, and the Brookings Institute argues that a universal prescription or mandate for this decision is unrealistic and misguided. Between calculating the risks of children contracting the virus and the reality that school closures deprive kids of social interaction and lead to slides in learning, these decisions should be tailored to fit each specific community, school district and even grade in school. Fair arguments can be made for both reopening and closing, and the article provides a handful of reports on the health risks and the impacts of closures. Something that should be considered is the impact these decisions have on children of color, argues a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Richard Besser in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” reports by The Hill. According to Besser, communities of color without enough resources will struggle to meet safety guidelines, putting the health of kids and families in these communities at-risk if schools reopen. Still, the case can be made that equity gaps in learning will be exacerbated if schools remain closed despite efforts to switch to virtual learning, according to California Collaborative for Educational Excellence Director Tony Armenlino and as published in EdSource. Armenlino recommends five key areas and action plans that educators should consider for mitigating education inequities as schools continue distance learning, including how to address students' emotional well-being and how to form plans to assess students' progress.

Health

Kids and COVID-19: Young children, on the whole, have consistently been slow to catch and spread COVID-19, and experts have a few theories as to why, as reported by The New York Times. Some researchers theorize that the virus can’t make its way into the cells of children as well as it can in adults because children have less ACE2 receptors (or the cell where the virus docks). Another theory suggests that children’s smaller lungs do not push out as many droplets, which could explain why children have lower rates of transmission. Still, children are not completely without risk: Minnesota reported its first infant death from the virus this week, as reported by Newsweek and in Texas, 85 infants in one county have tested positive for COVID-19, as reported by CBS News. In Florida, there is an abnormally high rate of COVID-19 among kids: 31.1% of positive cases are kids under 18, while the overall positive rate is 18.1 percent. Experts claim that this may be due to the fact that kids who are showing symptoms of illness are the only ones getting tests. In California, nearly 1,000 cases have been linked to child care centers, as reported by The Hill. According to EdSource, this may be reflective of the overall spike in cases in the state and that the number of open child care centers reporting cases is still relatively small at only 2 percent. In L.A. County, there have been reports of 15 children suffering from the rare but serious inflammatory disease that is associated with the virus, as reported by KTLA 15. Of those 15, 73% were Latinx, which continues to reflect the disproportionate impact COVID-19 is having on communities of color.  
 
Full-Term Babies in the Pandemic: Premature births have gone down during the pandemic across several countries and doctors are baffled as to why, reports the
The New York Times. So far, evidence has been speculative and researchers are only beginning to dig into the data –– but experts in premature birth think that the dropping numbers could be key to unlocking how to prevent premature birth and why it happens. One research team in Denmark found that during the lockdown, babies born before 28 weeks had dropped by a staggering 90 percent. A neonatologist in the United States shared on Twitter that premature birth had gone down 20% in the hospital where he works, and doctors across the world replied describing similar stories. Some theories state that it may be due to lower stress rates from not having to commute, more sleep and rest and overall more available support from family members during lockdown. Two papers –– which have not yet been peer-reviewed –– have discussed the phenomenon. “It would be extraordinary if the described reduction had occurred. Such a quantum leap would be a major advance and may have been discovered by accident,” says an Australian professor of Obstetrics, as quoted in an article in Salon.  

Health Disparities in Child Surgeries: Black children are three times more likely to die after surgery than their white peers despite arriving at the hospital without serious underlying conditions, according to new research published in
Pediatrics and as reported by The Washington Post. The news comes alongside the racial health inequities that have been laid bare by the pandemic which is disproportionately impacting communities of color. The study was based on retrospective data gathered on children who underwent surgery from 2012 through 2017. Researchers found that Black children were 3.4 times as likely to die within a month after surgery and were 1.2 times as likely to develop postoperative complications, reports by The New York Times. According to the lead author on the study, the disparity may come from implicit bias in clinicians that leads them to not notice complications quickly enough. The author also noted that there were limitations in the study, as they did not account for the site where surgery was performed or insurance status of patients. An epidemiologist and family clinician not involved in the study was quoted in Scientific American, saying that it’s important for scientists to consider racism –– not race –– when considering health disparities. Racism drives the imbalances in availability and quality of health care, the epidemiologist explained in the article, as well as differences in exposures, opportunities and resources — all of which can contribute to the incidence of worse health outcomes.

From Our Friends

Evaluators of Color Speak Out: Our friends at Engage R &D -- a learning and evaluation firm commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion -- recently released a report calling on evaluators and funders to do a better job listening to those who have been historically marginalized. Click here for a blog post about the report, and here to download the full report.

ICYMI: In Case You Missed It, More Great Reads

Why racism can have long-term effects on children's health
Today

There Is So Much More Than the Nuclear Family, Even Now
The Atlantic

Moms are reducing work hours 4-5 times more than dads during pandemic
New America

PROOF POINTS: The literacy secret that Dolly Parton knows: Free books work.
Hechinger Report

History shows that we can solve the child-care crisis — if we want to
The Washington Post
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