MetroTrends Week in Review

| Posted: September 1st, 2012

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.