Publications
A collection of publications written by Atkinson Centre team members, in addition to important articles, documents and reports related to early learning and child care.
Review of Toronto Early Learning and Child Care Services
Excerpt: "The economic impact of investment in the child care sector includes three major facets: It is a job creator for those directly employed in the sector and for those who participate in the sector’s supply chain.; It creates opportunities for parents to increase their labour force participation. (As a job creator and a job facilitator it impacts tax revenue and GDP growth).; It positively impacts children by enhancing learning and health, which influences their future earnings and wellbeing, and contributions to the broader community."
COVID-19 First Phase Response Plan: A federal municipal partnership to model sustainable quality early learning and childcare (ELCC) services across Canada
Excerpt: "This proposal outlines an immediate $500 M Federal granting program to municipalities to demonstrate best practices in ELCC delivery through investments in access, workforce development and service development, planning and oversight. Designed to rapidly expand child care access, these investments will also identify the resources and measures required to create a pan Canadian system of public, sustainable, high quality early learning and childcare."
Posted on The Conversation.
Excerpt: "Strong, focused and equitable policies to support children are needed now more than ever. Now that we have seen decades of consistent evidence of inequity and poverty, Canadian policy makers should not need to see another report. They need to take action. Canada’s children deserve better. They need federal efforts to rectify the obvious opportunity gaps. Canada’s track record leaves out too many: it needs to do better. Not tomorrow, today."
Excerpt: "Strong, focused and equitable policies to support children are needed now more than ever. Now that we have seen decades of consistent evidence of inequity and poverty, Canadian policy makers should not need to see another report. They need to take action. Canada’s children deserve better. They need federal efforts to rectify the obvious opportunity gaps. Canada’s track record leaves out too many: it needs to do better. Not tomorrow, today."
A Year-By-Year Approach to Investing in Early Learning and Child Care
Excerpt: "Fair compensation and supported working conditions are a proven formula for incenting ECE graduates to return to the sector. For example, almost half of the 53,000 registered educators in Ontario’s College of ECEs do not work in licensed child care, largely because of low wages and poor working conditions. Nova Scotia has demonstrated it is possible to bring back and retain these skilled workers. When the province rolled out its universal pre-primary school program, 70% of the educator positions were filled by certified ECEs who returned to the profession. Many moved back to N.S. to work in the program. It is a striking example of how recruitment prospects really change when workers are paid commensurate to their training and skills."
Ten reasons to expand public kindergarten
Excerpt: "Two-years of kindergarten delivered within the school system leverages existing investments within public education and ameliorates several issues facing families, communities and government: High rates of illiteracy (including reading, writing and numeracy) that are a drag on the economic futures; Growing special education demands fueled by an increase in academic and language gaps and behavior challenges that are easier to address when interventions begin early; Increasing child care costs to families that reduce parental, particularly the labor force participation of mothers."
Posted on The Globe and Mail.
Excerpt: "The key is quality, not just quantity. And quality depends on well-trained and resourced educators. Poor pay and working conditions drive qualified educators out of the field. Quality concerns are found everywhere, including in Quebec, the leader in affordable child care."
Excerpt: "The key is quality, not just quantity. And quality depends on well-trained and resourced educators. Poor pay and working conditions drive qualified educators out of the field. Quality concerns are found everywhere, including in Quebec, the leader in affordable child care."
Investing in Early Learning and Child Care: A Framework for Federal Financing
Excerpt: "A system that addresses the needs of parents and children requires building more physical infrastructure, and more affordable access, but critically it requires more educators. This involves not just better wages and benefits, but an infrastructure that sustains quality work including access to excellence in pre- and in-service training; pedagogical leadership, and the availability of special needs specialists and family support workers to help address child/family needs, as in most schools."
A Universal Child Care System with Decent Work at its Core Must be the Goal Of Ontario’s Review of the Child Care and Early Years Act
The mandated 5-year review of the Child Care and Early Years Act (CCEYA) is open. The province has allowed a very short turnaround time for the public to respond.
Posted on The Conversation.
Excerpt: "The coronavirus has uncovered myriad inequities within systems of education, from childrens’ and families’ access to resources, to the supportive and safe environments that are necessary for optimal learning. Inequities are exponentially greater in times of crisis. In Canada, more than 2.3 million primary-age children remain at home. Challenges of inequity were immediately apparent as public school authorities began responding."
Excerpt: "The coronavirus has uncovered myriad inequities within systems of education, from childrens’ and families’ access to resources, to the supportive and safe environments that are necessary for optimal learning. Inequities are exponentially greater in times of crisis. In Canada, more than 2.3 million primary-age children remain at home. Challenges of inequity were immediately apparent as public school authorities began responding."
Posted on The Conversation.
Excerpt: "As of June 12, child-care centres in Ontario can open, following reopenings in most regions of Québec. But while these child-care centres are doing their part to support families in the post-coronavirus recovery, and Ontario is offering some extra help, Canada needs to find economically efficient ways of supporting child-care programs while simultaneously incentivizing quality. In so doing, it would follow some of the smartest approaches to economic recovery, development and social wellness already evidenced in parts of Canada and the world."
Excerpt: "As of June 12, child-care centres in Ontario can open, following reopenings in most regions of Québec. But while these child-care centres are doing their part to support families in the post-coronavirus recovery, and Ontario is offering some extra help, Canada needs to find economically efficient ways of supporting child-care programs while simultaneously incentivizing quality. In so doing, it would follow some of the smartest approaches to economic recovery, development and social wellness already evidenced in parts of Canada and the world."
Child Care Needs a Transformation, Not a Bail Out
Excerpt: "The COVID-19 virus has changed the channel on child care. No longer a private responsibility borne largely by mothers, it is a social one vital to all those parents who make up the army of first responders in a time of crisis."
Confronting inequity, the other pandemic
Excerpt: "COVID-19 has propelled us into a new epoch for public education. This is a chance to renew the system to meet the challenge, empowering this generation of child survivors to confront the disparities, environmental degradation and the other conditions that gave rise to the pandemic and create a more sustainable and just world."
