San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
How child care shapes K-12 education
In 2018, a few University of San Diego researchers published an unsettling report about child care in our county.
That child care is in crisis was nothing new — but when I stumbled upon this study, it revealed to me some seemingly contradictory realities about the industry that I hadn’t known of before.
It was from that report that I first learned that most California children who qualify for subsidized child care don’t actually get it.
But I was even more surprised to learn that the county had actually sent back $11 million in child care subsidies to the state, because it didn’t end up using them. Why, I wondered, was San Diego County sending money back to the state when there isn’t nearly enough child care available here? It seemed backward.
I’ve read a lot over the years about the overall child care crisis in California, but I hadn’t seen much written about the state’s subsidy system — supposed to be the main source of aid for families who can’t afford care. If this system was falling short for families, I thought, they deserved an explanation.
As an education reporter who’s been writing about K-12 education pretty much exclusively for more than six years, it struck me how much state policy and society in general silo the world of public K-12 education from the largely private world of early education and child care — when in fact, for all their differences, the two share a lot in common.
Educators in both want to see children succeed. Educators in both are working to lift up not only underserved children, but their families. Educators in both are passionate about equity and believe every child deserves a quality education, regardless of their family’s income. And as I’m sure educators in both can agree, it’s simply not easy being a teacher, no matter how old your students are.
There are so many arguments to be made for better access to quality child care. For instance, by helping kids from an early age to develop and learn language, numbers, emotional self-regulation and socialization, quality early child care can help prevent or minimize the achievement gaps that all too often complicate K-12 education.
This reality was made clear to me by the many providers and families who shared their stories with me for a series on the real cost of child care in California. There are many more than appear in the series who guided my reporting and proved how widespread these struggles are.
When reporting on education and child care, I have sometimes been asked if I have kids myself. I have to tell sources that no, I’m not a mom. But if I can’t have a child of my own, at least I can do something to lift up the stories of other children and their families.
When I visited Miren Algorri’s family child care at her Chula Vista home, the best part was meeting the kids.
Ares, a chubby-faced 1-year-old, was afraid to look at me when I first came in. An hour later, to my delight, he at last invited me to play with him. I watched as he successfully learned to identify his milk bottle as “leche,” then laughed himself silly as he made a toy pig and cow do battle.
As long as I have this job, this opportunity to tell other people’s stories and reveal truths that need to be revealed, I’m determined to tell what I can, for Ares and other kids like him.