Sunshine on the Darkest Day

In the aftermath of the devastating natural disaster in Oklahoma, when terrifying images of the giant tornado filled our television screens, many heroes emerged from the maelstrom. Prominent among them were people to whom parents had entrusted the care and education of their children. We join the people of Moore and all of Oklahoma in mourning the loss of life, including children caught in a collapsing school as the tornado swept through the town. But one thing is clear and cause for quiet celebration: yesterday, the courage of teachers in elementary schools and child care facilities saved many children’s lives. 

Tornado drills are a fact of life in Oklahoma, so neither adults nor children were unfamiliar with what to do when the warning came. Still, the phrase “this is not a drill” surely added an incalculable fear factor that could have sent all that practice out the window. But it didn’t.

Today, story after story emerged of teachers who herded children into bathrooms, helped them huddle at the base of walls, and shielded them with their own bodies. Teachers who, the children said, saved their lives. One had an SUV land on her while the bodies of the students she was protecting went unscathed. Another story came from a teacher who, when a small boy wailed that he didn’t want to die there together, said firmly, “We are not going to die today.”

We don’t often think of courage in the face of life-threatening events as a prerequisite for teaching young children. These days it is called for all too frequently. Teachers, from early childhood up through high school, don’t always command the respect or compensation they deserve. But on a day such as yesterday, we should stop and think what it took for those educators to suddenly become emergency leaders: to remember the drills, lead the children through the procedures, keep them from panicking—keep themselves from panicking; remain calm and reassuring; and finally, place their own bodies in greater danger in the hope of saving these children from injury or death. Individuals who could manage all that must themselves be awesome forces of nature in the classroom.

Being early childhood folk, we at ZERO TO THREE are particularly inspired by the story of the staff at one child care center. They took their young charges into two bathrooms to wait for the tornado to pass—which it did, taking part of the roof with it. But the teachers kept the children calm throughout their ordeal by leading them in singing “You Are My Sunshine.” 

We know that effective early childhood teachers are those who are able to establish close relationships with the children in their care. The trust those children placed in their teachers as they calmly joined them in song, literally in the center of the maelstrom, is a testament to the power of those relationships.

We owe all these courageous educators and leaders our gratitude for their resolve to keep the children in their care safe. But we should also reflect on the fact, and be thankful, that they bring the qualities of composure, clear thinking, and caring, so apparent on that dark afternoon, to their interactions with children all the time. And that’s a source of sunshine every day.

Exposure to traumatic events can affect young children. Click here for information and resources on how to help them cope in the aftermath of a disaster.

The Sequester’s Pain: Air Travelers Get Relief, Little Kids Not So Much

Today Congress eased the pain of the across-the-board funding cuts known as sequester—but only for those people being inconvenienced by flight delays due to air traffic controller furloughs. The children who will lose their places in Head Start and Early Head Start programs were offered no respite. Neither were the families who thought they were on their way to a stable roof over their heads, only to have that vision snatched back by housing authorities forced to cut rental assistance.

Stung by complaints of cancelled flights and long waits, Congress speedily approved legislation to allow the Department of Transportation to transfer funds from elsewhere in its budget so aviation employees could return to work. This selective relief undermined the idea that everyone should share the pain of deficit reduction and that any relief should be a global solution. It targeting relief, it appears that short-term inconvenience to some is more compelling than the potential for long-term harm to very small children.

Passengers who must wait a few hours on the tarmac might miss a meeting or a connection to another city. But young children shut out of early childhood programs miss out on the positive early learning experiences that help their brains make critical developmental connections, putting them on the path to success in school and in life. And while those passengers may shift uncomfortably in cramped seats, families who lose rental assistance may find themselves living for months in cramped quarters, or even becoming homeless. The detrimental effects on their young children’s development won’t be shaken off by a walk up and down the aisle.

Most (but we recognize not all) people with delayed flights can juggle their schedules to make up for whatever they missed. But young children stranded on their own tarmac waiting in vain for positive early learning experiences don’t get those years back. When development doesn’t take off as scheduled, later years can be spent falling further behind. This not only hurts individual children. It hurts all of us, and not just when our hearts ache at a news report showing a little boy who simply loves his preschool finding out he can’t return the following week because he lost out in a lottery. Or when we see a young child in a homeless shelter clinging to a treasured possession. We lose because placing the burden of reducing our deficit on the most disadvantaged among us—especially children—undermines our future economic security.

At least some in the news media are calling out this injustice. But they are also suggesting something else—that the children and families losing much needed services have no one representing them before Congress. We know that’s not true. These children and families do have a voice—and it is all of us. The President’s early learning proposal has generated great excitement and energy in the early childhood world. Clearly, we need to focus some of that energy and all of our indignation on speaking out to Congress about the unfairness created by selective relief from sequestration and the urgent need to find a broad solution. Or if we have to be selective, how about restoring supports to those people whose future could well depend on how long they’re in a holding pattern?

When Babies Share the Burden—How the Sequester is Affecting Young Children

When the across-the-board cuts of sequestration went into effect on March 1, the lack of immediate effects led many to shrug it off as much ado about nothing or at least resolve to grit their teeth and bear it. But the cuts aren’t so much a one-time catastrophe as a creeping disease. Their impact is beginning to be palpable and will only grow as time goes by. Many people will be affected, whether it’s traveling further to catch a plane or losing a job paid for with federal dollars. Some impacts will be inconveniences, while others will be much more dire.

From time to time, the Baby Policy Blog focuses on what it means when babies share the burden of reducing our budget deficit. Today, we highlight the sequester’s effect so far on programs that provide services for vulnerable young children and their families. Here are some examples:

Head Start/Early Head Start (EHS): Programs have discretion in deciding how to absorb their cuts. Many will try to postpone the effects until the next program year. However, with the cuts magnified because they must be packed into the second half of the federal fiscal year, some programs must take steps immediately and all must be looking ahead.  Some specific examples on how the cuts have started to take effect:

• A program in Washington County, Arkansas, decided to end its Head Start program 3 weeks early this spring, and close its Early Head Start program 2 weeks early. By next fall, the program likely will have to cut the number of children served by 8%.
• For some children, the impact was abrupt. At least three Indiana Head Start programs had to reduce their enrollments right away, using random drawings to determine which children would not be returning the following week. The Bartholomew County program also will lose twelve Early Head Start slots, but some of this reduction may be mitigated by attrition.
• Head Start programs in four Iowa counties will be shutting down for 12 days this year to absorb the cuts. The director of the agency that oversees the programs described these actions as “furloughing babies and preschoolers from the classroom.” The impact on the young children will be obvious, but what of their parents?

What’s at stake: Infants and toddlers who participate in Early Head Start show positive impacts in cognitive and language development and engagement with their parents in a way which supports lifelong learning. Research shows that children who attended EHS followed by formal Pre-K programs such as Head Start had the most positive outcomes.

Child Care: The cuts’ impact on child care subsidized through the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) is harder to pinpoint, because the states have discretion over how they adjust to federal funding changes. But a few red flags have been raised:

• The $3 million in sequestration cuts for CCDBG in Arizona has created a budget shortfall that may make securing a large increase the Governor proposed for Child Protective Services and jeopardize child care for about 1,000 children.
• The YWCA in the El Paso, Texas region, which has about 1,520 children on its waiting list, has frozen enrollment for the CCDBG program.

What’s at stake: 63% of mothers with infants are in the workforce. Child care costs eat into low-income families’ budgets. Losing a subsidy may make work impossible or leave children in less than optimal care. Quality child care not only enables parents to work, but has positive effects on cognitive, language, and social emotional development in young children, helping them become ready for school.

Housing Rental Assistance Program: Stable housing is a critical part of the environmental supports babies need for healthy development. State and local housing agencies are already moving to reduce the number of families receiving assistance, but are not always able to do so through attrition.

• The Housing Authority of New Orleans, which has over 13,000 people on its waiting list, rescinded 700 recently-issued housing vouchers.
• In California, the LA County Housing Authority has halted issuance of 300 potential vouchers and is seeking authority to require low-income tenants to pay more towards their rent to avoid cutting 500 more vouchers.

What’s at stake: Young children whose families receive housing subsidies are less likely to go hungry or be underweight for their age and more likely to be in good health than children whose families are not receiving subsidies, according to a Children’s HealthWatch study. The impacts of homelessness on young children can be devastating.

Currently people in Washington are focusing on the President’s budget, due out this Wednesday (April 10), the start of the fiscal year 2014 appropriations cycle, and the next debt ceiling debate. If we are ever to have a chance of restoring some of the cuts or at least preventing additional cuts to discretionary funds built into future budgets, we must be sentinels for young children and their families and keep track of how they are faring with the cuts.

You can help. Most information on the impact of sequestration so far has come from the media. As the cuts slowly—but with increasing impact—take effect, the press could lose interest. It is important to keep documenting the human costs of this deficit reduction measure. If you know of a program or service for young children and their families that is being adversely affected by the federal across-the-board cuts, please send this information to policycenter@zerotothree.org.

For More Information:

The SAVE Coalition posts weekly roundups of information about the impacts of the sequester.

The National Head Start Association collects reports of the sequester’s impact on Head Start/Early Head Start and has other resources as well.

The Center for Effective Government’s webpage, Sequestration Central, links to a wide range of information.