Read on Twitter
1/ I’ve fielded this question a lot this week so I want to give it some airtime in a tweet. “But Anne!” you say, “how can daycares be an equitable solution for online school when parents still have to pay for it?” I’m so glad you asked!
2/ So the first thing to address is caregiver ratios. Daycare for infants and toddlers is mandated by law to very low ratios, which means it has to cost more. Daycare for kids over 6 is cheaper! They simply don’t need the same kind of hands-on care.
3/ Second, and most importantly, contrary to popular belief daycare is already a heavily subsidized industry. Only 60% of families enrolled in child care are private payers. Most daycares already work with low income families and have access to programs that benefit them.
4/ ”But my pod is sponsoring a low income family!” you say. Great! But what about the other 150 in your school? Districts, cities, and states have *budgets*. They have actual, real cash they can deploy to solve problems. Should you help one family or agitate for 150?
5/ You can absolutely put pressure on these orgs to fund a child care solution while schools are closed. And they can deploy those funds far more easily to a network of regulated daycares than they can to a hodge-podge of co-ops and private tutors.
6/ There are 20M K-5 kids in the US. By my back of the envelope math, our network of licensed daycares already has capacity for 8.5M school age kids. What other solution is even that close to being able to handle the capacity needed?
7/ Finally, these providers are struggling and our economy desperately needs them. Utilizing this capacity to solve the school problem could also be seen as a way to keep their doors open so this system doesn’t collapse out from under us.
8/ The alternative to forming a pod is to demand subsidized child care for all students impacted by school closures. Not supporting one family but advocating for all.
9/ To explore the staggeringly huge number of providers already offering school age services, please visit http://Winnie.com/school-care . The solution is right here, if only we would pay attention to it.
