Parents who can’t afford additional childcare costs will have far fewer options this fall. In addition to the spotty plans for school reopenings, surveys have found that thousands of daycare centers have permanently closed due to the pandemic. A bill introduced to the U.S. Senate to provide $50 billion in grants for childcare providers has stalled.
Educational experts worry these class divides will exacerbate inequalities. In families who can’t afford private child care, “those children are going to miss out on a lot of educational opportunities,” said Simon Workman, director of early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress. “Or, the family is not going to be able to work—and that has a huge financial and economic impact.”
Rather than send her daughter back on-site to Chicago Public Schools for second grade, Jenny Ludwig plans to keep her home for remote learning, which means putting her own career on hold so she can help monitor lessons. She already has a master's degree in English, but was hoping to go back to school for social work. Her husband is a high school teacher, and what his work-life will look like this fall is unclear.
“Our kids learning remotely is better than our kids sick or dying,” Ludwig said.
Just 3.3% of the 59 million school-aged children in the U.S. were homeschooled in 2016, but the Home School Legal Defense Association says it has seen a jump in membership recent months. HSLDA, which charges $130 a year for access to consultants and curriculum help, now has a record 85,000 members in the U.S.
Nicole De Los Reyes hasn’t decided what she’ll do for her stepchildren, ages 9 and 6, this fall. The project coordinator at a Portland law firm doesn’t know if her family can handle another semester of virtual school for her first and fourth graders. Before the pandemic, De Los Reyes and her husband spent $400 per month for an after school program, for which they also received financial aid. Now, finding a full-time option in her budget is proving difficult.
“My stepdaughter is starting out her educational career really far behind,” De Los Reyes said. “She can’t read and she can’t write yet, and she missed basically half of a year’s worth of instruction.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.