‘Serving thousands and thousands less children’

Hello from Erica, Kalyn, and Wellington on Chalkbeat’s national desk. This week’s big story is about the fallout when you make big changes to a program but don’t allocate the money to pay for them. Keep reading for that, plus a new study that seeks to put a price tag on intense school board conflict and a look at how teachers around the country are bringing the election into the classroom.

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The big story

Child care subsidies are getting much harder to find as the expiration of COVID aid collides with new federal rules that aim to improve the subsidy program.?

States and counties are freezing enrollment, putting families on waitlists, or limiting eligibility to the families with the lowest incomes. Parents, in turn, are deciding that without a subsidy to offset child care costs, they can’t afford to look for work, or they’re turning to unlicensed care. Meanwhile, spots sit empty at child care centers, where providers are cutting extra services to make up for lost revenue.

“We’re just going to be serving thousands and thousands less children, which is horrible,” said Barbie Prinster, executive director of the Arizona Early Childhood Education Association. “It’s a bummer for families that want to go to work.”

Part of the problem stems from recent changes to federal rules. Under the new rules, family co-pays are capped at 7% of household income. Plus, child care providers now get paid in advance and don’t lose money when a child is absent. Advocates support these changes.?

But the changes also cost a lot of money, and Congress didn’t allocate any more funding. At the same time, federal pandemic relief dollars that had boosted child care subsidies have gone away, and states have struggled to make up the difference.

“We don’t think this can be solved by states on their own,” said Karen Schulman, senior director of state child care policy at the National Women’s Law Center. “We need significant federal investment.”

Read the full story here.

More national stories

Intense political conflicts on school boards have a price tag. A new study based on surveys and interviews with superintendents estimates that school districts nationwide spent about $3.2 billion last school year on extra security, legal fees, communications, and other costs associated with “culturally divisive conflict.” Staff turnover was by far the biggest expense —?and perhaps the one with the greatest long-term impact. Districts with high levels of conflict spent three times as much on average as districts with low levels of conflict, the researchers found.

Teaching the 2024 election looks a little different, depending on where you are. In some classrooms, students talk freely about abortion, Project 2025, and the prospect of the nation’s first female president of color. In others, students hold debates about cellphone policy and cafeteria food. Chalkbeat and Headway at The New York Times listened in across the U.S. as students considered the stakes of the race and, for some, their own roles as first-time voters.

Local stories to watch

• New York City educators are experimenting with AI in the classroom, but the city’s education department has been slow to issue guidelines. Teachers say they’ve saved hours of time by asking AI to generate lesson plans or take a first pass at grading students' essays. But experts caution that current versions of artificial intelligence still make a lot of mistakes, and not all tools protect student data.?
• Philadelphia’s new English language arts curriculum shows promise, but the rollout has been bumpy. Some teachers say students are more engaged and show stronger literacy skills, but others teachers say they haven’t gotten enough training, don’t have enough books or materials, and don’t find the curriculum “cohesive.” Many districts and states are working to align with the science of reading, but implementation problems have been common.
• Top lawmakers in Tennessee say they’ll introduce a universal voucher bill the day after the election. The plan signals that vouchers remain the top education priority for Gov. Bill Lee. Last year’s effort foundered amid opposition from rural Republicans and urban Democrats, while supporters were divided over whether to require testing at schools that accept vouchers. Voucher backers said they’re confident they work through those issues with a more favorable legislature.