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What Lessons can the Rest of Canada Learn from Quebec Child Care?

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Article Link What is “the Quebec model” of early learning and child care? There are several different lessons to learn about the Quebec model.  Generally, the decisions to rely on direct funding, on building good quality not for profit child care, on building a system that includes enhanced maternity parental benefits/leaves as well as schoolaged child care have been very positive.  But, we also need to learn from the problems Quebec has had.  They only had sufficient supply for 15% of the child population (0-4) at the time that they announced low-cost universal child care, and they’ve been behind the curve ever since.  That really is …

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Ontario’s Full-Day Kindergarten – a report for ETFO

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Executive Summary Download the Executive Summary Main Report Download the Main Report The Background Story In early February this year, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario released my report on Ontario’s Full-Day Kindergarten. It was written as a reponse to Conservative Government plans to reform kindergarten in negative ways. My review of the literature found that these plans were badly off base – full-day kindergarten in Ontario is very good and worth preserving (and improving). There’s a hidden story about that study on full-day kindergarten in Ontario.  I actually wrote it towards the end of 2019, in response to the …

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Presentation on AFFORDABLE FOR ALL report

Here’s the PDF from my presentation to the Atkinson Centre Early Years Task Force from this morning May 9th. This is a crucial election for families who care about child care and the different policy approaches to child care funding would have VERY different effects. Presentation at OISE on Affordable for All report

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Links to Child Care Press Coverage in English and French

I’m a collaborating member of a research team in Quebec called “Equipe de Recherche Qualite des Contextes Educatifs de La Petite Enfance”. Nathalie Bigras, an excellent researcher in early childhood education issues from UQAM, is the leading member of this team. Their recent newsletter contains a useful clickable list of recent press coverage and other resources

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What are the real lessons to learn from Quebec child care?

I wrote this response to an opinion piece by Andrea Mrozek published by CBC News Opinion.  My response didn’t get published.  Here’s a flavour: “Child care in Quebec is very affordable, and is very popular with parents.  Its affordability has had dramatic positive impacts on women’s employment, family incomes, and child poverty.  Reputable economists claim that these effects are so positive that funding child care affordability can completely or nearly completely pay for itself.  However, as Ontario develops its child care policies, it is important to imitate Quebec’s successes and avoid Quebec’s mistakes.” Response to Mrozek