2022 Symposium on Children

INVEST EARLY IN CHILDREN:
Policies, practices, and ideas for action

Friday, October 28  •  12:30-4:30pm  •  Zoom

Families and children deserve quality early care and education. It is vital to supporting a child’s healthy development and gives adults the chance to work and attain greater financial stability – a theme that was made very clear in recent years to the average American, even those without young children.

Last year, President Biden’s proposed Build Back Better Act included a historic federal commitment to child care and preschool through making early care more affordable and broad investments to support working families. While it has not passed, public attention and policy debates brought the issue to center stage. Key research studies evidenced the importance of investing in families and children.

Major news outlets, some for the first time in recent memory, ran notable stories about the crises facing the sector, its workforce, and every major industry whose workers suffered from the lack of reliable child care – especially working women.

Providing quality early care and education to families requires significant investment, with responsibility divided across several layers of government. Private and philanthropic partnerships often play a much-needed role as well. When there are shortfalls or challenges, early care providers themselves often are forced to make up the difference. This market failure is why the out-of-pocket child care costs for families continue to rival the cost of college, while the early childhood workforce makes barely more than minimum wage. In response, communities around the U.S. are pursuing innovative funding solutions so that young children receive the investments they so need and deserve.

This year’s Symposium on Children brings together researchers, practitioners, policy and thought leaders to look at how we can better invest in children. Keynote speaker Dr. Kirabo Jackson is a labor economist at Northwestern University who studies education and social policy issues. Dr. Jackson will share his research on how education policies impact children’s lifelong outcomes through adulthood, including the impact of sustained investments from early childhood into the K-12 years.

The event will also showcase additional research on investments; explore funding alternatives and learn from communities who have innovated in this realm; and inspire us toward greater resolve and courage when it comes to how much we spend on our youngest citizens. 

All times are in Eastern Standard Time (EST). Stay tuned for more details.

12:45 – 1:45pm

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Dr. Kirabo Jackson, Abram Harris professor of education and social policy at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University

2:00 – 3:00pm

BREAKOUT SESSIONS (choose one)

BREAKOUT 1 – A Broad and Long View of Education

This session will (a) present research documenting how conventional, short-run, test-score-based measures fail to measure important educational outputs, (b) present research highlighting how the efficacy of investments in early education is dependent on the quality of subsequent educational investments and vice versa, and (c) discuss what these findings suggest about cost-effective ways to improve educational outcomes.

Dr. Kirabo Jackson, Abram Harris professor of education and social policy at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University

Dr. Arya Ansari, Crane faculty associate and assistant professor of human sciences at The Ohio State University

BREAKOUT 3 – Build Back Better? What children lost, and where to go from here

The Build Back Better bill included several large investments in early childhood, including expansion of the child tax credit, and substantial funding for child care. This session will give an overview of the bill’s investments in children, the status quo we were left with when it did not pass, and insights from the literature to guide our efforts as we move forward.

BREAKOUT 4 – Food Insecurity’s Impact on Bodies and Brains in the First 4000 days: Can we prevent it?
This session will review the association of food insecurity on birth outcomes, child physical health, and young children’s learning and behavior. This session will also highlight upcoming opportunities for advocacy to decrease the threat to America’s children.

3:00 – 3:15pm

BREAK

3:15 – 4:15pm

POLICY PANEL – Envisioning a Way Forward: How can we get started?

Leslee Barnes, director of the Preschool for All program in Multnomah County, Oregon

Reginald Harris, senior fellow of strategic financing at the Children’s Funding Project

Elliot Haspel, author of Crawling Behind: America’s Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It

Elsa Holguín, President and CEO of the Denver Preschool Program

Moderator: Jamie O’Leary, associate director of policy and external affairs at the Schoenbaum Family Center and Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy

4:15pm

CLOSING REMARKS

• Register once, then the day before the event you will receive an email with all needed links and information for the day.
• Live captioning will be provided. Additional requests for accommodations can be made during registration.
• Certificates of attendance are available and should be noted during registration. If you are seeking Ohio-approved credits (*pending approval), please provide your OPIN number during registration.

In partnership with: