There is now ample evidence of the learning lost and gains needed due to COVID-19. Declines in preschool attendance threaten to overturn decades of improvements in school readiness, particularly for the most vulnerable children.[1] COVID-19 has also significantly disrupted K-12 students, leaving students on average five months behind in mathematics and four months behind in reading by the end of the school year.[2] There was already a gap in funding and access to high-quality learning outside of K-12 schools, and that gap has widened.[3] Donors can help by expanding time for learning through high-dosage tutoring, afterschool and summer programs, and creating more everyday spaces for learning. They can also expand learning opportunities by strengthening the resources and training available to parents, caregivers, and educators, including in-home family child care providers, day care teachers, and elementary school staff.

Working parents and caregivers have always relied on daycare centers, home-based care, and other child-care settings to nurture and teach children, and there was already a well-documented lack of available, affordable high quality early childcare options. The pandemic made things worse: nearly 1.6 million moms of children under 17 dropped out of the workforce during the pandemic to care for children and have not been able to return to work because of unstable school and daycare situations.[4] The child-care sector lost 10% of prepandemic jobs from February 2020 to November 2021,[5] and a 2021 national survey found that more than a third of child-care providers and 55% of minority-owned childcare centers were considering quitting or closing down their businesses within the next year.[6]

Examples of what donors can fund:

•      Networks of smaller childcare centers, or family childcare homes that share costs and administrative and program services thereby increasing the capacity of providers.

•      Child resource and referral organizations that provide training and technical assistance to providers.

•      Organizations that directly help the large number of immigrant women who work in childcare

•      Programs that help providers navigate and access the complex federal, state, and local funding that will be or have recently been authorized.

•      Early childhood advocates who direct local and national attention to the child care crisis and advance potential solutions to boost child care access and affordability and provide child care workers a livable wage.

Early childhood is a time of intense brain development. Young children have the capacity to learn everywhere and all the time, and funders can reinforce that capacity in multiple ways.

For example, the implementation of high-quality, high-dosage tutoring (HDT) integrated within schools themselves has been found to be an especially effective strategy for helping K-3 students get back on track. The most effective programs involve tutors who work consistently with the same students throughout the course of the year and provide personalized, intensive attention, working one-on-one or two-on- one with students. Often the best programs incorporate HDT as its own separate class period for all students — when all students participate in the program it becomes less stigmatized.[6]

Providing children in the early years of elementary school with safe and engaging places to go after school and during non-school time is another way to boost learning and support their emotional growth. Quality summer programs can not only stop summer slide (i.e., learning loss experienced by students over the summer), they can also advance the kind of learning gains that prepare children for success in the year to come.

Alternative locations such as lending libraries and learning nooks in informal spaces like laundromats and barbershops can host lending libraries and other learning nooks, which allow children to develop skills related to literacy, mathematics, and spatial relations.

While public schools have faced teacher shortages for years, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a new spike in retirements and resignations due to the heightened stress of teaching and burnout.[7] As schools attempt to hire new staff, many cities have come to face a substitute teacher shortage due to safety concerns, uncompetitive pay and benefits, and full-time teacher attrition. Up to 50% of substitute teaching positions are unstaffed, causing 77% of school principals and district teachers to report difficulty hiring substitute teachers.[8] This increases workloads for teachers and administrative staff.

Examples of ways donors can help:

• Pay for teachers to be nationally board-certified, a program that involves teachers’ providing coaching and mentoring to other teachers. The program has been shown to to increase the quality of teaching, student achievement, and teacher [1]
• Support policy experiments aimed at improving teacher recruitment and For example, experiments in California, Colorado, Tennessee, and Texas have attracted and retained talent by increasing compensation for teachers. In Michigan, providing longer teaching permits for substitute teachers has been found to be effective in retaining needed substitute teachers,19 while efforts in Arizona focused on increasing pathways for substitute teachers to become full-time teachers.
• Advocate for policies and local leadership focused on promoting teacher recruitment and retention.

Promoting these innovative responses for growing the pool of teaching talent gives donors a hand in remedying this issue and provides students the high-quality instruction they deserve.

Notes

1. 1. In the first year of the pandemic only 40 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in pre-school in 2020, a 14 percentage-point drop from 2019 and the first time since 1996 that fewer than half of U.S. children in that age group attended preschool. US Census Bureau. (n.d.). Census Bu- reau Data Reveal Decline in School Census. Gov. Retrieved January 25, 2022, from https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/decline-school-enrollment.html
   2. Only 24% of 2nd graders were on grade level for reading, compared to 30% in previous years. Even fewer students are on grade level for math, with higher grade levels impacted the most. Only 24% of 5th graders were on grade level for math, compared to 34% in previous years. Inequities that predate the pandemic Fewer students are on grade-level in low- er-income zip codes (25%) and in predominately Black (24%) and Latino schools (31%) com- pared to higher-income households (54%), and predominantly White schools (50%). January 19, 2022 Children Funding Project Webinar: “How States and Communities Are Maximizing American Rescue Plan Funding for Kids in 2022 and Beyond”
   3. Leachman, , & Mai, C. (2014, May 20). Most States Funding Schools Less Than Before the Recession. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. https://www.cbpp.org/research/most- states-funding-schools-less-than-before-the-recession
   4. Chun-Hoon, W. (2021, May 6). 5 Facts on Moms, Work, and COVID-19. U.S. Department of Labor Blog. https://blog.dol.gov/2021/05/06/moms
   5. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (1985, January 1). All Employees, Child Day Care Services. FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https:// fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES6562440001
   6. National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2021). State Survey Data: Child Care at a Time of Progress and Peril. National Association for the Education of Young Chil-
   7. Kraft, M., and Goldstein, M. (2020). Getting tutoring right to reduce COVID-19 learning The Brookings Institution. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-cen- ter-chalkboard/2020/05/21/getting-tutoring-right-to-reduce-covid-19-learning-loss/
   8. Learning Policy (2021, March 4). COVID-19 Is Worsening Already Critical Teach- er Shortages, Potentially Jeopardizing School Openings. Learning Policy Institute. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/press-release/covid-19-worsen- ing-already-critical-teacher-shortages-potentially-jeopardizing-school.
   9. Paterson, (2021, October 26). Substitute Teacher Shortage Causes More School Disruptions. NEA News. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/ new-from-nea/substitute-teacher-shortage-causes-more-school-disruptions.