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Excerpt: "The recent news stories in the Windsor Star based on a small scale study by Rachel Heydon, challenging the value and experience of children in full day kindergarten is built on spotty reports from a pilot study in two Ontario classrooms suggesting that the new Full Day Kindergarten program may harm children based on too much academics and too little play. Although recent news stories have acknowledged that a study of two classrooms doesn’t give us a clear picture, some journalists truly believe further study will prove the researchers right."

Excerpt: "I would like to address three issues before you today. 1. The elimination of child care subsidies; 2. The privatization of city operated child care centres; 3. The elimination of quality controls. From an economic perspective public spending on child care is not consumption. In the barest of economic terms it is an investment. Child care delivers multiple benefits to the children and families who use it, but it also plays a multifaceted role in regional economies; as an economic sector in its own right with facilities, employees and consumption from other sectors; as labour force support to working parents; and for the long-term economic impact it has on the next generation of workers."

The current research initiative examines the pathway to employment in the field of early childhood education for internationally trained professionals. In particular, the study's aim is to investigate the experiences of internationally trained professionals in the ECE Bridging Program (first step in the accreditation process in Ontario for internationally trained educators). The study also explored the experiences of participants in applying for jobs prior to and after achieving their ECE equivalency. The second goal was to explore whether international education credentials had any impact on employability.

Lots of studies show us that the early years are crucial for how we manage as adults. We have an election coming up tomorrow. We encourage you to think about research findings about our children’s development. Please cast your vote thinking about what matters for our children.

Excerpt: "The Full-Day Early Learning-Kindergarten Program (Draft 2010) has been in draft form for the first two years of implementation of the Full Day Kindergarten program, during which time the Ministry of Education has been accepting informal feedback. This response is written as part of the formal two-part review process being conducted by the Ministry.... This critical phase of reviewing and revising the Full-Day Early Learning-Kindergarten Program provides a valuable opportunity to reflect on the document’s strengths and areas for improvement."

Excerpt: "While the company’s website suggests that Edleun centres are focused on improving the quality of the early childhood system, research consistently shows that for-profit programs provide lower quality child care. The rationale for using for-profit operators is typically to reduce the onus on government, legitimized as being more innovative and cost effective. Research suggests however that non-profit or publicly owned programs are consistently found to provide higher quality services (Cleveland, 2008, Penn, 2010). The Australian experience demonstrates how a corporate child care monopoly can hold government ransom with regard to oversight, reduced regulations, and increasing parental fees."

Excerpt: "In 2007 the newly re-elected Premier Dalton McGuinty asked former deputy minister Charles Pascal to look into the best way to implement full day kindergarten for all Ontario four-and five-year-olds. Fast forward five years and another appointee, this time former banker Don Drummond, is being asked what to eliminate from the budget to ensure Ontario stays on track to eradicate a $16-billion deficit. Top Liberals are being ruthless signaling the provincial budget will proceed with previously announced corporate tax breaks while requiring ministries to cut up to 30 per cent of their costs. 'Bear the pain for future gain' is the current mantra but there won’t be much pain sharing. Program cuts tend to disproportionately affect the vulnerable while tax increases are shared across the economic strata. Finding cheaper ways of delivering full time kindergarten, or eliminating it altogether have been floated in the media. As Pascal told CBC radio, "There are two kinds of policy making—smart and dumb. And cutting full day kindergarten is definitely dumb.""

Excerpt: "A new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is currently in development to replace the existing DSMV-IV. One of the changes proposed is in the diagnostic criteria for autism and related conditions.... The risk with the change in the definition of ASD is that some families will no longer be recognized as having rights associated with disability categories. All Ontarians have the right to accommodation on the basis of disability and a diagnosis allows parents to more readily claim these rights. As an example, one of the most common reasons for children to be asked to leave an ECE setting is because of their behaviours. If a child has a diagnosis of autism, the parents can use this diagnosis as leverage to get supports rather than being excluded from the service."

Excerpt: "Ontario Budget 2012 makes no overt changes to early learning. Full day kindergarten moves forward as planned to embrace all children by 2014. Its unique educator team remains intact. The Government should be commended for rejecting the narrow mindedness of Drummond’s recommendations. The back-story however has some twists. A $75-million reduction in education capital grants will crash into the need to build or refurbish classrooms in schools where there is no space for the remaining influx of 100,000 children during the final phase of the rollout. Most early childhood educators in kindergarten classrooms do not yet work under a collective agreement. Public sector wage controls leaves them, and new all ECE entrants, immobilized at the starting gate...."

Report by Kerry McCuaig, Jane Bertrand and Stuart Shanker: "Over the last few decades the science of early development has witnessed explosive growth. New technologies confirm that infancy and early childhood are the first and most critical phases of human development. A child’s earliest experiences shape the structure of genes and the architecture of the developing brain. At the same time families have changed, becoming more diverse and are raising young children in circumstances that are significantly more complex, and for many, more stressful."

Posted on Longwoods.com.

Article by Kerry McCuaig: "The needs of modern families have changed; the services designed to support them have not. Children's programming in Canada is divided into three distinct streams – education, child care, and family and intervention supports.... The result is service silos. Children and families don't experience their lives in silos; their needs can't be dissected and addressed in isolation."

The following are responses to the Government of Ontario's Modernizing Child Care in Ontario: Sharing Conversations, Strengthening Partnerships, Working Together discussion paper.