News & Stories: Publications

Excerpt: "Atkinson Centre faculty took aim at the slanted manner applied to reporting on the impact of full-day kindergarten for 4- and 5-year olds in Ontario. The article ignores the significant benefits of full-day kindergarten to zero in on the flat lining of reading, writing and numeracy skills for one group in the study."

Excerpt: "A number of jurisdictions are raising the salaries of Early Childhood Educators this year but all allocate more funding to qualified staff as a way to build a professional workforce. Ontario’s announcement doesn’t appear to include this differential. At $2 an hour over two years, Ontario’s raise is comparable to adjustments in Quebec, PEI and Newfoundland but less than the $6/hour going to trained ECEs in the NWT."

Excerpt: "The bidding for child care in the Ontario election campaign started at $269-million with the Liberals, dropped to $100-million by the NDP and vanished by the time it got to the Tories. Surprisingly advocates don’t ask the NDP leader why she killed the budget to come back with $169-million less than what was initially on the table."

Excerpt: "Can Ontario's universal full-day kindergarten program help to level the playing field? The list of possibilities is long: closing the gap of language experience of kids living in poverty, reaching all vulnerable kids, including those in the middle class, contributing support to families who need child care, and ensuring that care and education are combined in high quality programs that boost overall child development as well as academic skills and economic success. Research has shown that many of these goals can be accomplished by high quality universal early childhood programs."

Excerpt: "For Emis Akbari, a post-doc at OISE’s Atkinson Centre, writing a children’s book was never a career aspiration. Reconnecting with childhood friends Brian and Laura Veloso via Facebook, she learned that their third child Owen, now six, had been born with Hyperplasmic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS), a rare and complex congenital heart defect in which the left side of the heart is critically underdeveloped."

Excerpt: "The immediate and long-term benefits of quality early childhood eduacation (ECE) for children and society are well documented. Early childhood educaiton is a job creator in its own right, while supporting parents as they work or upgrade their skills."

Excerpt: "Why is this work so important? First, it pulls back the curtain on which provinces and territories are making progress and how each needs to progress further to seize the social and economic benefits of quality early childhood education for the nation’s children. This recent edition of the “index” idea, released by Mrs. McCain, reveals a good deal of progress by the provinces with much more to do. Despite increased investments by provincial governments, far too many children are still denied access to pre-school with countries as disparate as Mexico and the UK doing far better than Canada. Overall, this kind of accountability reporting is about evidence-based decision making."

The Schools at the Centre study explores the impact of full day kindergarten and extended hours programming on educators, families and early years administrators in three Ontario regions. By exploring the processes and partnerships developed between school boards, regional governments and community organizations the researchers were able to uncover lessons to inform policy and practice. The aim of the study is to strengthen child and family centred services in communities.

Excerpt: "This overview is organized around 20 sections highlighting the process, audience, theoretical approaches, developmental areas, resources and supports for each framework. It is not intended for comparison but to showcase the rich body of work that has emerged from Canada’s early childhood sector."

Excerpt: "The report offers recommendations to build a workforce that is unified by the foundation of the science of child development and early learning and the shared knowledge and competencies that are needed to provide consistent, high-quality support for the development and early learning of children from birth through age 8."

Excerpt: "More recently provinces and territories have looked to their education systems to expand early childhood opportunities. Full day kindergarten for 5 year olds is now the norm. Three provinces are including 4 year olds in publicly-funded kindergarten and most provinces offer some preschool programming at least for vulnerable children (Akbari & McCuaig, 2014)."

Excerpt: "This study builds on a wide body of research from across disciplines that documents the benefits of early childhood education and care (ECEC) for children, families and society. The evidence suggests that accessible, quality ECEC would deliver similar benefits to the Northwest Territories. The key informant and survey and focus group participants who shared their views as part of the study were aware of the connections between ECEC and child, family and societal well-being. Using NWT data, the economic analysis predicts a similar ratio of costs to benefits from public spending on ECEC as found in studies of comparable regions. The GNWT motion commissioning this study on the feasibility of universal daycare reflects the attention policy-makers across Canada and internationally are affording early childhood education and care."