Education

Mills College Students Participate in Course On 2020 Census

Published

5 years ago

December 19, 2019

“The 2020 Census, to me, is one of the most exciting projects I’ve worked on with my students,” said Adam Parker, assistant professor of Practice at Mills College in Oakland. “The Census is something that has a tremendous effect on our society, our politics and our representation in Congress.”

Parker recently taught a course titled “U.S. Census: Engagement, Representation and Policy,” which was designed to help college students become aware of the importance of the Census through academics and community projects. The course was created through a collaboration between Parker and Mark Henderson, associate professor and director of the Public Policy program at Mills.

The class was a one-to-two unit course as part of the college’s public policy program. Twenty students participated in the course doing in-house academics, which made for one unit in the course, and seven of those students received extra credit by providing public service and working on community projects.

“Most people don’t know about the Census and how it works,” said Parker. “The students found the course extremely exciting as they learned about how census data impacts the ways in which government and private funding flows to communities throughout the nation for mental health services, housing the homeless, transportation and infrastructure, among other needs,” added Parker.

“A number of my students did work for Alameda County while others worked with non-profits and community-based organizations that are directly involved with the Census,” said Parker. “Multiple students helped with translation services in areas where language barriers could possibly prevent many people from participating in the Census.”

“Another student did a project investigating screen-reading capabilities to ensure that Census public offices and locations were ADA compliant. One student helped to film a video to encourage community members to become Census enumerators while another did work creating slides and videos in Spanish to train people. It’s important to have Census workers who can relate to the communities in which they live, where people will more likely speak with them.”

Caroline Love, a student interned with the Alameda County Complete Count Committee (ACCCC), described the varied audiences she contacted. “Sometimes, I worked with a group of community elders who were very aware of the Census, as well as presenting to the Berkeley Peace & Justice Commission. Other times, my goal was simply to talk with children, give out stickers, and get their parents familiar with the idea of the Census.”

“Because of the work of the ACCCC, one more person will be informed about the Census, and perhaps that person can educate community members as well. I hope to continue helping others to use their voice and get counted in the 2020 Census, by working as an enumerator in the spring and summer of 2020.”

Parker’s class invited a consortium of subject-matter experts and speakers to the campus to make presentations about the Census. Some of those speakers included the director of the California Complete Count Committee; the director of the California statewide redistricting database; the director of research for the Public Policy Institute of California; the executive director of Filipinos for Justice, and a Governmental Affairs representative for the Alameda County Community Food Bank.

“That was huge for us,” noted Parker. “To have these heavy hitters take time out from their regular schedules to speak with our undergraduate and graduate students. That was a very valuable experience. Still, there are some groups of people who will be less likely to be counted, so with the help of the students who participated in this class, the work of educating and informing more people about the Census will continue.”

Parker can be reached at adparker@mills.edu , for more information and discussions about the 2020 Census.

Clifford L. Williams

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Five Years After COVID-19 Began, a Struggling Child Care Workforce Faces New Threats

Five years ago, as COVID-19 lockdowns and school closures began, most early educators continued to work in person, risking their own health and that of their families. “Early educators were called essential, but they weren’t provided with the personal protective equipment they needed to stay safe,” said CSCCE Executive Director Lea Austin. “There were no special shopping hours or ways for them to access safety materials in those early and scary months of the pandemic, leaving them to compete with other shoppers. One state even advised them to wear trash bags if they couldn’t find PPE.”

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In the first eight months of the COVID-19 pandemic alone, 166,000 childcare jobs were lost across the nation. Significant recovery didn’t begin until the advent of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Child Care Stabilization funds in April 2021.

Today, child care employment is back to slightly above pre-pandemic levels, but job growth has remained sluggish at 1.4% since ARPA funding allocations ended in October 2023, according to analysis by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at UC Berkeley. In the last six months, childcare employment has hovered around 1.1 million.

Yet more than two million American parents report job changes due to problems accessing child care. Why does the childcare sector continue to face a workforce crisis that has predated the pandemic? Inadequate compensation drives high turnover rates and workforce shortages that predate the pandemic. Early childhood educators are skilled professionals; many have more than 15 years of experience and a college degree, but their compensation does not reflect their expertise. The national median hourly wage is $13.07, and only a small proportion of early educators receive benefits.

And now a new round of challenges is about to hit childcare. The low wages paid in early care and education result in 43% of early educator families depending on at least one public support program, such as Medicaid or food stamps, both of which are threatened by potential federal funding cuts. Job numbers will likely fall as many early childhood educators need to find jobs with healthcare benefits or better pay.

In addition, one in five child care workers are immigrants, and executive orders driving deportation and ICE raids will further devastate the entire early care and education system. These stresses are part of the historical lack of respect the workforce faces, despite all they contribute to children, families, and the economy.

The economic impact was equally dire. Even as many providers tried to remain open to ensure their financial security, the combination of higher costs to meet safety protocols and lower revenue from fewer children enrolled led to job losses, increased debt, and program closures.

Eventually, the federal government responded with historic short-term investments through ARPA, which stabilized childcare programs. These funds provided money to increase pay or provide financial relief to early educators to improve their income and well-being. The childcare sector began to slowly recover. Larger job gains were made in 2022 and 2023, and as of November 2023, national job numbers had slightly surpassed pre-pandemic levels, though state and metro areas continued to fluctuate.

Many states have continued to support the workforce after ARPA funding expired in late 2024. In Maine, a salary supplement initiative has provided monthly stipends of $240-$540 to educators working in licensed home- or center-based care, based on education and experience, making it one of the nation’s leaders in its support of early educators. Early educators say the program has enabled them to raise wages, which has improved staff retention. Yet now, Governor Janet Mills is considering cutting the stipend program in half.

“History shows that once an emergency is perceived to have passed, public funding that supports the early care and education workforce is pulled,” says Austin. “You can’t build a stable childcare workforce and system without consistent public investment and respect for all that early educators contribute.”

The Center for the Study of Childcare Employment is the source of this story.

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The winners for Assembly District 14 are: Sarah Bell, Neil Tsutsui, Hercules Councilmember Dilli Bhattarai, former Berkeley School Board Director Laura Babitt, former Piedmont Mayor Teddy Gray King, and former Albany Mayor Nick Pilch.

They were joined by Oakland Councilmember Janani Ramachandran, Emeryville Councilmember Courtney Welch, and BART Director Victor Flores to help celebrate their victory.

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Actor, Philanthropist Blair Underwood Visits Bay Area, Kicks Off Literacy Program in ‘New Oakland’ Initiative

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“This group of sports enthusiasts/ philanthropists needs to be applauded for their human capital investment and their financial capital investment,” Underwood said. “Truly putting their money and passion to work,” Underwood said.

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Underwood said he wants to “reinforce the importance of ‘collaborative activism’ among those most marginalized by non-empathic leadership. We must ‘act out’ our discomfort with passionate intentions to create healthy change.”