Karen Schulman, Senior Policy Analyst

Karen Schulman is a Senior Policy Analyst in NWLC's Family Economic Security division. She researches and writes about child care and early education policies. She received her bachelor's degree from Williams College and her master's degree in Public Policy from Duke University. Prior to joining NWLC, she worked at the Children's Defense Fund. She enjoys spending time with her nieces and nephews and is glad they will grow up thinking there is nothing unusual about a woman being Speaker of the House or running for President.

Expert in: Child Care & Early Learning, Child Care, Child Care Assistance, Child Care Tax Strategies, Head Start, Family, Friend & Neighbor Care, Prekindergarten, Military Child Care, Unionization
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My Take

The Military Child Care System Remains a Model for Improvement

Posted by Karen Schulman, Senior Policy Analyst | Posted on: February 08, 2012 at 06:16 pm

The military child care system offers a model for providing high-quality, affordable, and accessible child care, as described in the National Women’s Law Center’s 2000 report, Be All That We Can Be: Lessons from the Military for Improving Our Nation’s Child Care System, and 2004 follow-up report. The reports showed that the military child care system provides an example for the civilian child care sector to follow in addressing gaps in the quality and availability of child care. A new study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) demonstrates that the military is continuing to work to expand the supply of high-quality care and make it more affordable for families.

Department of Defense (DoD) officials told GAO that families, particularly those with infants, often had difficulty finding child care due to waiting lists at many on-installation child development centers and a limited supply of eligible off-installation child care. DoD plans to address this shortage by constructing new child development centers that will add over 21,000 on-installation child care spaces, according to the GAO report. It is also taking steps to expand the availability of off-installation child care by increasing coordination with community-based providers and helping them meet DoD quality standards.

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Tags: Child Care, Child Care, Child Care & Early Learning, Child Care Agenda, Department of Defense, Military, Military Child Care | 1 comment

California Considers Cutting Child Care Assistance for 62,000 Children

Posted by Karen Schulman, Senior Policy Analyst | Posted on: February 01, 2012 at 06:21 pm

With California facing a $9.2 billion budget gap, programs that provide critical supports for children and families are at risk of major cuts. Governor Jerry Brown has proposed to reduce funding for child care and development programs by $517 million (28 percent), eliminating 62,000 children from these programs.

The proposed cuts would come on top of the significant cuts to child care and development programs the state has made over the past few years and exacerbate existing gaps.

Funding for child care and development programs has been reduced by nearly $1 billion since 2008, which has resulted in 100,000 fewer children able to participate in these programs. Nearly 190,000 children are already on the state's waiting list for child care assistance. In addition, California made its previously refundable child and dependent care tax credit nonrefundable as of Tax Year 2011, cutting tax assistance for low- and moderate-income families with child care expenses by more than two-thirds.

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Tags: Child Care, Child Care & Early Learning, Child Care Assistance | 1 comment

Support for Child Care Across the Spectrum

Posted by Karen Schulman, Senior Policy Analyst | Posted on: January 25, 2012 at 04:07 pm

Child care got favorable and somewhat unexpected mentions on Tuesday from two conservative-leaning commentators—co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

During a segment about the best companies to work for, Scarborough brought up—without prompting—the benefits for employees when companies provide on-site child care. Scarborough talked about how reassuring it can be for parents to know that their children are well cared-for while they work, and close enough to visit anytime during the day. He is certainly correct about how valuable on-site child care can be. Unfortunately, it is not an option for most parents. Many parents work for employers that are too small to support an on-site center. Many parents also work multiple part-time jobs and would not find it practical to move their child from one place to another as they moved from job to job throughout the day. And, as Scarborough’s co-host Mika Brzezinski points out, on-site child care may not be convenient for parents with school-age children, since they would need to find a way to get their children from school in the middle of the day.

But if employers cannot offer child care on site or doing so would not meet their employees’ needs, they can support child care in other ways. 

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Tags: Child Care, Child Care & Early Learning, Television & Media | Add new comment

Media Spotlight on Child Care, Finally

Posted by Karen Schulman, Senior Policy Analyst | Posted on: January 19, 2012 at 05:40 pm

Child care is an everyday concern for families, but on most days it is overlooked by the media. In the past few months, though, that's started to change, as the New York Times, AP, and CNN have all done stories about the child care funding cuts occurring across the country. These stories, which include quotes from NWLC's Director of Leadership and Public Policy, Helen Blank, and data from NWLC's October 2011 report on state child care assistance policies, examine child care cuts and the resulting hardships for low-income families unable to receive help paying for child care.

In addition, the New York Times wrote about child care for parents working evenings, nights, and early morning hours, and the Huffington Post published a column on the decline in the availability of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds for child care.

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Tags: Child Care, Child Care & Early Learning, Child Care Assistance | Add new comment

Child Care for Parents Working 9 (at Night) to 5 (in the Morning)

Posted by Karen Schulman, Senior Policy Analyst | Posted on: January 18, 2012 at 02:36 pm

Many parents take whatever work they can find, no matter what the hours, particularly in today’s economy. As a result, a significant proportion of parents—especially parents in low-wage jobs—are now working evening, night, and weekend hours. These parents need reliable care for their children during these hours, but this is typically hard to find. However, there are some signs that the market may be starting to respond to this growing need, with an increasing number of centers operating during nontraditional hours, according to an article this week in the New York Times.

The article describes the juggling act that a number of parents must do as they try to keep their jobs—as waitresses, cooks, and nursing home employees and doing other work involving late-night and early-morning hours. They have some misgivings about having their children cared for out of the home overnight, but are reassured when they find child care centers or other arrangements providing reliable, good-quality care during nontraditional hours.

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Tags: Child Care, Child Care & Early Learning, Early Learning, The New York Times, Child Care Assistance | Add new comment