The United States Needs a Recovery Plan for Kids
They paid too high a price during Covid shutdowns.
While the Biden campaign has yet to announce a policy platform for a second term, a piece in today’s New York Times discussing the catastrophic harms of extended school closures hints at a something that should be included — a Recovery Plan for Kids who sacrificed so much during the pandemic. I’m borrowing the term “recovery plan for kids” from UK pediatrician Michael Absoud, who has repeatedly emphasized the importance of generous policy interventions to get children back on track after onerous lockdowns and restrictions on their lives. We need a whole-of-government initiative to restore well-being for children.
Policy interventions should provide support for all children, but there should be a particular focus on children from low-income communities who paid the steepest price during the pandemic:
But the combination — poverty and remote learning — was particularly harmful. For each week spent remote, students in poor districts experienced steeper losses in math than peers in richer districts.
That is notable, because poor districts were also more likely to stay remote for longer.
A Recovery Plan for Kids is an opportunity for agencies across the federal government — and across levels of government from local to state to federal — to work together to help make children whole again.
A solid plan would ideally emerge from the White House’s Domestic Policy Council and enjoy bipartisan support — from Democrats concerned about child well-being and vocal Republican critics of overzealous pandemic measures.
Here are some policies that could be included:
A chronic absenteeism initiative involving CDC, the Department of Education, and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) staff. A messaging campaign could emphasize the importance of school attendance — even when mildly ill — and monetary incentives for good attendance could be piloted in the districts with the most acute attendance problems.
With Covid-19 school aid expiring, new special education resources could be surged to districts to ensure that exceptional learners who missed services during periods of virtual instruction — or perhaps weren’t even identified as eligible due to school closures — receive the services to which they are entitled under the law. Additional funding could help districts increase training and salaries for special education teachers, given the national shortage.
HUD and education department staff could craft a summer enrichment initiative that would focus on providing meaningful learning, social, and developmental experiences for children, especially those from lower-income backgrounds. This could involve expanding existing programs in public housing communities and providing vouchers for children from rural and underserved communities to access private summer camp experiences.
Young people should be provided with a culture bonus debit card — a policy that exists in some European countries — that they can use to attend movies, concerts, theater performances, and to buy books. Perhaps you provide 15- to 18-year-olds with $500/year to spend on cultural events and goods.
It is moral atrocity that the U.S. has millions of uninsured and underinsured children. Building on the current policy of states providing children with 12 months of continuous Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage, a national policy of Medicaid for Children should be implemented. At birth, all children would be enrolled in Medicaid. Unless parents took action to enroll them in alternative coverage of equal quality, they would remain enrolled in Medicaid until 19, which would guarantee access to necessary health care with zero cost-sharing.
A dramatic expansion of mental health care should be facilitated with child access to care more aggressively monitored by the Department of Health and Human Services and state public health departments. To increase the supply of qualified providers and therapists, more social workers could be supported to gain the necessary credentials to provide therapy sessions.
Pandemic-era inflation has made child care more expensive and less accessible than ever. Because a young adult’s capacity for success ultimately depends on how they are cared for as a toddler, there should be a major push to increase the supply of free child care of high quality.
The above list is just brainstorming. The White House — and federal agencies — would need to come together with stakeholders to produce a Recovery Plan for Kids worthy of America’s children. It would ideally include a mix of policies that could be implemented with regulatory tweaks and executive orders and more ambitious ones requiring congressional action. While every policy would not be achieved, it would nonetheless send a signal to the public that the government was taking child well-being seriously after the social catastrophe of lockdowns and school closures.