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The Lunch @ DC with Taryn Morrissey
Any parent of a young child can tell you how hard it is to find and pay for child care — particularly in the District of Columbia. Why is child care so expensive, and why doesn’t it follow the traditional rules of other markets? Despite families’ high expenses, why are child care workers paid so little? How do children’s early care and educational experiences relate to the achievement gap and socioeconomic inequality? What can be done to improve the quality, supply, and affordability? Taryn Morrissey, Associate Professor of Public Policy at American University, shares what she’s learned through her research on effective policy interventions to addressing the child care problem.
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Taryn Morrissey is Associate Professor of Public Policy in the School of Public Affairs at American University. Her work focuses on examining and improving public policies for vulnerable children, including early care and education, nutrition assistance, and public health policies. She is a non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute and author of Cradle to Kindergarten: A new plan to combat inequality (Russell Sage, 2017). From 2013 to 2015, Dr. Morrissey was Senior Advisor in Human Services Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She worked primarily on President Obama’s Early Learning Initiative, including Early Head Start and child care. From 2008 to 2010, Dr. Morrissey served as Health Policy Advisor on the staff of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, first for Chairman Edward Kennedy and then Chairman Tom Harkin, where she worked on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and other public health issues. She began her career in policy as a Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) / American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Congressional Fellow. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University, and her B.S. from Tufts University.