Who Cares for America's Children? (1990) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
10 Conclusions and Recommendations for Policies and Programs
10 Conclusions and Recommendations for Policies and Programs
Pages 288-314
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From page 288... ...
Child care is no longer simply a protective or remedial service for poor children or those from troubled families; it is an everyday arrangement for the majority of children in the United States. With the dramatic increase in mothers' labor force entry, child care increasingly has become a large and diverse enterprise of public and private, for-profit and not-for-profit services.
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From page 289... ...
Yet the United States does not have public policies to ensure that employed parents are able to provide adequate and appropriate care for their children. In the absence of any overall policy, child care services have developed haphazardly: an uncoordinated patchwork of programs, supported by a variety of public and private funding sources, serving some but far from all of the families who need out-of-home care.
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From page 290... ...
High-quality and low-quality care can be found among all types of services, whether they are provided in the child's home or outside it, in schools, child care centers, or family day care homes, in programs operated for profit or those operated not for profit.
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From page 291... ...
Yet specific gaps in current programs and arrangements mean that many children and families lack access to services. Families with infants and toddlers, those with children with disabilities, those with mildly or chronically ill children, those with school-age children, and those in which parents work nontraditional schedules often have particular difficulty arranging appropriate child care services.
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From page 292... ...
In the long run, reaching the goals will be costly. Just how costly is difficult to estimate precisely since it will depend not only on the particular public and private policies and programs that are adopted, but also on how parents respond to them and to other future changes in the economy and society, in their choices regarding childbearing, labor force participation, and child care arrangements.
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From page 293... ...
Goal 1: Achieve Quality in Out-of-Home Child Care Services and Arrangements All families, regardless of their social, economic, or cultural background, should be able to place their children in child care settings that meet fundamental standards of quality. Regardless of geographic location or the type of program or arrangement in which children are placed, certain characteristics of the setting, the caregiver, and the program are important indicators of the quality of care that is being provided.
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From page 294... ...
Careg~ver Paining and E'cper~ence Caregivers in child care centers, family day care homes, and school-based programs should have specific training in child development theory and practice. In addition, research shows that more years of general education contribute to caregiver performance and children's developmental outcomes.
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From page 295... ...
Numerous studies of center care and family day care in this country have shown that many children are in programs that do not meet the fundamental standards of quality we have outlined, although it is impossible to calculate the precise number of inadequate programs and the number of children they serve. The regulatory policies of many states do not resect knowledge from research and best practice about appropriate ranges for
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From page 296... ...
Goal 2: Improve Accessibility to Quality Child Care Services and Arrangements for Families in Different Social, Economic, and Cultural Circumstances Regardless of their social, economic, or cultural backgrounds and circumstances, all families should have access to quality child care services and arrangements. If parents' right to choose freely from a diversity of options is to be the guiding principle for child care policy and the delivery of services, then parents must have options.
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From page 297... ...
But for parents without time and resources, choices may be severely restricted. Moreover, several specialized types of child care services are in short supply: organized infant and toddler care programs, before- and after-school care programs, child care and preschool education programs for children with disabilities, comprehensive care programs for economically disadvantaged children and those at risk of later school failure, and services for children whose parents do not work traditional daytime schedules.
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From page 298... ...
Given the many needs of many of these children and their families, communities should be encouraged to develop and evaluate model programs that provide comprehensive health, education, and parent education services for children with handicapping conditions. Out-of-home child care services are in short supply for mildly ill children and those whose parents work nontraditional schedules.
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From page 299... ...
Because of the newness and decentralized character of many child care services, it is often difficult for parents to obtain relevant information. Accordingly, services and administrative mechanisms to provide better information to parents who are child care consumers will help them locate and gain access to available services and make informed choices among them.
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From page 300... ...
Those mothers who are employed rely primarily on relative care or other informal unlicensed arrangements, including family day care. Although this may
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From page 301... ...
Care by fathers and by extended-family members continues to be an important component of current child care arrangements, especially for low-income families. Relative care has declined in the 1980s in comparison with family day care, center care, and school-based programs, and further declines are anticipated as many grandmothers and other female relatives who might otherwise serve as caregivers continue to enter or remain in the labor force in increasing numbers.
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From page 302... ...
The second tension is between improving the quality of out-of-home child care services and improving their availability and affordability. Efforts to improve the quality of care by improving the ratios of staff to children, increasing the education and training of caregivers, increasing caregiver wages and salaries, and improving the physical facilities of centers, family day care homes, and public schools-will substantially raise the costs of care.
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From page 303... ...
1. The federal government, in partnership with the states, should expand subsidies to support low-income families' use of quality child care programs and arrangements.
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From page 304... ...
to allow them to use the additional income to pay for child care services. Estimates of the added costs of making the dependent care tax credit fully refundable at current benefit levels are approximately $300 million.
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From page 305... ...
The Social Services Block Grant program and similar programs also offer significant opportunities to link funding to compliance with performance standards that are likely to be associated with higher quality care. Funding for the Child Care Food Program, in particular, has been an effective mechanism for bringing family day care homes into the licensed system and for developing routine structures for monitoring compliance with regulations and standards of care.
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From page 306... ...
These programs provide economically disadvantaged and at-risk preschool children an early educational experience that improves their chances of later academic success. Comprehensive care programs are costly, from $2,500 to $3,500 per child for a typical Head Start part-day program and more for more intensive academic or social services components or if the program is combined with extended-day child care services.
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From page 307... ...
Resource and referral services, which have developed in several states and communities, provide an effective mechanism for matching consumers and providers, for providing information and consumer education to parents, for providing information and technical assistance to providers, especially family day care homes, and for providing information and support to state and local planning groups. They are not a panacea for all the ills of an incoherent and competitive child care system, but they can provide an essential part of the necessary infrastructure of a more coordinated system and can help the existing market function more effectively.
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From page 308... ...
reports, in the face of a rapidly growing demand for services, an increasing number of consumers with a limited ability to pay, and restricted government and corporate support, the United States has implicitly adopted a policy that relies on child care providers to subsidize the cost of care through their low wages. The panel concludes that improving the quality of child care will inevitably require professional preparation and adequate compensation for caregivers.
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From page 309... ...
Networks or systems of family day care providers have expanded rapidly over the past several years, largely in response to requirements for receipt of Child Care Food Program subsidies. Although systems vary in size and in the types of supports and services they offer, they have been shown to be effective mechanisms for assisting providers to meet the administrative requirements for public subsidies, disseminating information concerning best practices, providing preservice and in-service training, sharing toys and other educational resources, organizing emergency backup care, and providing client referrals.
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From page 310... ...
The lengthy and painful effort to promulgate federal quality and safety standards or regulations for the delivery of child care services was terminated with the elimination of the Federal Interagency Day Care Requirements in 1982, and the states became the sole authority for establishing regulations and enforcing them. The content of state regulations varies dramatically across jurisdictions, not as a reflection of the different developmental needs of children but as a reflection of different views of the role of government in developing standards or regulations and the will and capacity of state systems to see that they are maintained.
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From page 311... ...
At the same time, they should take account of the physical and administrative differences between child care centers, schools, and family day care homes.
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From page 312... ...
Given the shortage of high-quality infant care services, many observers worry about the long-term effects of exposing very young children to inadequate care and of forcing their parents back to work before they are psychologically ready to return. The panel has concluded that, in the current infant care market, some parents are forced to make choices they should not have to make.
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From page 313... ...
CONCLUSION As we stated at the beginning of this chapter, the panel's framework for policy and program development is organized around three fundamental goals: to enhance the quality of out-of-home child care services and arrangements; to enhance the accessibility of child care services and arrangements to families in different social, economic, and cultural circumstances; and to enhance the affordability of child care services for low-income families. Our five recommendations are intended as immediate steps to further these goals.
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From page 314... ...
Child Care Teachers and the Quality of Care in America. Executive summary of the National Child Care Staffing Study.
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