Quality Child Care Is A No Brainer

The report is rather simple, so simple that the headline says it all,

Quality Child Care Leads to Smarter Teens

Study Also Links High-Quality Child Care With Fewer Behavioral Problems in Teens''    

 

We launched Madison's childcare program in 1973. It was inspired by newly elected city council member, Betty Smith, and designed by Mary Berryman Agard, then a temporary member of the city Health Department staff, and now, as a private consultant, developing the Madison cultural plan.

 

Through the years quality child care was part of a five-pronged strategy designed more to create economic Independence than to provide welfare support for households below the poverty line.

 

We focused on quality child care as well as transportation, education/job training, housing, and health. Today I would add economic literacy to these core activities which lead a family to economic independence.

 

In light of the study, it is confounding that even if some in our society do not care about the best outcome for a child, that they cannot take a selfish interest and conclude that it is cheaper and more efficient to pay for a child's early development rather than wait ten years later and address the more expensive poor academic performance and delinquent behavior.

 

The critics will decry spending public money on quality child care, calling for less governmentand less government spending. The point is that there are families that cannot afford to pay the extraordinary  costs for quality child care despite the low wage rates for extremely dedicated staffs. In addition, the standards needed for comprehensive quality child care can only be achieved through government regulation and licensing.

Comments

[Antpoppa]

The wealth of this country is interested only in its own creation. With out struggle, it has reduced the role of government to the level of aphids, through which it milks our treasure, our lives, and the futures of society and ecology. The government is merely a insect that transfers public wealth into private hands through the rigging of contracts and creating of opportunities of investment. Government has no intellect, therefore no need to develop a sense of risk, or responsibility. The idea of establishing intellect does not even occur in its insect brain.

[Ty O'Mara]

Sometimes I think this way, too. Man, I got to tell you, I think you are giving insects a bad name. Have you forgotten, Adam Ant?

[Chuck]

Did you know that the cost of child care for two children at the UW is almost exactly 75% of the pre-tax income of a child autism research postdoc there? You have built a world in which the people who care about children can't afford them. Why are you so proud?