Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 15, 1990 TAG: 9003152477
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
"Existing child-care services in the United States are inadequate to meet current and likely future needs of children, parents and society," concluded the two-year study by an expert committee from the National Academy of Sciences.
The report recommended sweeping reforms that would increase annual combined government spending by $5 billion to $10 billion, perhaps doubling the total $8 billion now spent each year on child care by federal, state and local taxpayers.
Most of the money should go to poor families, the report urged. Only 30 percent of federal child-care dollars went to low-income groups by the end of the 1980s, compared with 80 percent in 1972, the study found.
However, the need for better child care cuts across all economic groups, said John L. Palmer, a dean at Syracuse University and chairman of the 19-member committee.
"Each workday morning, the majority of American parents entrust the care of their young children to others," said Palmer. "This relatively recent development has transformed the issue of the quality, affordability and accessibility of child care in the United States from a strictly family matter to one with profound implications for the nation as a whole."
The 347-page report, "Who Cares for America's Children? - Child Care Policy for the 1990s," is a result of research requested by the federal Health and Human Services Department, the Ford Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development.
The study "found that the majority of children receive care below generally recognized standards of quality," said Palmer.
The needs for good child care will intensify in the coming decades, the report said. By the year 2000, about 80 percent of the nation's school-age children and 70 percent of the preschool children will have mothers who are working or seeking work outside the home.
The diversity of American child care complicates the system but "is one of its strengths," the report said. It predicts the nation's child-rearing system will continue to be a hodgepodge of stay-at-home moms or dads, relatives, neighbors, nannies and more structured day-care centers.
"There is clearly no one solution that is right for all families," said Palmer.
However, government is going to have to become more involved in child care, the report said. Among its recommendations:
"The federal government should mandate unpaid, job-protected leave for employed parents of infants up to one year of age." The first months of life are extremely important in a child's development, the report said. Plus the stress and guilt of having to leave their babies are taking a toll on new parents.
"We believe U.S. working parents of very young children are being forced to make choices that they should not have to make - choices about leaving the work force or leaving their children in low-quality care," said Palmer.
The federal government should help develop national standards for child care. These would include setting qualifications for caregivers and physical, health and safety standards for day-care centers. The government would establish maximum staff-to-child ratios (the report suggests no more than one adult to four infants, for instance).
"Current state regulations vary dramatically," the report said, and many are inadequate. Indeed, more than half of all children of working parents are kept in facilities that are not regulated at all.
Federal and state governments should expand subsidies to help low-income families find and use quality care for their children.
The current income tax credit for child care chiefly benefits the middle class, said committee member Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University.
"Our immediate effort must concentrate on affordable, high-quality child care for the most disadvantaged children," said Palmer.
Along these lines, governments should expand Head Start and other preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds who appear destined for early academic and social failure.
Government and private businesses should take steps to raise the pay in day-care centers, better train caregivers of children and improve the referral network to help working parents find good care for their children.
by CNB