Today I was reading my e-newsletter from Child Care Aware
and I found a link to a press release about the new proposed child care
regulations for Child Care Development Grant Funding (CCDF) from the Department
of Health and Human Services. They noted in their press release dated May 15,
2013, that they were pleased to see many of their recommendations for improved
quality included in the language of the new rule. It was also stated that
parents assume that anyone who has a child care license is prepared to adequately
watch their children, but that there are large discrepancies in what happens in
licensed centers from state to state. This rule change will make services for
child care more equitable in terms of quality by requiring licensed programs to
adhere to stricter guidelines in the areas of background checks, give pre-service
training for staff, and participate in a QRIS system. It will require agencies
who administer the CCDF to collaborate more closely with other entities that
serve young children, and make subsidy more easily accessed. This press release
was on the Newsletter tab of the website, so I decided to thoroughly search
through this area. While investigating I found another link to an article from
the New York Times from April that talked about the fact that costs for child
care have doubled since the mid 1980’s. This shows another example of inequity
in affordability. There were several additional articles from the previous all
addressing the cost of care. An insight I had after looking at the titles of
over 70 articles listed on the news tab of this website is that the vast
majority of articles chosen were of negative things that happened in child care
settings. In fact, there were only three articles that I found that really
celebrated successes in the field. I think in this time of pressure and uncertainty
it would be nice for Child Care Aware to find some good things that are
happening to children, families, and early childhood professionals and include
those in their news section.
http://www.naccrra.org/news-room/press-releases/2013/5/child-care-aware%C2%AE-of-america-praises-us-department-of-health-and-human-services
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/us/child-care-costs-are-up-census-finds.html?_r=2&
It is really sad to hear that the cost of child care has doubled. Many families are living on very tight budgets with the cost of living rising everyday. Children deserve and have the right to a high quality education.
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeleteWhat are your thoughts about free early childcare education? Do you think this is possible?
Faith
I studied about the QRIS system this week and it is so great to see a program like this working toward making programs of equity and excellence. It will be great when all of the U.S.' early care and education centers participate in the QRIS system.
ReplyDeleteI thought your statement about parents believing that all child care providers are adequately prepared was very interesting. I think many people would be shocked to realize that states often only have minimum standards in place. I have had some students in my college courses that have admitted that they do not really want to work with children, they are just interested in "having summers off." It drives me nuts! I really try to have some heart-to-hearts with these students and either inspire them to be passionate about education or find something else they can be passionate about.
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