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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.
Scott Elliott is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He writes about education, city and suburban issues, politics, business, workforce and consumer issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > August > 16 > Entry
Editorial: Dayton charting a path to more early learning
Ohio has had some bad press in recent months for its failure to support early childhood care and education. Now comes the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, an advocacy group for quality child care. It ranks Ohio among the worst in the nation for ensuring quality in day-care operations with six or fewer children.
Also, advocates of early education decried the elimination of funding in last fall’s state budget go-round for a program that helped poor kids enroll in quality early care.
Fortunately, other state and local efforts are helping to build a framework that eventually could vastly improve child-care options. And the Dayton area is leading the way.
Early care — including preschools, day-care centers and in-home care — is extraordinarily uncoordinated. Parents find professional centers with certified teachers; they find friends and relatives working out of their homes; and everything in between.
Figuring out what options are feasible and affordable, while also offering kids an enriching experience, is a huge challenge. There aren’t a lot of good places to go for reliable, useful and detailed guidance.
That’s why the national report is pushing for states like Ohio, that aren’t licensing small day cares, to get with the program.
Nobody’s talking about baby sitters or stay-at-home moms. The proposed licensing is for day-care businesses with six or fewer kids that may happen to operate out of a private home.
To get a license in most states, such operations meet bare minimums in health and safety standards. For instance, the operators may have to show they don’t have a history of crimes against children or that they know what to do in an emergency.
Licensing is a relatively simple step Ohio could take to protect kids in those settings. It also would help local advocates track providers who often fly under the radar and alert them to services they don’t know they qualify for.
Licensing also could connect nicely to another major state initiative focused on professional preschools and child-care centers — Step Up To Quality. Through this program, centers can volunteer to be rated by the state (one to three stars, with three as the best).
Through Edvention, a local education-focused collaborative, a real effort is under way to encourage local providers to volunteer to be rated and to assist them to achieve a top score. The initiative, known as ReadySetSoar, aims to increase the number of children who arrive for kindergarten ready to learn.
Thanks to ReadySetSoar’s encouragement, 39 centers have been rated, a big jump from just seven in 2008. But that’s still just 18 percent of eligible centers in Montgomery County.
By getting rated, child-care providers will be able to demonstrate quality to parents who are shopping around and, also, put themselves in a position to draw more state aid. Ohio awards “quality achievement” grants to centers that get rated. The average award is $8,800.
Participation also makes providers eligible for a higher reimbursement rate for the low-income children they serve.
Investments in early care are shown to bring tremendous returns in productivity as kids mature. Some studies predict a return of $7 to $16 for every $1 spent on early care, especially if it helps some kids avoid jail or dependence on social services later in life.
We all pay when kids don’t make it in school. And everyone benefits if efforts like licensing and star ratings raise the quality of programs.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott
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By Davidss2
August 16, 2010 5:31 PM | Link to this
This sounds like what Michigan had where the unions were able to take over home care providers and get a cut of the state money they were being paid out of certain state funds for childcare. The actual providers did not have a chance to vote for union or not. The union money is taken out of the money the providers are being paid from the state of Michigan. ————The concept of more union payees is consistent with the current federal administration’s goals. Is that where this is headed?