KID STUFF : What Makes Good Day Care? Money
While the presidential candidates have been talking about day care, the Harvard Graduate School of Education has been studying it.
In a new report, researchers found that the quality of child care was highest among centers that receive government subsidies aimed at impoverished families.
That conclusion throws into question the Bush Administration’s emphasis on child-care tax credits for middle-class and affluent taxpayers.
Other than serving as “welfare for the well-off,” the tax credits and parental vouchers advocated by President Bush and Vice Dan President Quayle had no effect on the quality of child care, the Harvard study revealed.
“Tax credits clearly reduce the cost burden of day care for relatively affluent families, but they fail to raise quality and fail to reach the working poor,” wrote Bruce Fuller, who directed the study of 1,800 child-care centers in 36 states.
One explanation for the improved quality of subsidized child-care programs was higher salaries for teachers. The staff stability produced by increased salaries was a boon to child development, the study showed.
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