When caring for young children and their education, the
gulfs regarding best practices, rights and wrongs, and how to define success
are as yawning as the divide in the Great Rift Valley.
However, when excellent childcare begins to disappear, the
outpouring from families and communities belies our consensus – regardless of
our political orientation.
Here in the Fredericksburg region, the announcement that
Kids’ Station would be closing unified the community around saving what is
generally recognized as one of the better childcare facilities in our area.
Mary Washington Healthcare and the parent company that operates Kids’ Station
pivoted 180 degrees, publicly apologized, and agreed to keep the center open
until a better solution could be found. As of January 2025, Kids Station is
scheduled to move to space behind the Spotsylvania Towne Centre, further from
the hospital campus.
If loss can unite us, why is it so difficult to find a way
to address the problem?
The answer to that, unsurprisingly, is complicated.
Defining ‘High-Quality’
Defining what constitutes a high-quality childcare
experience is fraught with difficulties.
The one metric that people default to when looking at
anything related to academics—test scores, longitudinal data sets, and
meta-studies—delivers mixed messages.
A 2022 report from the Economist found that while there are
plenty of success stories about the impact of early childhood education, there
are important counterbalances.
A meta-analysis of 22 experiments conducted between 1960 and
2016 shows that children enrolled in preschool were less likely to need special
education services or repeat years and graduated from high school at higher
rates. But the improvements were minor. One study published in 2021 of programs
in Boston found that attending preschool did not affect adolescent test scores
but boosted high-school graduation and college attendance. -The Economist, Feb.
2, 2022
Other analyses are more optimistic about the impact of
high-quality childcare. A 2023 meta-study by the Office of the Administration
for Children & Families, for example, found that:
The benefits of high-quality ECE for the child often last
into kindergarten, and some studies show lasting effects into middle and high
school. The quality of later schooling that a child experiences can either
build upon or counteract these benefits. Even though evidence for the long-term
effects of ECE on child development is mixed, some studies show that
high-quality ECE yields long-term advantages for individuals and society,
including higher educational attainment, better adult health, and less involvement
in crime.
Even here, however, the study softens as it discusses the
long-term effects of high-quality early childhood education. In short, tracing
long-term effects via traditional testing methods, while not unbeneficial, has
its limits.
Part of the problem is wrapped up in defining “high
quality.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics has made some progress in
this area and argues that our understanding of what constitutes high-quality
childcare is becoming more apparent as research measures and the breadth of
research grow.
The definition of quality in ECE is becoming more
evidence-based as newer, validated measures become available. State licensing
standards have been the traditional benchmarks, but they set a minimum standard
that is typically considerably less than the recommendations of health and
safety experts. National organizations, including the AAP, the American Public
Health Association, and the National Association for the Education of Young
Children, have developed standards and voluntary systems of accreditation that
are often more robust than state licensing regulations. The publication Caring
for Our Children, Third Edition 21 includes evidence-based practice standards
for nutrition, safety, hygiene, staff-to-child ratios, and numerous other
subjects that have been shown to improve the quality of child care. -The
American Academy of Pediatrics, August 2017
The indicators of successful childcare are the most
compelling of the AAP study. Most of the ones the AAP study identifies would
align with what many would consider “commonsense” matters: infection
control, good nutrition, a clean and healthy environment, physical activity,
injury prevention, and emergency procedures.
When talking to parents searching for good childcare, it’s
not uncommon to hear that they’ve walked into facilities – whether home-based,
church-based, for-profit, or non-profit – and quickly walked out because these
commonsense items are not in sight.
This helps explain the very public reaction to the situation
between Kids’ Station and MWHC. When a daycare that has a track record of
meeting commonsense standards is shuttered, the reality that finding a
comparable center to place your child will be challenging sets in.
Declining Daycare
The trouble finding daycare is tied to several problems. One
is simple space.
In our February 16 story Childcare Crisis Is Here,” one
parent summed up the shortage of available daycare succinctly:
“My husband spent the whole morning today on the
phone,” Wendy Thomas, a mother of two, said after the announcement that
Kids’ Station was closing. “He called all the way around town and was told
summer care (for their 6-year-old) would be extremely difficult and that we may
be able to get the 4-year-old into care in the fall. But at this point, nothing
is available in May.”
MWHC, in an attempt to help affected families, put together
a spreadsheet of available child care centers in the area that did more to
highlight the difficulties families face than to alleviate their fears.
“There were twenty-two providers on the list,” we
reported. “Of those, one is recently opened and looks to potentially have
a significant number of slots. Other locations reported possible openings in
May, waiting lists, or could only take certain age groups. Seven are not
currently accepting new people.”
Families are constrained by more than open spaces, however.
Cost is another factor.
A recent report by JLARC, “Virginia’s Self-Sufficiency
Programs and the Availability and Affordability of Child Care,” found that
childcare is unaffordable for 85% of families with infants, 82% of families
with toddlers, and 74% of families with preschoolers.
The situation is even worse for low-income families. Just 2%
of these families with infants and toddlers and 3% of these families with
preschoolers could shoulder the costs of daycare.
Sen. Tim Kaine last year pushed for more funding and support
for child care through two bills: S.1354, the Child Care for Working Families
Act, and S.2777, the Child Care Stabilization Act. Both bills have stalled.
Not Just about ‘The Children’
Further complicating this story is the reality that quality
childcare involves more than ensuring that children have the best possible
experience growing up.
There are very real impacts relating to adult employment and
our overall economy.
This tension has always existed, but the pandemic has
exasperated the problem significantly. Though it was popular for some
businesses to blame post-pandemic hiring woes on people they felt had become
“lazy” or dependent on “government handouts,” the reality
is that the cost of daycare, as well as the shortage of daycare seats, was more
to blame.
Writing in the Virginian Pilot, Barry Duvall and Mike
Petters noted that:
The crisis has disproportionately impacted women, who make
up the overwhelming majority of workers who are involuntarily working part-time
due to childcare challenges. These adverse impacts on working mothers
skyrocketed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with nearly 2 million women
leaving the labor force since the start of the pandemic.
No Panacea
Fixing the childcare problem will not solve our workforce
shortage, academic achievement gaps, or family poverty alone. However, because
childcare is at the nexus of all these issues, failing to address it will
ensure that we struggle more than we need to in these areas.
Tensions between government leaders like Kaine, who backs
Big Government solutions, and more conservative organizations like the Heritage
Foundation, which worry Big Government will limit family options and that
free-market options are the better route to go, are sure to continue.
Both sides have solid facts on their sides, and reason to be
skeptical of the philosophical principles underlying their opponents’ ideas.
The reality is that addressing the complex issues before us
will require a broad range of approaches.
Perhaps we can begin by pointing to what we can agree on –
many of the “high-quality” indicators outlined in the AAP study.
At least then, we’re pulling in the same direction on a
problem that can be solved.
