University of Wisconsin - Extension

MADISON, Wis - Research shows that quality early education matters. When children have specific early experiences they are more successful in school and life. As part of his Kids First Initiative, Governor Doyle has called for changes in the child care systems in Wisconsin, including a new quality rating system for the state's 10,900 child care facilities.

Research by the Wisconsin Child Care Research Partnership of UW-Extension has shown that a reasonably accurate and inexpensive "5-star rating system" of child care program quality is already possible (a brief report is available at http://www.uwex.edu/ces/flp/wccrp/pdfs/brief13.pdf ). "This suggests a non-intrusive way for state government to increase the quality of child care in the state," according to Dr. Dave Riley, professor of human development and family studies at UW-Madison / Extension, and one of the study's co-authors. "A rating system, if it is fair and accurate, could strengthen the marketplace forces of healthy competition, by creating better-informed consumers."

Another of the study's co-authors, Diane Adams of UW-Extension, explains that "By arming parents with knowledge of the level of quality of different child care programs, they are more likely to seek out and may even pay a premium for higher quality for their children. This is the way a marketplace is supposed to operate: creating incentives for higher quality services."

"The problem right now," according to Adams, "is that many parents don't even comparison-shop. They frequently say they don't know what to look for. A rating service could help them become better consumers."

High quality child care is actually Early Education, according to David Edie, another of the UW-Extension researchers. "A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Paul found that no public program provides a greater return on investment than does a high quality early childhood programs. In the long run such programs may save more than they cost, because the early childhood period is the easiest time to put children on a path in life that includes school completion and avoidance of criminal behavior." Adds Riley: "The economists are telling us that investing in these programs saves so much public money over time that any fiscal conservative should be demanding high quality early childhood programs."

The state currently spends about $350 million every year to subsidize child care services for parents moving off welfare and into the work force. Under the Governor's plan, top-performing child care centers would get higher payments, based on their training, staff retention and meeting health, safety and programming standards. As incentive for centers to improve and retain staff, their rating would determine their portion of the subsidy dollars the state spends each year to care for the children of low-income families.

The strategy of having the state pay more for child care services of higher quality was first proposed in a series of studies by UW-Extension of the child care work force in Wisconsin. "Placing your child with the lowest bidder isn't a good idea," explains Dr. Mary Roach, the fourth co-author of the UW-Extension research reports. "If the state pays the same for low quality and high quality services, then it drives the higher quality programs out of the marketplace. This is not in the state's interest, since research shows that high quality child care actually reduces the future cost of government more than it costs."

UW-Extension has recently joined with the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (WCCF), the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association and the Milwaukee Public Schools to launch "Early Education Matters," a collaborative project to expand the quality and quantity of early care and education experiences available to Wisconsin's four-year old children. The project has received a two-year, $1.3 million grant from the Joyce Foundation. Early Education Matters combines research, training, and technical assistance with a focus on community-based, collaborative early education models. Cooperation between school districts, child care providers and Head Start programs will allow communities to consolidate their resources in order to provide the greatest opportunity for improving the quality of care and education for all young children.

The Wisconsin Child Care Research Partnership and the Excellence Initiative Evaluation projects at UW-Extension have conducted extensive research on many different aspects of child care and early education in Wisconsin over the past four years. These state researchers have found that, by and large, early education quality is not sufficient for the healthy long-term educational development of young children in Wisconsin—and that provider education levels are critical to the overall quality of programs. "Promising practices" from the Excellence Initiative may be found at: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/flp/ece. A full set of research briefs and policy papers is found on the Partnership web site, http://www.uwex.edu/ces/flp/wccrp . For more information, call Wisconsin Child Care Research Partnership at 1-877-637-6188. For more information about early childhood education, please contact your local UW-Extension county office.