The paper's business section outlines what it calls "The Daycare Dilemna", a story highlighting the impact on area business caused by the lack of dependable daycare.
The National Child Care Resource & Referral Association reports that only about 10% of child care centers are accredited by an independent agency (i.e. NAEYC), while less than 1% of in-home providers have such credentials.
The push in Kansas City, Missouri, and nationwide is for government intervention in the form of a uniform rating system. Advocates of such a system are seeking a reliable, independent source that parents can rely on to measure the quality of a provider when making a daycare choice.
Business groups are increasingly throwing their support behind such measures, citing the impact on the workforce that unreliable child care causes. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the U.S. House of representatives, held a day-long summit on the issue last month.
It truly is a dilemna. For me, it's difficult to imagine government intervention actually helping this process - as many in-home providers already face challenging licensing requirements, costly liability insurance, and cumbersome payment processes for state subsidized child care. If we add the requirement to be rated by a government agency, it may actually reduce the number of child care options for the average parent, as providers decide it's just not worth the hassle to stay in business.
Currently, the NCCRRA estimates that about 75% of children under 5 years old go off to some sort of daycare every day. According to surveys conducted by DayCareCrossing.com, 87% of parents describe the traditional search for child care as "Difficult & Frustrating".
Child care is a highly fragmented industry, with hundreds of thousands of providers servicing millions of parents. Bringing a cohesive government rating system to this category is a monumental task, one that will be costly in time, effort and money.
We'll keep you posted on ideas for solutions as we come across them.
This post sponsored by KansasCity.DayCareCrossing.com - Kansas City Daycare
This blog sponsored by DayCareCrossing.com - Find Child Daycare
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