ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, September 9, 1996 TAG: 9609090100
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
YOU ARE cordially invited to become a child-care provider in your home. No training necessary. No special equipment. Desire or ability to work with children is not a requirement.
In fact, there are no requirements - which may seem only fair in light of the incredibly low pay. Trained, experienced workers average $8,000 to $11,000 a year; don't expect that much, if you want the job. Don't expect benefits, either.
And, by the way, you're off public assistance.
No state has been quite so blunt in exercising the "administrative flexibility" each is allowed under federal welfare reform. But New York comes close: According to the National Center for the Early Childhood Work Force in Washington, recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children in Buffalo recently received an "invitation" to become home child-care givers right along with the notice that their benefits were being cut off.
Wisconsin's ballyhooed "Wisconsin Works" reform plan, meantime, encourages those who lose AFDC payments to become "provisionally certified" child-care workers, no training required.
Reformers have come up with a tidy solution to the messy problem of how to provide cheap subsidized care for the children of mothers pushed off welfare in search of low-paying jobs: Make some of those jobs child care, and some of the moms paid caregivers.
Thus will Wisconsin, enlightened in appropriating a 300 percent increase in child-care spending, try to meet a 1,700 percent increase in demand. All of these new providers will give parents so many more choices, proponents say. But the choices won't necessarily be good ones. Wisconsin's plan will raise parents' copayments for subsidized care - and the rate of the increase will rise with the cost of the program. That will put licensed centers and homes out of the reach of many. (And out of business, perhaps.)
This is taxpayer-subsidized care, more help than most families get, supporters may reason. But if, because of poor quality of care, youngsters aren't ready to learn when they enter kindergarten, any such savings will evaporate.
In Georgia, where the state will be offering free preschool to more than half of its 4-year-olds, of all races and social backgrounds, "ready to learn" means knowing how to cut with scissors and handle writing tools. Knowing the alphabet, and how to count. Basic stuff. Stuff that can create frustration and failure if children don't know it when they walk through the classroom door.
In 1993, Georgia started its free preschool program - 6 1/2 hours a day of instruction, provided by public and private preschools - for 9,000 "at-risk" kids. Short-term, they are testing better academically than children who did not go to preschool, and higher than the national average. So the state is expanding the program to 60,000 of its 100,000 4-year-olds.
The $210 million expense will be paid for by the lottery. The state is gambling that the investment will pay off later in lower teen-pregnancy and dropout rates, in less crime. That's a safer bet than most states are making.
LENGTH: Medium: 57 linesby CNB