Child-care Provider Survey Reveals Cost Constrains QualityJune, 2008
A survey of 414 child care providers in southeastern Wisconsin reveals that cost as well as low wages and lack of benefits for workers can constrain providers from pursuing improvements to child-care quality.
High-quality early childhood care and education has been found to produce short- and long-term educational, cognitive, and social benefits for children. Consequently, we sought to measure whether our region's child care providers have the capacity to supply that type of beneficial care and we wanted to learn from providers where barriers to quality exist.
We surveyed licensed and/or certified providers in the seven-county region, about half of whom are family (homebased) child care providers and half are center-based (group) providers or preschools. Of our survey respondents, 13% have at least three of five structural factors often associated with highest quality care. In addition, over three-quarters of our sample is neither accredited nor seeking accreditation.
