Many Texans watched in horror on their smartphones, Facebook feeds or local news this past week a video of a Plano child care provider carelessly tossing and pushing toddlers under her supervision. The video was disturbing and it raises a huge question to every parent that how could actions like this happen at a licensed child care center? One thing is clear from the video that parents as consumers need and deserve a guide on how to recognize and find quality child care.
Decades ago, child care became a national need, and licensed child care business flourished, as did women in the workforce. Child care may have begun as a support for working parents, but today, early care and education is much more. Brain scientists, researchers, educators, and even economists agree: The first five years of children's lives have the tremendous impact. Quality child care must fundamentally ensure a child is safe from harm while outside of parent's direct care and supervision. However, quality child care can do much more. Children's early experiences impact the developing brain and their future academic success. Quality child care fundamentally supports a growing child and his or her health. Warm relationships with an adult caregiver guide the young child toward developing strong emotional bonds and social-emotional skills. And as we've all heard, quality early education and care is foundational to a child's school readiness.
Quality child care, however, is not easy to find. Many parents are not sure what to look for and can be overly impressed with buildings and sales materials vs. analyzing the stuff that matters. Now, 48 states have child care quality rating system available for all licensed child care facilities. Sadly, Texas is not one of them.
Texas does have the rating system for child care, but its reach is only to child care programs that accept state-funded subsidies. Without a reliable star rating to communicate the quality of child care program, parents are left as uninformed consumers. We can do better. It's time for Texas to better inform the parents. Parents deserve a simple way to identify quality child care in our communities. It's time to expand the current Texas Rising Star child rating and quality improvement system to include all licensed child care.
I agree with Pooja Finavia’s commentary titled Texas needs a quality child care rating system. She did a decent job in providing examples of the type of things that have occurred in a child care and the reasons why it is important that Texas enacts a quality child care rating system for all licensed child cares. She also providing information on why it is important that children have quality child care. As well as the benefits a quality child care can have on a child, such as guiding children toward developing strong emotional bonds, social and emotional skill, and school readiness. Finavia also made a good point with the fact that a lot of parents do not know what to look for in a child care and with a quality child care rating system this could help parents make more informed decisions on their child care. Also, to hear that 48 other states have already implemented a quality child care rating system for all licensed child care facilities and Texas hasn’t is alarming and disappointing. It is time for Texas to step up and include all license child cares into a quality child care rating system.
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