[wolframarnold]

Being a parent of a young child myself, I can very much empathize with this article, and the plight of child care workers. The conclusions are only logical that this is an area where government support and intervention can reap vast societal benefits. There is an increasing body of research indicating that the quality of the care a child receives from birth, as well as the safety of socio-cultural environment a child is born into (which can be controlled by high quality child care), are strongly correlated with how productive a member of society the child grows up to be. Why wouldn't the government want to maximize that? If we can pay for elder care via social security, how can we afford not to pay for child care? Some countries are ahead in this regard.

[protomyth]

"There is an increasing body of research indicating that the quality of the care a child receives from birth, as well as the safety of socio-cultural environment a child is born into (which can be controlled by high quality child care), are strongly correlated with how productive a member of society the child grows up to be."

Can you please cite these research results. There are some specific results, but I would be interested in your long term data.

[smtddr]

You need proof that a child growing up with quality care and a quality social/cultural environment is more likely to be able to function and "succeed" in life as an adult?

[moonchrome]

Yes - I've seen studies that show things like "quality education" don't really hold up under close inspection (for eg. when you control for student performance before college difference between elite colleges and standard ones disappears).

I would be interested how research defines this "high quality social/cultural environments" and how it controls for factors such as genetics, family cultural and financial background, etc. Separated twin studies would probably be ideal (but I'm not an expert in the field).

[d2xdy2]

I agree; I'd like to see some long-term information on this.

[protomyth]

I need proof when someone says "growing body of research".

[Eridrus]

It's not readily apparent that increasing the amount of children per staff member will significantly impact a child's ability to "succeed" in life as an adult.

I'm not sure how we expect a 1:6 ratio to be "cheap", even before factoring in costs like real estate.

[protomyth]

For Head Start the staffing has a safety component. Think how many staff needed to get various ages out of a burning building.

[Eridrus]

Seems like a pretty weak reason to keep permanent staff unless fires are common. It's as if there is absolutely no-one else around who could help in an emergency except people paid to be there full time.

[protomyth]

Telling a parent their kid burnt up because you didn't have the staff is not a weak reason. Safety is a component of staffing guidelines and not the only reason.

[barry-cotter]

Preschool appears to have little if any benefit as measured by school achievement or teacher assessments of school readiness by first grade teacher

http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/research/pri/VPKthrough3rd_fin...

A Randomized Control Trial of a Statewide Voluntary Prekindergarten Program on Children’s Skills and Behaviors through Third Grade

>The third question we addressed involved the sustainability of effects on achievement and behavior beyond kindergarten entry. Children in both groups were followed and reassessed in the spring every year with over 90% of the initial sample located tested on each wave. By the end of kindergarten, the control children had caught up to the TN‐VPK [preschool] children and there were no longer significant differences between them on any achievement measures. The same result was obtained at the end of first grade using both composite achievement measures. In second grade, however, the groups began to diverge with the TN‐VPK children scoring lower than the control children on most of the measures. The differences were significant on both achievement composite measures and on the math subtests.

>First grade teachers rated the TN‐VPK children as less well prepared for school, having poorer work skills in the classrooms, and feeling more negative about school. It is notable that these ratings preceded the downward achievement trend we found for VPK children in second and third grade.

Further commentary and discussion

http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/null-hypothesis-for-pre-k-ed...

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/10/new...

[plonh]

We don't even need govt to pay for childcare, we just need to make it fully deductible as a "business" expense.

The office janitor's salary is deductible from the business owner's income tax, but the child caregiver is not.

[tomcam]

Right now none of these countries is breaking even. They are paying these cost through deficit spending--borrowing from the very children they are asking their neighbors to pay for.

[caseysoftware]

Throw in a few million immigrants who are a net negative on the social system for the few few years (optimistically) and we have an impending doom that just got a decade or two closer.

[wtbob]

> The conclusions are only logical that this is an area where government support and intervention can reap vast societal benefits.

If it's not an economical proposition, involving the government surely can't help.

The issue is that folks want a very high caregiver/child ration, for what is essentially unskilled labour (any non-pathological adolescent or adult can take care of children acceptably). So the supply of workers (i.e., just about everyone) vastly outstrips the demand.

Why not just go back to single-earner households and extended families?

[smtddr]

>>any non-pathological adolescent or adult can take care of children acceptably

Define "acceptably".

Some babysitters think it's acceptable to just chat on Facebook all day and plant the child in front of the TV for 10 hours. That's not acceptable to me, but that's more or less what you get for very cheap labor; just someone to keep you legally clear from abandoning a minor. Like those super-cheap bare minimum car insurance that does nothing but keep you legally driving.

Here's the definition of acceptable when it comes to my children: Take kids to parks and museums. Can avoid using profanity around them. Won't smoke around them. Won't be speeding down the highway with them. Can be trusted not to fill my children with junk food. Can truly trust them to actively watch the kids so they don't do something crazy like sticking a fork into a power outlet or turning on the gas stove without the flame, thus filling the house with gas. Right now, the only people my wife & I trust with our kids are their grandparents... aside from the pre-school teachers.

Finding quality childcare is harder than you think.

[Daishiman]

How do you want to go back to single-earner households when the vast majority of families don't have enough income to support all their members from two salaries? There is no economic incentive, system-wide, for having less people working for more money.

[sawthat]

Because many intelligent and skilled people want to have children, and they'd rather work in a challenging and rewarding job that pays them enough to pay for child care. That's why.

[hugh4]

Why is your solution more government involvement? Why not less?

If there's so much money to be made in child are, why aren't childcare centres popping up on every street corner? It's the kind of business you can easily run from your house. Get five neighbours to pay you twenty bucks a day to look after their kid, and everybody is coming out ahead.

I can only assume that the reason it doesn't happen is massive government licensing requirements.

[merpnderp]

That's exactly why it doesn't happen. In OK you must get specialized certifications to look after more than one kid who isn't your own.

[vacri]

How on earth is anyone going to get elected on a platform of "less regulations around children" in today's political climate?

[thaumasiotes]

> Get five neighbours to pay you twenty bucks a day to look after their kid, and everybody is coming out ahead.

Well, except the kids.

[protomyth]

You might want to look at the Harvard study on Head Start before you render that judgement.

[hugh4]

Kids don't care, as long as they have a yard to play in and some other kids to play with.

[thaumasiotes]

Having been one of these kids, I can assure you this is totally untrue.

[jacalata]

Who said you had a yard?