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South Dakota Should Avoid Overregulation for Child Care 1/25/2009 Click here for link
Published on Sunday, January 25, 2009
As a volunteer lobbyist for the nation's largest public policy women's organization, it is indeed a privilege to represent the viewpoint and the passion of more than 1,800 members right here in South Dakota.
As a single mother in the workforce in my 20s a few years back, I grew to understand the plight of all parents who agonize over finding quality care for their children when, willingly or reluctantly, we parents must turn our children over to the care of others. Today in these uncertain economic times, my heart truly goes out to parents who are struggling even more than in previous times to make adequate arrangements for the care of their children.
This is not the time for South Dakota to take on new child care programs or to overregulate existing ones out of business. Rhonda Swanson of the South Dakota Association for the Education of Young Children apparently believes otherwise (American News, Reader's React, Jan. 11). She, like the Minneapolis Federal Reserve's Art Rolnick, advocates "investments in early childhood education" that would create more government jobs, funded by more government funds, i.e., funded by your hard-earned tax dollars.
Swanson also referenced Nobel Prize-winner James Heckman of the University of Chicago but failed to mention that he has cautioned against generalizing the oft-touted Perry Preschool Project as the prototype for preschool. When asked at a 2005 meeting in Minneapolis whether public funding should be utilized for "universal programs or at-risk kids," he stated, "It is foolish to try to substitute for what middle-class and upper-middle-class parents are already doing."
Family-home care, unlike the Federal Child Care Development Block Grant and Head Start, does not rely on government funding or tax dollars. More than 900 family homes in South Dakota choose to be independent of government assistance and simply care for children right in their own neighborhoods - right in their own homes, utilizing their own resources. We all know these wonderful folks, who are overwhelmingly female and who attend social and church functions just like the rest of us. For the rare caregiver who is not a common-sense, safe, loving and careful person, parents soon realize it is time to look for one who is.
Oversight, according to state statute, rightfully lies in the hands of the parents and not the government. The government's job is to protect her citizens from those who abuse and neglect children, rather than to micromanage what citizens can oversee for themselves. Again, in this economic climate, the government funding that is available needs to be used in the most wise and efficient manner. Governor Mike Rounds told us so in his State of the State address on Jan. 13.
Family-home care is also much cheaper for families than is center-based care in South Dakota. According to an October 2005 document titled "Rates for Child Care Subsidy Program," the average cost of placing a 2-year-old child in a day care center in Brown County was $2.65 per hour. The rate for a 2-year old in family-home care was only $2 per hour. Granted, this is for subsidized care, but what about families who are either over the income limit to receive the subsidy or who simply do not care to accept it because, like many South Dakotans, they are independent thinkers who work hard and do not wish to accept what they consider to be a "hand-out"? These are the families who most appreciate the fact that South Dakota has family-home care that is next door and of high quality.
Relatives offer family-home care as well. A recent "health alert" online surmised that some observers were worried that, with an increase in the number of grandparents nationwide who are caregivers, there might be an issue of less safe care - not following "modern safety practices." But Dr. David Bishai of the Bloomberg School's Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, analyzing data on more than 5,500 newborns over a 30-month period, stated, "To the contrary, this research tells us not only is there no evidence to support this assumption, but families that choose grandparents to care for their children experience fewer child injuries." Bishai and his colleagues specializing in injury research hope to continue such studies to determine more "risk and protective factors."
South Dakota parents would surely welcome this data. As a clinical laboratory science worker who performed bacterial, parasitic and fungal analyses, I am acutely aware of the potential for infection as well as accidents that ensue in more open systems and larger environments.
Our very small citizens deserve better than to become pawns in a game of investment. Truly our future depends on our South Dakota children and their upbringing. But their upbringing should be handled by parents and the caregivers of their parents' choosing, and not by the type of care forced upon them by well-meaning bureaucrats who pick and choose only pie-in-the-sky plans. Children need the down-to-earth care provided by South Dakota's family home caregivers, and children deserve nothing less.
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Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 |
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