New research finds the earliest years of life to be some of the most, if the not the most, critical to brain development. It underscores how important quality child care is to a community’s future.

Quality child care is good for business, reduces juvenile violence and teen pregnancy, and reduces future costs in education, crime prevention, and welfare. Both the Anchorage Healthy Future Project and the early drafts of the Anchorage Comprehensive Plan specify quality child care as a community goal.

Lack of knowledge about the extent of damage poor quality child care does to children.

Lack of education about what makes for quality child care.

Cost. Families are squeezed by the cost of child care. Child care centers and their employees are in turn squeezed. What suffers is quality—and the community in the long-run.

Parents are unaware of important resources for information about child care.

Exemptions. Many child care options are exempt from mini-mum requirements and have no oversight mechanisms. Parents have no assistance in determining safety or quality levels and facilities end up competing over cost.

The demand for child care has grown steadily over the last few decades. In 1970, the percentage of young children in the U.S. in nonparental child care and early education settings was 30%. By 1993, that percentage had grown to 70%.2 Today, three out of five preschoolers are in child care every day.3

The growth in demand for child care is due to the increased numbers of two-working-parent families and to the growing desire by parents—regardless of employment status—who want the social and educational advantages of good early child-hood programs.

A growing body of research has confirmed that children who attend higher quality child care programs consistently demonstrate better cognitive, social, and language development outcomes. The research is also consistent in identifying the factors most related to high quality in early childhood programs. Longitudinal studies, some following child care recipients as long as 27 years, have documented significant positive long-term outcomes of quality child care in terms of higher education levels and income and lower incidence of delinquency, crime, and welfare participation.7

Quality child care, however, can be difficult to find. In 1996, 62% of U.S. working parents reported major problems finding quality child care to meet their needs.8 A major national study of child care quality found the level of quality at most U.S. child care centers does not meet children’s needs for health, safety, warm relationships, and learning. The study found only 1 in 7 U.S. child care centers provided the level of care that promotes healthy development and learning.9

Ground-breaking research, spurred by technological advances such as brain imaging, has revealed new information which underscores the long-term impact of early child care on children in terms of their ability to learn, socialize, and develop to their full potential. Medical and educational research have both shown that mental growth—that is, the development of intelligence, personality, and social behavior—occurs most rapidly in humans during their earliest years.

This new research confirms much of what child development experts have known for a long time–that a child’s experiences

in his or her first weeks, months, and years of life determine how that child will function from the preschool years through adolescence, and even into adult-hood.10

At birth, a baby’s brain contains billions of neurons, nerve cells, and other structures that lay the foundation to enable the brain to function. These structures enable electrical activity to make connections between different parts of the brain—this is how our brain functions or how thinking occurs.

Babies are born with the equip-ment (neurons, etc.) but not with the connections between. From birth throughout the early years of life these connections are made through the baby’s interaction with the environ-ment.

Research has also found that there are "windows of learning" or periods of time in a child’s life that facilitate certain types of learning. For example, from birth to six months visual stimuli can create permanent neural connections that enable vision. If a child’s eyes were closed during this period, sight would not develop normally afterward even if the eyes were otherwise perfect.13 This learn-ing includes emotional feelings as well. Beginning around two months of age the distress and contentment babies feel start to evolve into more complex feelings, such as joy, sadness, empathy, pride, and shame.14

The learning that can take place in child care lays the foundation for formal academic learning. Properly trained caregivers can use play activities with blocks to teach the foundations of math and physics. Art sessions can teach the foundations of written language. Early science activities—such as sensory experiments that ask children to touch, feel, and smell their environment then talk about what they learned from doing so—are the beginning lessons in how to reason, research, detect, and problem-solve.

But the translation from play to learning does not automatically happen. Simply playing with blocks does not mean a child will begin to understand the concepts of counting, etc. But a trained caregiver leading the exercise can maximize their cognitive development.

Research has identified key factors that determine the level of quality in child care, including accreditation, child-to-staff ratio, group size, staff training, staff pay and turnover rate, and higher licensing standards. Generally speaking, the better a child care facility or community does in these areas the higher the quality of child care.

Although research has identified key factors influencing quality in child care, uniform data-collection systems are not in place, which makes measuring the quality of facilities difficult.

Working Mother Magazine conducted a national survey rating child care for the second time. They rated all U.S. states for child care quality. They looked at quality in terms of child-to-staff ratios, group size, and number of accredited centers, caregiver training, and caregiver pay. The study also looked at safety and availability factors. The highest possible score was five stars ¶¶¶¶¶. Alaska received two stars ¶¶.

Twenty-five U.S. states were rated as having better child care than Alaska. Only three states received a rating lower than Alaska.15

Care in the home (residence) of a child care provider is the most prevalent form of child care for young children in the United States today. An in-depth national study of family child care and relative care, the first in more than a decade, found 13 percent of regulated and 50 percent of non-regulated family child care providers offered care that was inadequate.16

Anchorage does not systematically collect information regarding the quality of child care providers. Child care centers are licensed, monitored, and inspected by the Anchorage Department of Health and Human Services, Child and Adult Care Program.

The following information regarding the quality of Anchorage child care centers was collected via a telephone survey conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services.17

In summary, Anchorage has lower accreditation rates, lower staff training requirements, and lower licensing standards than most U.S. states. Average Anchorage child care center child-to-staff ratios, while higher than Anchorage requirements, do not meet recommended standards. However, Anchorage centers are improving, as evidenced by the declining numbers of centers in non-compliance with licensing standards.

Founded in 1926, the National Association for Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is the nation’s largest organization of early childhood professionals. The Association is dedicated to improving the quality of early childhood education programs for young children. NAEYC administers a national, voluntary, professionally sponsored accreditation system for all types of preschools, kindergartens, child care centers, and school-age child care programs.

Just under 5% of Anchorage child care centers and 5.3% of Alaska centers are NAEYC accredited. The U.S. average is 7.5%. Eight U.S. states have accreditation rates above 10%.

Small child-to-staff ratios and small group sizes greatly improve the amount of attention and super-vision. The child-to-staff ratio indicates the maximum number of children permitted per care-giver (e.g., 3:1 ratio means three children to one caregiver). Studies show that in addition to the aforementioned significant long-term benefits, good child-to-staff ratios also help to limit physical injuries.18

The following table displays current Anchorage Municipal Codes, average child care center ratios, and U.S. national standards (based on NAEYC accreditation standards). While on average Anchorage child care centers have better child-to-staff ratios than Anchorage licensing requires, they do not meet the recommended ratios set by National Health and Safety Performance Standards and NAEYC accreditation standards.

A group is the number of children assigned to a team of caregivers (usually two) and a self-contained classroom or well-defined space, whereby the curriculum is tailored to the group’s needs and capabilities and the assigned space contains all the necessary equipment for the day. The use of group size plays a major role in increasing quality by reducing physical injuries, noise levels, distractions that interrupt or curtail a child’s thinking processes, and conflicts and irritations, and by increasing positive interactions, e.g. verbal communications or listening skills.

Anchorage child care licensing requirements do not address group size. Group size specifications are recommended by both the National Health and Safety Performance Standards and NAEYC. Currently, thirty-three U.S. states have standards that stipulate appropriate group size, six of these states have adopted NAEYC standards.

Research shows that child care providers need specialized training and experience in child development and early childhood education. Child care workers who are educated about child development provide more developmentally appropriate caregiving and are more adept at handling behavior problems.19 Research shows that develop-mentally appropriate instruction produces stronger problem-solving skills and reduces problematic or antisocial behavior.20 Center quality increases as the percentage of center staff with a high level of education increases.21 An increase in a center administrator’s prior experience generates higher quality as well, all else being constant.22

The training and qualifications required of child care staff vary widely. Each state has licensing requirements that regulate caregiver training. The requirements range from none to requiring postsecondary degrees in child development. Alaska and Anchor-age do not require staff to have any training in child development prior to hire. Alaska requires 15 hours of inservice or on-the-job training annually and Anchorage requires 12 hours annually. Alaska requires child care center administrators to be high school graduates and have at least 12 college credits, with 9 credits in child development; Anchorage requires 9 college credits with 6 in child development. Thirty-two U.S. states require all caregivers to have their high school diploma or GED and at least 12 credits in child development and eight states require a degree in child development or related field.

While most Anchorage child care center staff are over age 18 and have a high school diploma or GED, nearly a quarter have no training in child development or early childhood education, and an additional 15% have less than 10 course credits.

Caregivers’ compensation is increasingly recognized as a predictor of quality care. Low pay contributes to lower levels of education and specialized training and higher turnover among child care staff.

In 1996, U.S. child care workers earned an average annual salary of $6.70 per hour or $11,780 per year.23 Preschool teachers—many of whom are employed in the public schools—earned an average of $15,580.24 In addition, child care workers tend to receive no benefits or paid leave.25 Only 18% of U.S. child care centers offer health coverage to teaching staff, whereas it is estimated that 85% of Americans receive health coverage from some source.26

—U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

In 1994, the starting average wage for Anchorage child care caregivers was $7.20 per hour or $12,600 annually for assistant teachers and $8.79 per hour or $15,383 annually for entry-level teachers.28

In 1994, the highest paid care-givers (non-corporate subsidized) in Anchorage earned $14,753 annually for assistant teachers and $18,988 for teachers.29

Employees in child care earn less than they could even in other female-dominated occupations. A major national study found mean foregone wages by child care teachers to be $5,238 per year and for assistant teachers, $3,582 per year.30 Anchorage child care centers have an average turnover rate of 49.3%.31 Nationally the annual turnover rate is 40%.32

As of mid-1998, thirteen U.S. states had initiatives in place to address the issue of low pay—Alaska was not one of them.33

An additional measure that ensures safety and quality is to conduct background checks on child center employees during the hiring process.34 Centers are able to access FBI, court, and State public safety records, or check on the list of registered sexual offenders which is published on the Municipality’s Internet web site.

All Anchorage child care centers, however, do not take advantage of these resources–of the 395 new staff hired in the 1997-1998 school year, only 67% had a background check performed.36

Families seeking child care have different options to choose from. While the Federal Government has developed recommended child care guidelines or standards, each State determines its own level of regulation. Currently, Anchorage Municipal Code de-fines minimum health and safety requirements—the lowest threshold for the legal operation of child care centers—through licensing.

Child care research has found that one of the factors significantly influencing the quality of child care in a state is the level of that state’s licensing standards. States with more demanding licensing standards have fewer poor-quality centers.37 Comparing Anchorage licensing standards to other states, we found Anchorage to have significantly less demanding standards in areas that influence the quality of child care.

Another measure of a center’s quality is the type of license a center holds. Centers who consistently meet minimum health and safety standards are given higher-level licenses—the lowest being a provisional license, then annual, and finally biennial which is given to centers that have proven to meet standards reliably for two years. Anchorage child care centers have improved their ability to meet minimum health and safety standards over the years. This is best evidenced by the declining number of centers who are getting a provisional-non-compliance license.

Quality child care is important not only to positive growth of every child but to the overall quality-of-life of communities. Availability of quality care: improves the productivity of the current and future workforce; reduces incidence of school failure, juvenile violence, delinquency, and teen pregnancy; reduces costs for special education and repeated grades; contributes to healthy child development; and supports parents as teachers and nurturers.

The decades long Michigan High/Scope Perry Preschool study found significant future benefits accrue from investing in child care. In measuring some of these benefits, the study found that for every $1 invested in quality child care a community saved $7.16 in increased earnings and reduced costs in special education, crime prevention, and welfare.40

Studies show that when employees have help in balancing work and family—when they know their children are safe and well cared for—absenteeism and turnover decline and morale and productivity improve. Employers are coming to recognize that they have a bottom line interest in providing quality child care options.

31 Anchorage Dept. of Health and Human Services, 1998. Child Care Centers Survey.