Let's talk about daycare quality!

@hulahooper I'd like to add that from personal experience this can change if management changes. Watch out for increasing staff turnover including multiple managers cycling through
 
@loreina11 Right I would literally pay great money to find a daycare that offered this ratio for infant care but everything near me is 1:4. I’m already shelling out huge money for a nanny until 6 months, feel like I’m drowning trying to “do the right thing” & work.
 
@hulahooper It must be nice to be able to choose a center with 1:3 ratio, but the reality is most daycares will meet the state requirement and not do much better. In my state it’s 1:6 for infants. Even if it’s true, I’m tired of hearing that the leading indicator of quality is the ratio when it’s next to impossible to find a center with better ratios than the state mandates, and there’s nothing I can do to change that part of the equation. Other things that are important to me and that luckily I have with my son’s daycare: teachers who genuinely care, low turnover, lots of timely updates throughout the day, a happy child at drop off and pick up.
 
@vijay330pr We’ve had good luck at Montessori school, but I agree it’s complete luck. We lucked into a spot in the toddler house for our almost two year old right when he turned 15 months as they were slowly expanding and had just opened a new toddler room. But it’s expensive (almost $500 a week for FT care now) and we had to make the decision to keep my husband home PT for the foreseeable future because even with my oldest going into kindergarten our daycare costs were going to rise significantly next year.
 
@vijay330pr You can and should call your legislator! It doesn’t help the immediate your kid problem but things like lower ratio care requirements can require less political capital to pass than (for example) universal childcare or paid parental leave so it could be something they’d go to bat for.
 
@vijay330pr Right. This the tricky part. Information is just that - information. It can't change reality. But, it also doesn't dictate reality. So a 1:3 ratio being linked to higher quality and better care doesn't mean that high quality care is impossible at a 1:6 ratio. And, at the end of the day, we do the best we can with what we have. No child grows up in a perfectly ideal environment.
 
@vijay330pr Exactly! You must be in Texas or Florida. I'm in Texas and I feel like the daycare ratios are almost criminal. We looked at facilities way above our budget, but it didn't matter. They all seem to take full advantage of the allowed maximum teacher-to-child ratio. My daughter just turned three and it's increased to 15:1. I don't know how they do it, but we really don't have any other options.
 
@hulahooper I appreciate the sentiment, but the reality is that most parents have very few choices when it comes to childcare and instead have to accept the first spot that becomes available. I’m not aware of any daycare centers where “long-term, well-paid, educated workers” are the norm. One of the biggest failures of modern society is that most families require two incomes to stay afloat, childcare is prohibitively expensive/unavailable, and childcare workers are chronically underpaid. It’s an impossible situation.

This podcast episode does a decent job of breaking down why childcare is insanely expensive for parents yet childcare workers are underpaid. It’s a total market failure—childcare isn’t meant to be a purely capitalistic endeavor: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/02/1153931108/day-care-market-expensive-child-care-waitlists

My husband and I make over $340k combined annually and still struggle with childcare costs balanced against the quality of care received and the stress of jobs associated with our pay bands. After more than one year of deteriorating mental health in the name of “having it all,” I’ve made the decision to quit my job in August (cutting our income by 1/3), stay home with our kids, and enroll our 3 year-old in a part-time, non-chain pre-k program solely for her own social/emotional development (vs childcare for the purpose of working outside the home). It’s a fucking racket. I feel immense gratitude that we can afford to make this choice, but let’s not pretend that there are many choices available to families between “take whatever you can get” and “quit your job to stay home.”
 
@soralis I agree with most of what you've said, especially about how systemic the issue of lack of childcare really is, and how it unfairly burdens families. That being said, obfuscating or understating the reality of the impact of these decisions in the end will only serve to sustain and propel forward that broken system.
 
@hulahooper Fair enough, and if my reply seemed angry that’s 100% directed at the situation—not at your post. I agree with your conclusions but greatly resent that for many (most?) people, the “decisions” involved with respect to choosing one daycare over another hinge on availability and cost, not quality of care. This is a symptom of a broken system and isn’t due to parents’ lack of knowledge or consideration.

Edit: small world—it seems like you’re in the Nashville area and may be considering The Acorn School. That’s actually where my 3 year-old goes (until I quit my job at VU in August and lose staff status), and we’ve had a wonderful experience. Feel free to DM with any questions. We’ll miss it greatly.
 
@hulahooper I️ appreciate the information! Instructor to child ratio is one of the main factors we considered as well as tenure of the staff. It helped us narrow down the top 5 choices for us to pay for a waitlist spot.

Unfortunately the bulk of comments are correct. While we have a preference of our number one, we’ll have to take whoever has an opening. There’s a great planet money podcast as to just how messed up daycare really is.

For those very fortunate people who have the funds or have the family nearby to care for the little ones, I️ envy you and I️ hope you truly appreciate those privileges that a lot of us would love to have.
 
@hulahooper Thank you for doing the research. I read through that thoroughly and was imagining certain daycare teachers at my daughter’s place from the high turnover for certain age groups to the woman who loves babies and has made infant care her career since she was 16. From what I have observed, the baby room have more children who meet milestones about 3 months earlier than average and I guarantee a good amount of the reason is from this woman who radiates love to her kids and lights up the other employees in the same room. Her encouraging kids results in kids encouraging each other.
 
@hulahooper I work in early intervention and get to see how daycares operate from the inside. Parents are not always aware of what to prioritize when choosing a daycare. They are often limited by cost, operating hours, and availability. Unfortunately, none of these things correlate with high quality care. I have met some wonderful care providers going above and beyond to treat children as their own, and I have seen burned out providers who are essentially meeting the children’s physical needs but not much else. It’s so hard for these families to get proper care for their children.
 
@hulahooper Oh wow. I so agree these last 2 yr have been the worst. I’ve been at my same location for 20 yr. I started with my kids there and have never left. There use to be several staff that were there longer than me and now it’s my director at 35+ and me! Our 2 other longest term staff left for health reasons. One of my other favorite staff and a conflict w/ other staff and didn’t leave in the best of terms. One of the selling points for me was and usually is; the ability to take time off. The hours allowed me to be available for my school age kids. I could choose to take the summer off. All school holidays off. The draw back not really able to work etc hours, benefits suck. I do get paid holidays vacation and sick time. I don’t really get sick so… My nanny kid literally puked on me and had some awful upper respiratory thing and nope I’m good.
 
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