Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/revisiting-quality-rekindling-dreams/5012281/
As my work continues to take me around the country working with program directors and staff, I'm shifting my thinking about the good and bad news in child care. The good news is that there continues to be a cadre of dedicated souls working on behalf of children and their families. Some are direct caregivers and teachers, while others are program supervisors, directors, or staff of related agencies. There are writers, researchers, advocates, and activists all working to define and overcome the detriments of poor early childhood care and education.In the bad news department, I've come to fear that mediocre, even more than substandard, child care has the potential to undermine solutions to the crises we face. Poor quality is easy to recognize and mobilize an outcry against. You find the air is stale and the light dim in a shabby facility with inadequate, broken, or unsafe toys and equipment. These programs typically convey a sense of disorder, if not chaos. The children are more often irritable and sick than happy and healthy. Perhaps parents put their children in these places because their own lives lack resources or options. Given a choice and a chance, they would avoid these deadening programs, ...