Day care tied to readiness for school

Legislature to consider extending pilot program for 4-year-olds

Legislature to consider extending pilot program for 4-year-olds

Day care centers are on the front lines of a looming battle to better prepare children for school. Experts say a bad child care experience can hardwire poor social and learning skills and set up children for failure even before they turn 5 years old.

But two years after a court ruling concluded that the state is failing its young children, reform slogs along and thousands of children continue to cycle through a broken system with few education requirements.

About 90 percent of a child's brain develops by the time he turns 5. Study after study has shown links between the quality, affordability and availability of early child care and the social and economic health of communities.

The state's 2,835 regulated child care providers enroll 118,000 children, enabling nearly 76,000 South Carolina parents to participate in the work force, according to a recent report from a state task force studying ways to improve child care quality.

Nationwide, an estimated 70 percent of children spend at least part of the day with caregivers other than their parents and with children who are not their siblings.

Experts in early childhood education say child care centers are a linchpin in the state's efforts to improve school readiness.

"If you are looking for a lever to increase school readiness, you look to child care," said Susan DeVenny, director of First Steps.

In South Carolina, proficiency tests show that nearly one in seven children are not ready for first grade and some two-thirds of the state's third graders lag behind in math or reading skills.

A 2004 report from a state task force concluded that the state's low national rankings in education are tied to the preparation young children receive from birth to age 4.

"We know where these problems begin, and it's before children enter kindergarten," the report said. "Children in high quality child care are more likely to be ready to learn and successful in school and grow into contributing members of society rather than members of the welfare or corrections systems."

One federally-funded study found that children who received higher-quality child care before entering kindergarten had better vocabulary scores in the fifth grade than children who received lower-quality care. But the study also reported that the more time children spent in center-based care before kindergarten, the more likely their sixth-grade teachers were to report problem behaviors such as "gets in many fights," "disobedient at school" and "argues a lot."

Education is not the only area that suffers when young children don't receive high-quality care. The issue ripples through every facet of the state's economy. A University of South Carolina study released in 2006 estimated that the child care industry has a $781 million annual economic impact on the state.

Many companies looking to move to South Carolina and those considering whether to stay evaluate such factors, recognizing that when parents have peace of mind that their children are learning in safe and healthy environments, they are more productive in the work force.

A 2004 study by the High/Scope Educational Foundation found that for every dollar spent on early education, particularly for low-income children, communities reaped a return on investment of more than $17.

The state's failure to adequately prepare young children for school, particularly those at risk of falling behind, was highlighted in a 2005 court ruling that dealt with inequities in eight low-income school districts.

The circuit judge presiding in the trial said South Carolina fails to provide its youngest residents with sufficient early childhood education programs. The decision, part of a long-simmering school equity lawsuit, found that the state fell short of its obligation to provide early childhood intervention and preschool programs.

The General Assembly responded to the ruling by funding a pilot program that offers full-day classes for about 3,000 4-year-olds in many low-income districts. Lawmakers are expected to consider this year whether to continue the program, expand it or kill it. It is already on lawmakers' lists of programs that may not be funded in the 2008 budget cycle.

The upcoming decision has the child care industry up in arms because many centers believe the program would "take" their 4-year-olds and place them in school programs.

Child care centers live and die by their enrollment of 4-year-olds, said Nancy Freeman, a professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of South Carolina and chair of the governor's advisory board on child care regulations. "4K pays the bills for the infants and toddlers. It's very important. It makes the books balance."

Child care operators say the loss of 4-year-olds would force many centers to raise their rates beyond what most working parents can afford, said Shannon Erickson, a newly elected state lawmaker and owner of Hobbit Hill child care centers in Beaufort County.

"If we lose all of our fours, what will happen is the threes and twos and under will become so expensive. We already had to adjust when the public schools took our fives," Erickson said. "It will push up the cost of child care to where parents can't afford it. Parents of young children are at the lowest earning period of their lives."

The discussion about 4-year-olds carries echoes of the debate several years ago when the state mandated kindergarten and child care centers lost their 5-year-olds. The child care centers that survived that blow vowed to keep it from happening again, DeVenny said.

"The impact for them financially was pretty strong," she said. "They said there's no way we are going to let that happen again."

Under one proposal, child care centers would be allowed to keep their 4-year-olds and receive state funding to teach them as long as they meet the same teacher education and curriculum standards as public schools, DeVenny said.

But the state assistance would kick in only after a center is approved to teach 4-year-olds, leaving centers largely on their own to reach the higher standards.

Some child care centers feel they already are doing enough to educate 4-year-olds and see no reason to change.

Marie Darstein, director of government relations for the Sunshine House national chain of day care centers, said many in the industry believe they are adequately preparing children for kindergarten.

"I don't believe we are failing children," she said. "We have been getting them ready for school just fine, and the public schools already have a lot on their plate."

Reach Ron Menchaca at rmenchaca@postandcourier.com or 937-5724.