Friday Five 525

A Better Solution to the Child Care Crisis

If the extensive research on the effects of center-based child care has made anything clear, it is that the care of children is something we should take seriously. It matters to kids, and it matters to families. Since the pandemic, talk of a “caregiving crisis” has dominated discussions of child care policy, including the barriers of high costs, low caregiver wages, long waiting lists, and difficulty accessing high-quality care. The problem is that the policies advanced often offer a one-size-fits all “solution” of massively expanded government subsidized center-based care. Substantial evidence suggests this is not what children need, nor what most parents want. The recently introduced "Respect Parents’ Childcare Choices Act” from Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) offers an important attempt to address these realities. Read More