Since 1995, extraordinary results have poured in from major national child care studies . Collectively, these studies provide compelling evidence of the importance of caregiver training. Across all levels of income and maternal education, children fared significantly better when their day care teachers or family child care providers had appropriate training. Not only were their classrooms of higher quality, as measured on standard observational scales, but the children showed greater proficiency in skills that predict success in school, including more sophisticated play and language development, as well as more positive and fewer negative behaviors.
Academic gains persist at least through the second grade.
Furthermore, studies showed that child care is in general heavily underfunded. It is subsidized mainly by underpaid caregivers who charge what parents can afford. Nevertheless, raising quality requirements did not create an undue increase in parents' perceived economic burden. When additional monies were made available to child care sites, they were used for quality improvements. The overall state of child care reported in these studies was frightening.