Could a buyout affect child care quality?
“... [T]he positive relation between child care quality and virtually every facet of children's development that has been studied is one of the most consistent findings in developmental science.”
The study quoted above, by the Institute of Medicine, identified at least four factors that are critical in child care quality and children's development: children's stable relationships with teachers, teacher training and education, staffing ratios, and staff wages.
While struggling to make payments on the debt from the buyout deal, and looking to make a profit from their ownership of Bright Horizons, will Bain Capital cut back in these areas?
We need to make sure that Bain Capital is accountable to parents and staff for child care quality at Bright Horizons.
What do you want to tell Bain as they prepare to take over our child care centers?
- Stable Relationships With Excellent Teachers: “Quality of care ultimately boils down to the quality of the relationship between the child care provider or teacher and the child. A beautiful space and an elaborate curriculum—like a beautiful home—can be impressive, but without skilled and stable child care providers, they will not promote positive development… Stability and skill appear to go together. More stable providers have been found to engage in more appropriate, attentive, and engaged interactions with the children in their care.”
- Training and Education: “Both formal education levels and recent, specialized training in child development have been found quite consistently to be associated with high-quality interactions and children's development.”
- Staffing Ratios: “The ratio of children to caregiver has held up over time as one of the most sensitive indicators of quality care in all settings.”
- Staff Wages: “[R]esearch has revealed strong relationships, comparable to those found for training and ratios, between staff wages and child care quality… Wages are also the primary, although not the only, determinant of staff turnover; when wages are increased, turnover declines.”