Day Care

The effect of day care on children's development is related to the quality of the care the children receive. The Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Study of Child Care (CQO) investigated this issue and identified three levels of quality: low, mediocre, and high. Table 1 provides characteristics of each level. Higher quality was related to higher caregiver wages, higher caregiver education and training, and lower adult to child ratios.

This study examined the prevalence of each quality level. For preschool-aged children, only 24 percent of the day-care center classrooms were of high quality, 66 percent were mediocre quality, and 10 percent were low quality. For infants and toddlers, only 8 percent of the classrooms were of high quality, 52 percent were mediocre quality, and a full 40 percent were low quality. In a separate study of family day cares, only 9 percent provided good quality care, and a full 35 percent provided care that was potentially harmful to children's development.