Quality ranking determines state funding of day-cares

An article in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel titled "Day-care providers to be paid based on quality under Doyle plan" caught my eye. It explains Governor Doyle's plan to create a ranking system based on quality of care that will determine how much state funding day-cares get. The ranking would be based on "the education level of the staff, the learning environment in the center as well as business practices, and the health and well-being of children."

I have two issues with this concept.

1. True quality of care can't be measured objectively. Educational level of staff does not necessary equate with quality care-givers. And things like the health and well-being of children can't be measured. Plus a certain type of learning environment with one set of children may not be appropriate at all for a different set of children.

2. This type of plan allows rich day-cares to get richer and poor day-cares to get poorer. If we cut funding significantly to a day-care that can't hire teachers with a master's degree, how can we expect them to find the money to find teachers with more education. We will be seeing this same thing in schools that are not meeting the goals of No Child Left Behind. Eventually funding will get cut, and the schools will only get worse.

Instead let's deal with the real issue here: fraud. Instead of focusing on quality and spending money to do so in such a poor economy, we need to just focus on enforcing the expectations that come with state funding of day-cares. And let parents set expecations of quality by choosing where they send their children.