Wisconsin is one of the worst states in the nation at tracking and deterring problems with child-care centers.
That has to change.
And one of the easiest yet most effective things Wisconsin can do to improve its child-care system won't cost a lot of money.
Wisconsin should adopt a rating system for the more than 11,000 child-care programs across the state.
Gov. Jim Doyle has repeatedly sought a rating system to help working parents gauge the quality of care that their children are receiving. Ratings would encourage all centers to improve -- especially if the ratings are linked to financial incentives that would harness market forces.
Unfortunately, Democrats who control the state Senate and Republicans who run the Assembly objected to Doyle 's sensible proposal, taking it out of the budget. They claim Wisconsin can 't afford a rating system or that such a system would hurt child-care centers in rural areas.
Both claims are wrong.
A rating system could be funded using a tiny sliver of the more than $300 million in existing federal child-care subsidies Wisconsin receives. A rating system also would encourage rural centers to improve to receive higher payment for subsidized clients.
The National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies in Arlington, Va., ranked Wisconsin 's oversight of child-care centers as 47th in the nation for 2007. That means only a few of the 50 states were worse.
On top of that, the State Journal 's annual review of regional child-care inspections in Sunday 's newspaper revealed the third highest amount of fines -- $24,125 -- in 10 years.
An 18-month-old girl stopped breathing and was found pulseless at Rock-A-Bye Child Care Learning Center in Sun Prairie last year. The girl recovered but required CPR and hospitalization.
More than a dozen centers were fined last year for failing to accurately take attendance or track children. In several cases, children wandered off premises and into traffic. Two centers lost children on field trips -- one at a Milwaukee Brewers game, the other at Vilas Zoo in Madison.
Doyle proposed last year using $2.8 million in federal money over two years to create a child-care quality rating system. It would offer parents more in-depth and meaningful information that 's easy to compare.
The state would rate centers on their staff credentials, physical space, resources and practices. Any center receiving child-care subsidies would have to participate.
The state would post the ratings on a Web site.
When the State Journal posted a computer database of child-care fines online Saturday, it was quickly accessed more than 12,000 times by the public.