Early Care and Education

Research has shown that the first five years play an enormous role in a child’s ongoing development and future success. Since most kids are in a child care or preschool setting while their parents are at work, it’s critical that we invest in a high-quality early education system that provides the experiences kids need for healthy development.

Continuity of Care is Crucial to Early Development

I thought our readers would be interested in a new policy brief on continuity of care. The policy brief, The Importance of Continuity of Care: Policies and Practices in Early Childhood Systems and Programs, includes a section on research detailing the importance of continuity of care and an analysis of state policies and programming...

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Rural Wisconsin Sees Dramatic Drop in Children Served by Wisconsin Shares

WCCF has been analyzing the significant decline of children enrolled in the Wisconsin Shares child care subsidy program. This blog looks at two significant trends: Statewide drop in children served: An extraordinary drop overall drop of 13,566 children, a 23% drop from 2009-2014. The smaller the county the greater the drop in children...

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YoungStar: We’re Turning Five! Five Year Analysis as of July 2015

New YoungStar Report The Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (WCCF) has recently completed a policy brief, YoungStar: We’re Turning Five! Five Year Analysis as of July 2015 (here is a link to the full report). The YoungStar child care quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) is a breakthrough policy initiative that has great...

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YoungStar 2015: We’re Turning Five!

This report is the sixth in a series of WCCF reports tracking the progress of Wisconsin’s YoungStar program, a quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) launched in 2010 to improve the quality of Wisconsin child care programs. YoungStar focuses on children of low-income working families receiving assistance from the Wisconsin Shares...

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New Report on Poor Child Care Wages

The Economic Policy Institute just issued a report,  Child care workers aren't paid enough to make ends meet. Not startling news to those in the early childhood field, but the data is stunning, and provides Wisconsin-specific information: Some key findings: Child care workers receive very low hourly pay Very few child care workers...

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