$10 Billion More a Year Urged for U.S. Child Care : Family: A Research Council report stresses help for the poor. It also backs giving new parents up to one year of unpaid leave from their jobs.

The National Research Council called Wednesday for an ambitious government effort to substantially improve the nation’s child-care system, starting with an infusion of $5 billion to $10 billion annually in additional public funds.

The 19-member panel recommended expanding government support to help low-income families attain quality care, imposing nationwide standards for child-care services and requiring that all new parents be allowed to take up to one year of unpaid leave to care for their children.

The existing child-care system is inadequate, and services are unavailable, unaffordable or substandard, said the panel, part of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.

“Every American child not only deserves quality care, the future vitality of our nation depends on it,” said John L. Palmer, dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and chairman of the panel.

The study was released as House leaders struggled to strike a compromise on legislation to expand federal child-care grants. The panel took no position on the proposed legislation, nor did it endorse specific funding mechanisms to support its recommendations.

The two-year study was conducted by a committee of experts from the fields of pediatrics, public policy, business, labor, child development and other social sciences. The panel was convened by the academy, a congressionally chartered private organization that advises the federal government on matters of science and technology.

The study was requested and funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Ford Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development.

Proponents of child-care legislation immediately praised the report and called for quick approval of legislation to expand child-care support.

The report “is right on the mark” and “underscores the need for action to provide affordable and accessible child care that meets reasonable standards of health and safety,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee.

The report “confirms the importance of a federal investment in day care,” said Helen Blank, senior child-care associate with the Children’s Defense Fund, a children’s advocacy group.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), author of a Senate child-care bill, said the panel “has confirmed what we’ve known all along: that families’ options are inadequate and that a major federal effort is needed to improve the quality, availability and affordability of child care in America.”

The report said that the United States has not kept pace with other industrial countries in responding to the sweeping social changes that have caused more women to enter the work force in recent years, greatly expanding the use of child-care services.

After noting that most existing benefits, such as tax credits, are geared toward helping the middle class, the report recommended that the federal government, in partnership with the states, expand subsidies to low-income families to help them pay for quality child care.

“For many parents in or near poverty, problems with child care can be a barrier to becoming and staying employed,” the report said. “Therefore, child care must be a central component of any policy to help poor families achieve economic self-sufficiency through employment.”

The panel proposed expanding the government’s Head Start program to serve all eligible 3- and 4-year-olds “who are at risk of early school failure.” The Bush Administration has requested an increase of $500 million in the Head Start budget, but it would enable only 70% of eligible 4-year-olds to participate.

In what could be its most controversial proposal, the panel called on the federal government to develop national standards for child-care facilities, asserting that “standards are important . . . and do make a difference.”

Currently, each state sets its own standards, which vary considerably. The pending child-care legislation includes provisions to strengthen state standards, but Congress has shied away from the idea of federally mandated regulations.

The panel said that national standards should address staff-child ratios, group size, care-giver training and experience and physical space and facilities.

“The quality of child care that children get matters,” said panel member Andrew Cherlin, a member of the department of sociology at Johns Hopkins University. “Children who get good quality care do better in life.”

The committee called on the federal government to mandate that employed parents of infants up to the age of 1 year should be allowed to take up to a year of unpaid, job-protected leave with full health benefits.

“We believe U.S. working parents of very young children are being forced to make choices that they should not have to make--choices about leaving the work force or leaving their children in low-quality care,” Palmer said.

Legislation that would require companies to grant up to 10 weeks of job-protected leave over two years so employees could care for a newborn or seriously ill child or parent has been approved by House and Senate committees and is awaiting floor action.

The panel complained that the salaries received by experienced care givers were far too low, noting that such workers earn on average a third less than other women of comparable education levels.

It said its recommendations would require spending an additional $5 billion to $10 billion in public funds each year, with most coming from the federal government. Current public expenditures on child care are about $8 billion.