Operation: Superior Child Care

If 4-year-old Denton Logan were unhappy in day care, someone would surely hear about it.

“This boy’s my life,” said his father, Petty Officer 1st Class Ron Logan, a muscled military weapons instructor at Port Hueneme’s Naval Air Station in Ventura County. “He’s No. 1.”

Logan’s wife, Tina, works off base, so Logan usually takes Denton to and picks him up from the station’s Child Development Center. Whenever Logan leaves home for two-week training sessions, he knows Denton will spend more time at the facility--sometimes up to 12 hours. But he also knows the boy is safe inside the fenced-in base, that he is learning social and academic skills from caregivers, who are trained, well-compensated and content.

Most of all, he said his son is “always happy” at the center, no matter how long he stays there. And that makes Logan happy. “Since he’s been in this program, I’m not worried about him at all.”

At a time when a vast majority of working parents in California are unable to find licensed care, some like the Logans feel lucky to work for an employer who regards good child care as a necessity--and provides it.

Though criticized 10 years ago, military child care is now “head and shoulders above any state in the country,” said Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, a research and advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. The group issued a report in May calling for the civilian sector to emulate the military’s dramatic turnaround.

Over the past three decades, the military--similar to the world around it--saw a surge of demand for child care because of a shifting work force with more women and more dual-earner and single-parent families. But unlike the patchwork system that characterizes civilian child care, the Department of Defense built a comprehensive system of child-care centers, family child-care homes, after-school programs and resource and referral services for military families, and, as space allows, civilian employees. It is the nation’s largest employer-sponsored child-care program, reaching 200,000 children worldwide.

Child care rose to a top priority because it was perceived as no less than a military readiness issue, said Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Victor Vasquez. When service members worry about their children’s care, it’s difficult “to pay attention to their jobs in areas of high stress, long hours and intensity.”

Child care also is a key part of luring and keeping people in the military, said Capt. Jim McConnell Jr., commanding officer of the Naval Construction Battalion Center at Port Hueneme, which has constructed three centers in five years. His own son, Max, 3, attends center-based care regularly. “He couldn’t be happier. We couldn’t be happier with it,” he said.

The military also was pushed to act by a rash of child abuse allegations in the 1980s. Congressional hearings found unsafe and unsuitable conditions at many facilities, a lack of comprehensive standards, poor pay and turnover rates of up to 300%. In 1989, the Military Child Care Act (MCCA) mandated improvements and authorized appropriations, which this fiscal year reached $339 million, a small fraction of its $278-billion budget and the cost of about eight Trident missiles.

Two decades ago, the Seabee base in Port Hueneme and its neighbor, the Naval Air Station at Point Mugu, were not much different from other bases, recalled Polly Elam Ferraro, a civilian child-development specialist. She has worked with the Navy for 27 years and is now a child-development program administrator in the Navy’s southwest region.

She said the general attitude then was, “If the Navy had wanted you to have a family, they would have issued you one with your sea bag.” Not subject to state licensing, the base had no strong regulations. Some children were watched in a converted Quonset hut, others in a converted liquor store. Navy caregivers, like their civilian counterparts, worked for minimum wage with few benefits and typically left for better jobs as soon as they could.

When the MCCA funds started to flow, some military officials were skeptical. “They said, ‘We’re going to give you money. Prove to us that money works,’ ” said Elam Ferraro.

Whereas states have tackled child-care demand by focusing on quantity, the military emphasized quality, even though it meant fewer children would be served at first, Campbell said.

By most accounts, the strategy succeeded. With every passing year, advocates realized that the military was solving child care’s fundamental puzzle: how to change low salaries and high turnover, conditions associated with poor care, without passing on higher costs to already strapped parents.

Still, the extent of the military’s transformation surprised National Women’s Law Center researchers.

For instance, Campbell said, they hadn’t been aware that 95% of military child-care centers are now accredited by the National Assn. for the Education of Young Children, or NAEYC. Outside the military, the average is 8%.

Teams of specialists conduct four unannounced inspections of military centers and homes every year, checking curriculum, staff-child relationships and physical conditions. California requires inspections, largely for health and safety, once a year at centers and once every three years at home child-care operations.

The military revamped its caregivers’ pay scale, matching entry salaries with other GS-4 positions such as personnel clerks and providing full medical benefits. Wages also are directly linked to training and continued education--an “up or out” policy that requires caregivers to complete preservice training as well as 13 courses, from safety and cognitive development to creativity and self-esteem.

Campbell said researchers were particularly impressed by a requirement to have a curriculum specialist in every center who has no other responsibilities than to provide up-to-date training and in-house quality assurance. “That’s a luxury,” she said.

Turnover rates now are less than 30% and triggered primarily by military transfers. The military charges parents a sliding scale fee from $54 a week for those families grossing under $23,000 a year to $101 for those earning more than $55,000. Such fees do not cover the costs of operations so the Defense department picks up the balance. The original MCCA appropriations matched parents’ fees, but now the subsidy exceeds the fees.

Universal subsidies are another expensive and controversial luxury in child care. “In this country, we can’t even cover the poor, let alone reach into the middle- and higher-income families,” Campbell said.

‘No Home Alone’ Policy at Bases

On a recent Wednesday, Elam Ferraro conducted a tour of the Port Hueneme Child Development Center, a spotless, single-story building located in a neighborhood of single-family homes within the gate-guarded base. The bases at Port Hueneme and Point Mugu have a “no home alone” policy and parents of children under 9 are referred to one of two child development centers for infants and toddlers, a youth and teen center, or family child-care homes, run by trained and monitored military spouses in their own homes.

Other than a tiny toy tank that sat alongside stuffed animals on Elam Ferraro’s desk, there were few overt signs that “military” child care was different from state-of-the-art child care anywhere.

Caregiver/student ratios are low and there seemed to be a caregiver for every three toddlers, who were quietly watching snails, eating lunch or playing on the floor. Some caregivers, spelled by substitutes, were taking breaks. A housekeeper was busy cleaning up.

Elam Ferraro pointed out features she designed, such as the observation windows with sound so parents can peek into any room without disrupting the children. To protect against charges of child abuse, caregivers are not allowed to be alone with children. Video cameras also monitor the rooms at the Point Mugu facilities and images are fed live to the front desk. The tapes also can be used to answer parents’ questions or complaints.

“If you have an allegation or a question, we say, ‘Let’s look at the tape and see,’ ” Elam Ferraro said. Recently a parent complained a caregiver should have been watching her child when he fell. The tape showed the child had simply tripped, she said.

Elam Ferraro said she adores the military regulations that proscribe operating details down to the provision of rattles and squeak toys, diapering procedures approved by the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and daily cleaning with a quarter-cup of bleach per gallon of water solution. Even the walls are dusted.

Caregivers must not clean. “No one can say we’re going to save dollars by having caregivers mop the floor,” she said.

They are expected to focus all their attention on their small charges, using the developmental approach favored by the NAEYC.

Some things, like happiness and relationships, are beyond regulation. So, Elam Ferraro, a disciple of Los Angeles infant educator Magda Gerber, also sometimes applies “Polly’s rules” to foster respect between children and adults.

Infants follow feeding and sleeping schedules on demand. When they are awake, they are out of their cribs, playing with caregivers. “The most important thing at this age,” she said, “is developing a good sense of who they are, realizing their power, so they can get confidence to move out into the academic world.”

At lunch, toddlers serve themselves and clean up their own spills. When it’s time to sign in, or have their diapers changed, they climb up steps so adults don’t have to lift them.

Because caregiver turnover is said to make some children insecure and distrustful of adults, some caregivers move along with their children as they mature into more advanced classes. Even if they don’t, they try to stay in touch. Cmdr. Karen Coyle, executive officer of the Naval Weapons Test Squadron at Point Mugu, said her 4-year-old daughter still sees the caregiver she had at 16 months. “The teacher who helped potty train her is still the one who says hello to her every day and gives her a big hug.”

Some parents like Petty Officer 3rd Class Darrell Lee and his wife, Jamie, feel a sense of security knowing their children are close to home and work, safe and observable at any time. The past few weeks, both parents have gone to the center to watch their son, Devin, 4, during nap time.

Caregivers apparently are pleased with their jobs. Turnover on the two bases is down to 15%.

Two civilian caregivers said they want to work at the base until they retire. Dolores Cabrera likes the pay. Through pay increases are linked to training, she worked her way up from $4.07 an hour in 1987 to $17.46 an hour as the center’s director. Cindy Pearson said she appreciates the benefits. Through her job she is able to provide her husband and two children with full medical benefits, including orthodontia, dental and vision. During school breaks and vacations, her children attend day camps at Point Mugu for a minimal fee.

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Not everyone thinks the system is perfect, however most complaints about military child care center around daytime-only hours, waiting lists and costs to parents, Campbell said. Parents can wait as long as two years for an opening at the Port Hueneme Center, although exceptions are made if a commander orders it.

Elam Ferraro said the military faces problems squarely.

If a center fails one of the inspections, it has 90 days to fix the problem or the facility is closed. Four child-care homes have been closed in the past 10 years.

In 1996, a Point Mugu child-care worker was suspected of molesting a toddler. The Navy conducted a five-month investigation, bringing in an eight-member Child Abuse Response Team from San Diego and 40 federal investigators from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office. They interviewed 87 children in the facility as well as those in after-school programs and homes where the suspect had baby-sat. In the end, without witnesses or physical evidence, criminal charges were dropped.

The main problem in recent years is that the bases can’t help all the parents clamoring for day care. Overall the military still meets only 58% of its estimated need for child care, especially for infants and toddlers. The military plans to expand, but at some point, “the taxpayers can’t afford any more,” Elam Ferraro said.

One solution is to partner with family day-care homes in the surrounding community. Another is to recruit more home-care providers on base.

To help providers keep high standards and still make money, the military will pay them $100 per week in direct subsidies for each child under 3, Elam Ferraro said.

Last summer, she said she realized how far the military had come. She was sitting in the Washington, D.C., office of the assistant secretary of the Navy discussing budget cuts with top officials. She suddenly noticed they all agreed quality should not be sacrificed. Tears came into her eyes then, she said, because “these people realized it was important.”

Demand for child care in all quarters is at an all-time high, Campbell said. About 72% of women with children under 18 and 78% with school-age children are now in the civilian work force. Over the next five years, women are expected to account for 60% of new labor-force entrants, according to a report this year by the National Council of Jewish Women.

Although civilian child care has improved in some areas, the system remains uneven--even desperate--in others. Some preschool teachers are said to be leaving their jobs for openings in the public school system. In Los Angeles County there are only 186,000 licensed slots for 1 million children who need them, according to a 1999 state-funded study.

Civilian Sector Should Follow Military’s Lead

The military has had some obvious advantages over the civilian sector as it struggles to improve, Campbell said. The military is working with a population smaller than the state of California; it is a closed system based on following orders; and all programs are gathered under the single commander of each service.

But the differences should not be overstated, she said. Like many advocates, Campbell argues the civilian sector can model the military by increasing federal and state funding of child-care programs and shifting its attitude.

The main element that transformed the military, Campbell said, was the will to change. “The military saw it was critical to their work force. They saw the welfare of the kids was at stake,” she said.

The military has begun to share its expertise in small ways.

Vasquez said so far the military has listed its best practices on its Web page (https://dticaw.dtic.mil/milchild), established a speakers bureau and provided some training. Elam Ferraro said her military employees in Ventura County often invite colleagues from local preschools and community colleges to training sessions and conferences and vice versa.

Experiments with elements of the military model are starting to “pop up all over the country now,” said Marcy Whitebrook, senior researcher at the Institute of Industrial Relations at UC Berkeley. This month, the U.S. Senate is expected to consider an $817-million proposal to increase child-care development block grants that would foster ways to link pay to professional improvement, improve accreditation and subsidize parent fees. In California, several counties are proposing to use funds from Proposition 10, the cigarette tax initiative, to reward caregivers for professional development. The state Legislature also is considering a proposal to provide matching funds to the grants.

“Gov. Davis, who is so concerned about education and teachers in K-12, would do well to look at the military example,” Whitebrook said.

“It’s an exciting time,” she said. “We’ve moved from whether we need to intervene to what’s the best way.”

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Two Systems of Child Care

Military

Accreditation: 95% of all centers

Starting pay: $8 an hour raised to $10 in two years; full benefits

Training: Basic pre-service training and 13 more courses. Linked to pay increases

Fees: Sliding scale fees. $3,640 average annual fee. Subsidies to all parents to cover costs.

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Non military

Accreditation: 8% of all centers

Starting pay: Average wage in centers is $7.40 an hour; benefits vary

Training: No training required in 31 states

Fees: Annual average ranges from low of $3,342 in Birmington, Ala., to high of $7,904 in Boston.

Sources: National Women’s Law Center, National Council of Jewish Women.