Clinton Unveils Plan to Aid Child-Care Training, Wages

WASHINGTON —  Addressing a White House conference on child care, President Clinton announced a $300-million proposal Thursday to provide training scholarships for day-care providers and boost their wages when they return to work.

In addition, the president unveiled three initiatives aimed at improving the affordability, safety and quality of child care, including a measure that would make it easier for states to conduct criminal background checks on prospective child-care workers.

“No government can love a child, and no policy can substitute for a family’s care,” Clinton told participants at the White House conference. “But there is much that we can do to help parents do their duty to their children.”

The high-profile conference was convened to draw attention to the problems plaguing the country’s patchwork child-care system and launch a national conversation on how to fix it. The burgeoning child-care industry suffers from low wages, uneven quality and a spotty safety record.

Child care has become an increasingly acute issue for American families. Twelve million children younger than 6 (representing half of all infants and 60% of all preschoolers) are in the care of someone other than their parents part of the day. And with welfare reform pushing more single parents into the work force, the demand for child care is expected to grow significantly.

The modest initiatives that the president announced Thursday are part of an ongoing effort by the administration to bolster the country’s child-care industry without resorting to a big-government solution, which the GOP-controlled Congress would surely reject.

“We’re not interested in some big federal program directed from Washington that sets one-size-fits-all rules,” said Bruce Reed, a domestic policy advisor to the president. Clinton’s goal is “to help more states and communities succeed at this” and to encourage “companies that don’t do much in the way of child care to follow the lead of successful companies that do,” Reed said.

The president’s $300-million, five-year scholarship plan is designed to improve the qualifications of child-care workers while cutting down on the rapid turnover of caregivers, as many as half of whom quit every year. Annual stipends of up to $1,500 would be provided to as many as 50,000 current and future child-care providers who agree to stay in the field for at least a year after receiving the training. Beneficiaries would receive a bonus when they complete their course work.

The initiative, which will be included in the president’s 1999 budget and must be approved by Congress, is modeled after a North Carolina program that gives participating caregivers wage increases of 10% for taking an average of 18 credit hours of classes a year.

In an effort to make child care safer, Clinton is asking Congress to pass a law that for caregiver applicants would waive the prohibition on the sharing of criminal records between states.

Clinton announced that his Corp. for National Service would train volunteers so the programs could provide better care to more children.

The president also directed Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin to oversee a working group of business executives to spotlight companies that help provide child care for the children of their employees, including on-site facilities. Group members then will preach to their peers about why such programs make good business sense.

Some who have studied child care downplayed Clinton’s initiatives.

“These are small, somewhat useful proposals that are mixed in their wisdom,” said Douglas Besharov of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. They “are minor stuff compared to the need out there,” and “it would be a great mistake” to expect them to “make any difference.”

Times staff writer Melissa Healy contributed to this story.