Advertisement The state-sponsored Web tool, announced Monday by Gov. Jim Doyle, has long been urged by child-safety and consumer advocates as an important step in helping parents find high-quality child care.
Still, the database does not offer any type of quality rating system, a fact Doyle called disappointing in an interview. He has sought money to implement such a rating system in the past two state budget cycles but has been rebuffed by legislators. He will continue to push the concept, he said.
The database also is scant on supplementary details. While the site lists when a center has been fined and the general category of the offense, it does not give the amount of the fine or a description of the incident.
This lessens the site's usefulness, said Linda Smith, executive director of the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, in Arlington, Va.
"It's a positive step forward, there's no doubt about that," Smith said. "Do we think there's more to be done? For sure."
'Pretty basic thing'
Doyle announced the Web tool while launching the new Department of Children and Families during a ceremony at the Dane County Parent Council in Madison.
Prior to the searchable database, residents had to request information about a center by phone, e-mail or mail, or by visiting a state licensing office. That was too burdensome, Doyle said.
"It seems to me this is a pretty basic thing," Doyle said of posting the information online.
Asked later why it took so long then, Doyle suggested he created the new department partly for that reason — to make sure family-friendly initiatives don't get lost within a larger bureaucracy.
The Wisconsin Family Child Care Association strongly supports the searchable database and has not heard of any resistance from child-care centers, said President Celeste Swoboda, of Chippewa Falls.
But Swoboda said she hopes consumers keep the information in context.
"Anything can get misinterpreted online," she said, noting that even high-quality centers sometimes get written up for minor violations. "We hope parents thoroughly look into centers in a more personal way. This is one piece of information. It should not answer all of their questions."
The database gives parents a starting point, said George Hagenauer, acting executive director of Madison-based Community Coordinated Child Care, or 4-C, which certifies child-care providers and provides parents with child-care referrals.
"We've been pushing for years to have the violations up on the Web so that people can learn the track records of centers," he said. "What you'll see is that there are a lot of child-care programs with very few problems and a few with pages and pages of violations."
Lacks specifics
Some consumers may find the database lacking in specifics, said Smith, of the national referral agency.
For instance, the listing for Rock-A-Bye Child Care Learning Center in Sun Prairie says the center was fined in May of 2007 for a violation in the area of "inappropriate discipline or behavior management."
The site doesn't say that the fine was for $2,500 and that an 18-month-old girl was found pulseless with her eyes rolled back into head, requiring CPR and hospitalization. A staff member, since fired, was charged with five felonies for alleged abuse.
"A parent really can't make a good decision without more information," Smith said.
Still, she applauded the state for making progress.
Twenty-one other states post at least as much licensing information as Wisconsin now does, Smith said, and many provide considerably more, including full inspection reports.
Kathy Estock of Madison, whose two children have been in full-time child care, welcomes the state database.
She found the process cumbersome a few years ago when she tried to research centers, she said.
"This sounds great," she said of the database. "I think an online network would be very helpful."
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