NBC:
Authorities have suspended a Delaware day care's license after three employees there allegedly encouraged a pair of toddlers to fight one another.Why is anyone shocked by this? We live in a country that on average pays more to people who mind our cars than those who mind our children. From the New American Foundation:Cell phone video taken in March appears to show two three-year-olds fighting the Hands of Our Future Daycare in Dover, Del., while three female workers cheer them on, according to Dover Police.
“It’s sobering to remember that the majority of our children, before they enter kindergarten … are in programs where people are paid really low wages, maybe $15,000 to $20,000 a year,” says Whitebook, who directs the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California at Berkeley...Whitebook starts the interview by confirming that, yes, child care workers are typically paid less than parking lot attendants.
Not only that:
Here at the New America Foundation, Phillip Longman and David Gray have made a similar point. Their 2008 paper, A Family-Based Social Contract, includes a chart showing average salaries of various workers. (See the graph on page 11.) The data, based on information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows that animal trainers make $5,000 more per years than preschool teachers.
As the former mayor of Bogota, Enrique Peñalosa, once said: "Children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people."
