Douglas J. Besharov

Introduction: Rethinking Child Care Research

This introduction summarizes the articles in this collection. It describes how the articles address one or more of the key elements of the child care research model: (a) selecting and measuring the independent variablesto determine the characteristics (“qualities”) of the child care environment (and, in some studies, the characteristics of parents and family), (b) selecting and measuring the dependent variablesto determine the childs physical and developmental status after a period of time in a particular child care arrangement (usually a school year) compared with that of children in other arrangements (or simply the same child before spending time in the arrangement), (c) establishing causal linksbetween the independent and dependent variables that are either assumed in randomized experiments or estimated through statistical controls in nonexperimental studies, and (d) assessing impacts across subgroups to see whether the program benefits one particular group more (or less) than others. The collection closes with a proposal to develop a systematic federal research program to pursue improvements in child care and early childhood education programs.

Federal child care assistance: A growing middle-class entitlement

As Congress debates various child care proposals, the conventional wisdom is that the federal role in child care ceased when President Nixon vetoed the Child Development Act of 1971.1 Not so. Over the last 15 years, federal child care assistance has more than doubled. By our estimates, the costs of federal child care assistance-through income tax deductions and credits, child care and early education programs, and welfare and job training programs-rose from

Teaching in Today’s Global Classroom: Policy Analysis in Cross-National Settings

1 billion in fiscal 1972 to about

Reconceiving SNAP Is Nutritional Assistance Really Income Support

6.2 billion in fiscal 1987. Accounting for inflation, thats a real increase of 127%. By 1989, expenditures will approach

Children and the reform of the welfare system: An introduction

8 billion, another 24% rise in just two years. (See Figure 1.) Poor and low-income families, however, have not benefited from this increased spending. Because the most significant child care subsidies are provided through the tax code and not through spending programs, these increases have largely benefited middleand upper-income families, as Figure 1 shows. Lower-income families do not benefit because they hardly pay taxes in the first place, especially after the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The next two sections of this article describe the federal governments surprisingly broad range of subsidies and programs that support child care, directly or indirectly. Perhaps these programs are not as substantial as child care advocates would like them to be, but they are substantial nevertheless. The problem is these funds go increasingly to the least needy among us. This paper concludes with a discussion of options for change.

An economic view of food deserts in the united states

Although the center of gravity of policy research and analysis remains in the United States, the rest of the world is rapidly catching up. The same is true for teaching policy analysis and evaluation, which has become a global enterprise. New schools of public policy, or at least new public policy programs, have been established around the world and many more are coming. Although grounded in their home country’s political and programmatic context, these educational programs have much in common, including similar curricula that focus on quantitative methods, program evaluation, and systematic policy analysis. The teaching materials are frequently the same, and in most places, instruction is in English. The promise of such efforts is great. To the extent that systematic approaches to policy analysis and evaluation lead to better government and private-sector decisions, the result can be better lives for tens of millions of people. One need not look any further than the unprecedented successes when modern analytic tools were applied to the age-old problems of poverty, malnutrition, and poor health in developing countries. The challenges, however, are many. Around the world, political institutions vary dramatically, so that focusing narrowly on a home country’s political system will not address the needs of students planning to work elsewhere. Teaching about how the committee structure of the U.S. Congress fragments and often stymies decision making, for example, may help students who wish to specialize in U.S. policy, but it is of limited use to students specializing in other political systems. Further, in political systems with less freedom and democracy, it can be

Innovation Inducement Prizes: Connecting Research to Policy

Since its creation, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has changed from an antihunger program to an income-supplementation program. Because the program (and its predecessor Food Stamp Program) was not designed for this purpose, the result is a program that has many unintended and, many believe, negative effects. The key challenge is to modernize a massive income support program that started as a small food assistance program. The author proposes an effort to rationalize the current patchwork of programs that make up the U.S. safety net—in a way that balances what looks to be long-term weak demand for labor with the need to minimize the work and marriage disincentives in current law.

European measures of income, poverty, and social exclusion: Recent developments and lessons for U.S. poverty measurement

Between March 1994 and July 2001, welfare rolls fell an amazing 59 percent from their historic high of 5.1 million families. How much of this decline was the result of welfare reform and how much was the result of other factors, such as the strong economy? What were the effects of the decline on low-income families? About a quarter billion dollars is being spent on studies and surveys designed to answer these and other questions. Unfortunately, we are unlikely to get more than a modest amount of the information sought.