Annotated Bibliography
Name
Institution
Annotated Bibliography
Article: Cohen, A. J. (1996). A brief history of federal financing for child care in the United States. The Future of Children, 26-40.
Child care is an integral part of economic and social policies in various countries. Various countries have various goals for the establishment and funding of child care. In the US, child care has been funded for various reasons that change depending on the current administration. Mainly, such changes are determined by the perspective the administration has on the role of federal government and the public in funding child care. In his article, Cohen (1996) performs a historical evaluation of the changes in federal funding for child care and the reasons causing the changes. Cohen concludes that child care funding in the US fails in its purpose due to the lack of a common goal for child care. The division in the purpose for child care has led to inadequate and incomprehensive approaches of funding child care. Cohen describes these approaches as to have no particular standards or administrative structure in their operation and are hence faulty and incompetent in their responsibilities. Due to the lack of a well-structured administration and standards of operation, Cohen asserts that these federal funding sources do not qualify to be considered a funding system.
Currently, there are various concerns regarding child care in the US. One of the major concerns has been the poor quality of child care that is considered to endanger the children’s well-being. Moreover, child care is also considered to be costly for low-income families and hence incurs financial hardships to them. Such challenges are an indication of a failed administrative structure to foster child care that requires the change in public policies to provide a comprehensive framework for solving these drawbacks. Such a framework need to be well structured and with a uniform goal for its operations. Therefore, Cohen is right is his evaluation that the failures in federal funding systems in child care is due to differences in the administrative aims. It is the lack of a common goal for child care that causes several changes in its funding and consequently resulting in poor quality. Moreover, it fails in meeting its objectives such as allow low-income families to work their way off the welfare.
References
Cohen, A. J. (1996). A brief history of federal financing for child care in the United States. The Future of Children, 26-40. <https://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/docs/06_02_01.pdf>
