Mary Poppins famously advised that work could be fun. We talk to an author who says that adding a spoonful of gaming to your life can actually make life better. We also find out about efforts to increase broadband coverage in rural areas of Wisconsin and a new report that says childcare has improved in Milwaukee County.
Featured in this Show
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Guest Says Broadband Expansion Is Necessary For The Prosperity Of Rural Wisconsin
The Republican legislative agenda for Wisconsin includes providing every high school freshman in Wisconsin with a laptop. Our guest says this is a very ambitious idea, but the harder trick is to make sure those students can connect to the Internet on those laptops. He makes the case that broadband is essential to the prosperity of the state, especially rural Wisconsin.
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New Report Says Child Care Improving In Milwaukee County
In 2010, Wisconsin established the YoungStar program in order to create benchmarks for child care providers in the state. A new report finds that the program has had success in Milwaukee County. We speak to co-author Joe Peterangelo of the Public Policy Forum about the news.
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New Report Shows More Children In Milwaukee County Attending Higher-Rated Child Care Centers
The quality of child care in Milwaukee County is improving, according to a new report from the Milwaukee-based Public Policy Forum.
In 2010, Wisconsin established the YoungStar program in order to create benchmarks for child care providers in the state. The program created an important evaluation tool to incentivize improvements inside child care facilities and also aimed to remove fraud within the state subsidy system known as Wisconsin Shares.
About five years later, and for the most part, the program seems to be working, but there’s still room for improvement, said Joe Peterangelo, senior researcher of the forum and author of the report.
“The general view is positive that we see progress being made in improving the quality of child care in Milwaukee County,” Peterangelo said. “There’s been a shift of a majority of providers and a majority of children that were maybe just meeting expectations to being more at the proficient level.”
The report evaluates child care providers on a five-star scale in four categories, including staff education levels, learning environment, business methods, and general health and safety.
A one-star rated child care center is deemed not to be meeting basic health and safety standards and ineligible for state subsidies. Two-star facilities meet basic requirements and can receive Wisconsin Shares funding.
According to Peterangelo’s research, 54 percent of the children in Milwaukee County were under the care of two-star providers in 2012. Today, the same percentage of children are in three-star centers.
“It’s a pretty significant shift over those four years,” Peterangelo said.
Additionally, the number of providers rated at either four or five stars jumped from 9 to 19 percent in that four-year time frame. While the increase is encouraging, Peterangelo said it still trails the rest of the state, where 28 percent of child care facilities have either a four- or five-star rating.
“We still have work to do,” said Peterangelo.
The report also found differences between child care centers and providers who offer care from their home.
Approximately 62 percent of home-based family providers are rated two stars, while the majorities of all other provider types are rated three stars. There also has been a 22 percent decline in the total number of family providers since 2013. At least two zip codes in Milwaukee County, 53202 and 53206, have no high-quality providers.
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Life’s A Game. Really?
A game designer challenges the notion that play is an escape from life. Rather, he says, play is a way to approach all of life—even our mundane tasks like mowing the lawn and washing the dishes. We explore the true nature of games and what they can teach us about living life more fully.
Episode Credits
- Rob Ferrett Host
- Veronica Rueckert Host
- Amanda Magnus Producer
- J. Carlisle Larsen Producer
- Marika Suval Producer
- Tom Still Guest
- Joe Peterangelo Guest
- Ian Bogost Guest
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