EXCERPTS
Your Oct. 12 editorial, highlighting new research claiming that Quebec’s universal daycare “causes” developmental and social ills, is incorrect in its description of the research involved, which claimed that children enrolled in Quebec’s system had poor child-development results and that the study “tracks the effects of Quebec’s program on children who have since graduated.” Neither is true, as the researchers included all children in Quebec at two points in time, not just those in “universal daycare.” In a study about child-development outcomes, drawing conclusions without knowing who has been “exposed” to “the treatment,” who got which version of “the treatment,” or whether “the treatment” quality was uniform, is not acceptable. Better to wait until this is all submitted to a child-development journal. After all, child-care policy isn’t airborne, like the flu.
Martha Friendly, Executive Director, Childcare Resource and Research Unit, Toronto