The City of Toronto has become the first municipality in Ontario to make daycare ratings public. The decision to make the ratings public follows a daycare probe released by the Toronto Star in June of 2007, where conditions were found to be horrible in some cases. A standardized scoring system has been implemented, and the results are available online at http://www.toronto.ca/children/quality.htm, where they can search by name or location.
In a period of history where the government is generally criticized for inaction and rhetoric, I believed the suggested plan for a public rating system proposed in response to the June probe was little more than another empty promise. I am more than pleasantly surprised to be wrong in this case. This time, the government has acted in the best interests of its citizens - both parents and their children - and done so with a clear and honest approach to what could easily have been a much more bureaucratic outcome.
This blog gets search hits regularly about daycare safety. I hope that people will find this update refreshing as well as informative and enlightening. Daycare is still a tremendous concern for our society, but armed with more information, we can only improve the situation.
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