It Took Three Dead Babies

By Andrew Goldstein

Tennessee was supposed to be a national model for welfare reform. And so it was until the state ran into a basic truth about putting poor people to work: You can't reform welfare if you don't have good day care. So the story of Tennessee's success in one area--62% of its welfare recipients have moved into jobs--is also the story of its struggle in another. It is a story of day-care warehouses' stockpiling kids and sucking in rich government subsidies while paying barely trained caregivers less than $12,000 a year. It's a story of thousands of meals for poor kids paid for by the government but never provided; a story of prominent politicians and church leaders with ties to the day-care industry repeatedly ignoring the headlines; a story of children dying in overheated vans.

Last month Tennessee at last reformed its reform, adopting the most sweeping changes in child care in state history. But that move came with a hard lesson: money without oversight and accountability may do more harm than good.

The state understood from the start that providing day care took cash, so welfare parents received vouchers, paid for by state and federal money, covering tuition at about 70% of Tennessee's day-care centers (as much as $85 a week for a child under two). To meet the demand of a welfare population going to work, Tennessee made it relatively easy to open centers, didn't require background checks or training for caregivers before they started work and mandated a higher ratio of children to staff than state experts recommended.

The day-care explosion hit Memphis hard. About 9,000 children in Shelby County (which includes Memphis) received subsidized care before welfare reform; by 1999, the number was 21,000. Centers relying on those $85-a-week kids could soon be found on almost every corner of the inner city. For a few local entrepreneurs, it was a windfall. For example, Koinonia Child Care Center, run by the Rev. Roosevelt Joyner, has doubled in size since reform and today receives more than $1.7 million a year in child-care subsidies. Says Joyner: "The reforms put a lot of minority people who would not ordinarily go into business into business."

In June 1997, the Work 'N' Play Day Care Center moved into what had been a car dealership in East Memphis to accommodate its growing size. The new location was close to the home of Adrian and Tomeka Williams, who were looking for day care for two-year-old Adrian Jr. and four-month-old Destiny. On June 25, less than a week after the center opened, the van driver unloaded the other kids for the day but left Destiny in the van. She was discovered 5 1/2 hours later, still strapped into her child seat. The temperature inside the van had reached 112[degrees]; Destiny died of massive swelling of the brain caused by heat stroke.

State officials cannot recall anything like this ever happening before in Tennessee. Parents who had been quietly questioning the quality of care now wanted answers and changes. But day-care operators with powerful allies in the state legislature argued that this was an isolated incident, that tougher requirements, such as lower child-to-staff ratios, would put centers out of business. Nothing happened. "Everybody had something to say," notes Tomeka Williams, who still watches the van in which her daughter died drive by each morning, "but nothing was done."

Signs of trouble kept cropping up. In December 1998, Demarkus Taylor, an employee of Gloryland Learning Academy, and son of its owner, was arrested for driving the day-care van and its 22 children while stoned on marijuana. Taylor, who had a criminal history, pleaded guilty to reckless driving. The following June, a 15-year-old employee performed sex acts with a 10-year-old girl in the "cubby room" of Tanglewood Child Care Center. He was later found guilty of aggravated sexual battery.

The legislature remained silent. Any child-care-reform bill had to make its way out of the senate committee on general welfare, health and human resources, whose chairman for the past 20 years has been John Ford, 57, a member of one of the most powerful political families in Tennessee. The senator's brother James, a commissioner of Shelby County, owns one of the largest day-care operations in the state, with more than 400 kids enrolled at four locations, funded by more than $1.9 million a year in government subsidies. Ford's sister Joyce Ford Miller is a supervisor at Cherokee Children and Family Services, a broker that has an exclusive state contract to arrange child care for Shelby County's welfare recipients. Last year two Memphis day-care owners filed a federal racketeering suit against Cherokee, accusing the broker of steering subsidized children into centers connected to its board members; John and James Ford and the Rev. Joyner are among the defendants, and they are contesting the lawsuit. "I'm just disgusted with what appears to be a lot of abuse," says Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton. "This has been a cash cow for people who have taken advantage of the system." Senator Ford denies any conflict of interest or even discussing day-care legislation with his brother. He says the lawsuit is "so frivolous it's ridiculous."

A year ago this month, 22-month-old Darnecia Slater was driven to the Children's Palace Learning Center, owned by James Ford. Before parking the van for the day, neither the driver nor the adult rider checked to see whether any children had been left inside. Seven hours later, Darnecia, her core body temperature elevated to 108[degrees], was discovered in the van, parked only 50 ft. from the Children's Palace door. The same day at one of Memphis' other supersize day-care operations, the Pee Wee Wisdom Learning Center, Brandon Mann, 2, was also left inside a day-care van. When he was pulled out after baking for five hours in the 90[degree] heat, Brandon, like Darnecia, was dead of hyperthermia.

This time, with three children dead, politicians went into action. State Representative Carol Chumney, chairwoman of the house family-affairs committee, introduced 10 separate reform bills. Governor Don Sundquist proposed a 128-page package of reforms, including state-funded mandatory background checks for caregivers. The department of human services started a zero-tolerance policy, threatening to shut down centers that proved to be a danger to children. Yet despite the pressure for reform, Ford publicly criticized Chumney's proposals and reminded her that all her bills must go through his committee. So again, nothing happened.

Then tales of financial abuse began to roll in. A state audit found a clerk in the department of children's services had been taking kickbacks to allow ineligible kids into a state-financed day-care program for abused and neglected children. Other audits found four centers that had misused thousands of dollars in state funds and another that had received federal dollars for 8,184 breakfasts and 5,208 snacks that children never received. (One center is appealing its audit.) Investigations by the Memphis Commercial Appeal found still other day-care centers paying their executives six figures while paying their experienced teachers only $6.50 an hour. "The mind-set is that this is money up for grabs," says Dennis Dycus, the state official who oversaw most of the audits. "The systems are set up in such a manner that they promote people to steal--they beg people to steal."

Last month, three years after the death of Destiny Williams, the pressure for change at last overwhelmed the religious, financial and political opposition. The sweeping reforms, which received even Senator Ford's support, include more mandatory training for day-care workers and random audits for centers that take in more than $250,000 in subsidies. Perhaps most important, the state will now provide day-care center report cards, giving parents the tools for deciding the best place for their kids. Chumney, happy with her victory, is nevertheless cautious about the future. "I'm trying not to overplay it," she says. "Change takes time."