Memphis: Outcry, inaction follow deaths (7 children since 1999, day cares)

The Commercial Appeal ^ | 6/26/03 | Marc Perrusquia

[GailA]

Outcry, inaction follow deaths

Toll at 7 since 1999, but day care industry delays many reforms

By Marc Perrusquia perrusquia@gomemphis.com June 26, 2003

Seven children have died in Memphis day care vans in four separate incidents since 1999.

The toll began on July 21, 1999, when toddlers Darnecia Slater and Brandon Mann died of heat stroke after they were forgotten in separate vans. Their deaths triggered wide public outcry and led to broad efforts to reform the regulation of day care centers in Tennessee.

The day care industry has delayed many of those reforms, however, contending they would be difficult to implement and would drive the cost of day care beyond what many parents can afford.

The deaths of the two toddlers also sparked federal criminal investigations of the subsidized day care business in Shelby County.

Those investigations netted corruption charges last fall against day care figure WillieAnn Madison, her husband and her sister. Madison headed Cherokee Children and Family Services, a former state contractor that acted as the gatekeeper to subsidized day care in Shelby County.

The defendants deny the allegations and the charges are pending.

Despite some reforms in the wake of the 1999 deaths, tragedy struck again in 2002 when a Tippy Toes Learning Academy van inexplicably veered off an expressway and crashed, killing four children and the driver. Investigators later discovered the driver was a marijuana user who suffered from a sleeping disorder.

The state is still mulling the idea of drug screens for van drivers.

A blue ribbon panel appointed by then-Gov. Don Sundquist said in a 28-page report that the Tippy Toes crash evidenced a critical lack of safety in day care transportation in Tennessee, pointing to larger problems.

The panel noted that hundreds of privately run but publicly funded day care operations sprouted following passage of the 1996 welfare reform law that pushed numbers of Tennesseans to work. Many centers, notably several in Memphis, were driven "solely by greed," the report said, showing little concern for children as they vied for a cut of state subsidies, which exceeded $87 million last year in Shelby County.

Since 1999, the General Assembly has approved broad regulations to make day care centers and vans safer. They range from more adult supervision to better training to safer vans to drug screens for drivers. Many of those new rules are in limbo, however, delayed until next year at the earliest in the wake of pressure from industry officials.

Last April, state Sen. John Ford (D-Memphis) led a bid to scuttle long-standing plans to increase adult supervision in day cares.

His action came after years of controversy and alleged conflicts involving Ford and the state's day care program, including evidence three years ago that the senator co-signed a loan for a state-funded day care center.

- Marc Perrusquia: 529-2545

[GailA]

Sen John Ford is the 'scandalous corrupt' uncle of US Rep Harold Ford Jr.

[GailA]

Read more about the corruption click here

[Blood of Tyrants]

I heard some bimbo woman say something to the effect of, "We have new rules into effect. I don't know how this could have happened".

She soulds like the same kind of person who believes that laws prevent crimes.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Or that laws prevent stupidity. The sad truth is that dysfunctional and/or dim-witted people are disproportionately likely to fail to protect their children, and their children are disproportionately likely to die before reaching reproductive age. This is nature at work, and more government regulation would be neither desirable nor effective.

[GailA]

Supposedly 3 people are to do van checks and then sign off that they did so. The driver, a van monitor snd another person. The driver and the monitor signed off the van was empty. This baby was in the third row from the driver. These are 15 passenger type vans with lots of windows.