Dude, I'm not sure what your point is. I never disputed that *some* places are awful.
Disclaimer: Dude, please feel free to correct me if I'm misinterpreting you.
MegMeg, I think Dude is highlighting the problem of asymmetric information in making a preschool selection. In a heterogeneous market, all facilities have an incentive to market themselves under a friendly banner. Without search costs becoming prohibitively high in many locations, parents can't reasonably know what kind of preschool they are visiting, even if everyone is accredited, etc. There is simply too much individual variation.
It's a classic Ackerlof's Lemons problem.
I think you said it better than I would have, though there are other factors.
First, this is a business, and the business is going to put itself forward in the best light possible, and may often make claims that are categorically untrue. So yeah, basically what you said.
Second, parents aren't privy to everything that goes on. They have to rely on secondary sources. Those sources are both unreliable... their children (maturity/perception issues) and the staff (biased).
And third, parents have an inherent psychological bias. If both parents have to work, and there's no other choice, then the parents really don't want to believe that they're placing their child in a bad situation. So if they're hearing and seeing one thing from their children, and another thing from the staff, selection bias skews the parent to want to believe the sunnier corporate message. There's a role here for cognitive dissonance as well.
So, many parents will report, "My child is in a really good daycare" regardless of the actual quality of the daycare, and even when they know there are problems.
I'm not saying that's MegMeg's experience, but the claim that great quality daycare is available from a number of providers in a small town is highly questionable. Norway seems to have some good ideas on daycare, but in the US, profits take precedence.
