Reforming Regulations and Decentering Deregulation

Child care costs are high, child care workforce compensation is low, and regulations are burdensome. In an effort to find a solution there have been growing conversations  around deregulation without a complete understanding of the ramifications of some of these proposals. While confusing and conflicting regulations can be costly and merit reevaluation, deregulation proposals that increase child-to-caregiver ratios, increase group size, or lower staff age requirements are not the solution. These policies can reduce program quality, jeopardize children’s health and safety, contribute to provider turnover, and may even increase liability insurance premiums. 

Two informative reports have recently been released on this topic that taken together paint a clear picture of the challenges of the current regulatory environment, the dangers of deregulation, and the opportunities for growth and improvement within standards and regulations without sacrificing child or provider well-being. 

This month, the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) released: A Path Forward on Child Care Regulation: Differentiating Between Harmful Child Care Deregulation and Helpful Reform. It highlights the threats posed by some state legislatures’ recent child care deregulation proposals and offers recommendations for how policymakers can right-size child care regulations and reduce administrative burdens in the licensing system without jeopardizing child health, safety, and program quality. 

Additionally, in March, the Buffett Early Childhood Institute released Rethinking Child Care Standards and Regulations, which urged state legislators and advocates to shift the focus away from deregulation and instead intentionally review and improve regulatory systems. Authors Linda K. Smith and Grace Reef call attention to decades of regulations that have been layered on top of one another in various agencies without alignment as well as punitive and conflicting monitoring and compliance visits and guidance. 

The U.S. child care system is broken, with parents unable to afford the true cost of quality, staff receiving poor compensation, and providers operating on thin profit margins. Public funding is needed to right this broken market and alleviate the need to choose between increasing costs or sacrificing quality. However, a challenge with the early learning and care landscape is that programs are often funded through multiple agencies with differing requirements, purposes, and methods of accountability. What is interpreted as overregulation might be the result of the lack of alignment among standards and regulations across agencies on the federal, state, and local levels. One provider might have to comply with three or four sets of regulations, potentially resulting in a dozen or more monitoring visits from separate agency personnel. Without alignment and shared monitoring, these visits can examine the same things with different check-lists, causing conflicting findings and potential penalties instead of supporting a constructive system to support the safety and healthy development of children.

These reports further explain these challenges and outline policy recommendations and elements to consider when reviewing and developing a more comprehensive regulatory system. Some of which include:

Increasing Simplicity and Transparency in Regulations, Standards, and Application Information: Standards and regulations must be understandable and easy to navigate. Both reports encourage states to ease unnecessary burdens by streamlining licensing materials so that information and materials can be easily accessed and understood. CAP and NAEYC suggest actions like allowing for different modes of application submission and waiving fees for background checks and applications. The Buffett Early Childhood Institute encourages states to create interpretive guides in plain language that explain the regulations, the intention behind them, and why they are necessary. 

Improving Monitoring and Compliance Systems: Standards and regulations are only as effective as their methods of accountability. Too often monitoring and compliance visits are viewed as a witch hunt designed to catch and penalize mistakes. Both reports acknowledge that monitoring systems should center continuous improvement and inform training for providers and state strategies on how to focus resources, funding, and efforts. Both reports encourage the consolidation of early childhood program administration to support better coordination of funding, data, regulation setting, and more. The Buffett Early Childhood Institute discusses shared monitoring, which requires different agencies to align requirements to ensure consistency. Additionally, CAP and NAEYC encourage flexibility once baseline standards and qualifications have been met. 

Improving the Consistency of Regulation Application Through Inspector Training: Quality monitoring and compliance requires competent inspectors. The Buffett Early Childhood Institute emphasizes that all relevant stakeholders should be present to contribute when conversations on standards and regulations occur. The authors emphasize that inspectors should be consistent and well-versed in the regulations necessary for child care providers in order to reduce conflicting and confusing guidance. Licensing staff should understand the regulations and their rationale and be able to effectively communicate this information. 

Increasing Crucial Investments: Lastly, CAP and NAEYC highlight the importance of robust investment, noting that reforming the regulatory system will be most effective when supported by early childhood professionals who are well prepared, compensated, and supported. Their report calls for investments in compensation, increased funds through grants and contracts to offset facilities costs and upgrades, better resources to offset costs of starting a new program, funding for ongoing preparation and professional development, and more. 

Together, these two reports offer a comprehensive overview of what states can do to combat the challenges of burdensome regulations and move away from conversations on deregulation efforts that compromise children’s health, safety, and learning.