When this year’s legislative session launched in Idaho, early childhood experts and advocates were hopeful that the state, which has a shortage of child care, would invest more in early learning programs. Instead, lawmakers proposed what may be the most extreme effort yet to deregulate child care in America: The bill called for eliminating state required staff-to-child ratios altogether, instead allowing child care providers to set their own.
While the effort was met with fierce opposition in the state, it represents a trend gaining momentum in the country. Rather than investing in the struggling child care industry, more than a dozen states have proposed lowering the minimum age to work with children, easing education and training requirements, and raising group sizes and ratios. (Read my December story on this growing deregulation movement. I investigated such efforts in states including Kansas and Iowa.)
The deregulation measures come at a time when many early childhood programs face federal funding and staffing cuts. Head Start programs were hit by a federal funding freeze and struggled to draw down payments even after the Trump administration announced Head Start was exempt from the freeze. Then, earlier this month, the Trump administration closed five of the Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) regional offices and placed staff from those offices on leave, threatening support for Head Start, which is overseen by ACF, as well as programs that receive federal child care subsidies. Last week, USA Today reported that President Donald Trump is considering a budget proposal that would eliminate funding for Head Start altogether.
At the state level, Idaho lawmakers are not the only ones to propose child care deregulation legislation this year. Minnesota lawmakers also issued similar proposals, including increasing family child care capacity limits and relaxing ratios in rural areas. Another bill in the state proposes lowering the age requirement of assistant teachers from 18 to 16. In Kansas, where a lawmaker proposed hiring 14-year-olds to help in child care classrooms in 2023, a new bill aims to reduce training requirements. An Indiana measure would loosen staff-to-child ratios based on the ratios set in neighboring states, and one in North Carolina would increase maximum group sizes for young children. And in Florida, lawmakers have called for an abbreviated inspection plan for some child care programs.
While deregulation is more common in red states, there have also been some recent efforts to invest in early learning programs that transcend the red-blue divide. In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp proposed an additional $14 million aimed at reducing preschool class sizes and $5.5 million to address issues with the state’s child care subsidy program for lower-income families. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun called for more spending to eliminate the state’s waitlist for child care subsidies. And South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster proposed $20 million to continue a program that provides wage supplements to child care workers.
In Idaho, the deregulation legislation was eventually amended to loosen the state-mandated ratios — without eliminating them altogether. It also forbids municipalities from setting more stringent child care regulations than the state, something that was allowed in the past and allowed cities to set a “higher standard” for programs, said Martin Balben, director of strategic initiatives for the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children.
“I think municipalities are still kind of reeling with how to confront that reality,” he said. “It remains to be seen how [they] are going to handle their lack of local control in this area moving forward.”
Experts say while deregulation is nothing new, the recent momentum is troubling. “We absolutely want to make sure that states are not rolling back their health and safety measures,” said Diane Girouard, state policy senior analyst at Child Care Aware of America. “We want to make sure that they’re not compromising children. … There are no quick fixes.”
Contact staff writer Jackie Mader at 212-678-3562 or mader@hechingerreport.org.
This story about child care services was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
