OPINION:
At the beginning of June, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun announced a plan to boost childcare affordability in his state by reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens that have contributed to rising costs.
With childcare already rivaling the cost of housing nationwide — and in Indiana’s case, even exceeding the cost of in-state university tuition — these reforms offer a promising approach to expanding the supply of affordable childcare without sacrificing children’s safety or well-being.
Highlights of the reforms include streamlining expenses, changing or eliminating outdated requirements, allowing children to bring lunch from home and improving flexibility in sleep surfaces.
However, the proposed reform that has garnered the most attention is the elimination of unnecessary educational and credential requirements for opening or staffing childcare centers.
Research from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University found that requiring lead teachers to have even a high school diploma was associated with a 25% to 46% increase in infant childcare costs.
Although Indiana’s current requirements provide several pathways for lead caregivers to qualify, they still impose educational and training requirements that can limit the pool of workers eligible to enter the profession. These requirements can unnecessarily disqualify caring, responsible individuals who are well-suited to working with young children, simply because they lack a particular degree or credential.
Creating barriers to entry for new workers in the childcare workforce makes it more difficult and costly for providers to hire additional staff. This limits their ability to expand, ultimately reducing the number of childcare slots available and passing higher costs on to families.
Critics are voicing concerns that reduced education requirements for caregivers will result in less competent teachers who will not adequately prepare children for elementary school. However, research has shown that childcare regulations often focus on easily observable features — such as teacher education, staff-to-child ratios and program administration — that do not necessarily determine the quality of care.
The quality of interactions between teachers and children is a better indicator of overall care quality. Although these interactions are harder to discern and therefore harder to regulate, they can be influenced by the quality, not the quantity, of teacher training.
Studies have not found significant effects of teacher education or training on childcare quality. Yet some targeted interventions — such as taking one college-level class related to early childhood education within the last year — may yield statistically significant effects.
Targeted training, however, is very different from requiring staff to attain an associate or even a bachelor’s degree.
In other words, as long as background checks, emergency medical preparedness expectations, safe-sleep protocols, abuse reporting requirements and health-and-safety trainings (all protections in Mr. Braun’s proposed rule) remain in place, child safety and well-being need not be compromised simply because the lead instructor lacks a degree.
The qualities that parents and providers value most in childcare workers are experience, communication, patience, attentiveness and sound judgment — not education. A diploma cannot fully capture whether someone will be well-suited to caring for young children.
These reforms, by reducing unnecessary barriers to entering the profession, will allow providers to hire more staff, expand the job market for those seeking a career in childcare and allow centers to accept more children.
Indiana is demonstrating how a thoughtful, commonsense approach to childcare reform can expand care options, empower parents, support providers and childcare professionals, and make quality care more affordable. Other states should follow its lead.
• Elizabeth Gillanders is a family policy analyst at Independent Women.
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