Can't read the whole article, but am curious about how it will impact unlicensed childcare operations. I imagine that the number of parents using these is much higher than many people realize. Will be interesting to see how many parents end up using the state program.
Until very recently in human history 100% of childcare operations were unlicensed, and this was better in every way than a government bureaucracy run system.
I'm not knocking it. My parents didn't use licensed daycare for preschool for me or my sister. Just dropped us off at some old lady's house and paid her cash for watching us. 99% of arrangements like that work out fine. It may be suboptimal, but usually it's at least fine.
I'm actually wondering if the program will make a big dent though. One issue with formal childcare arrangements is that the hours tend to not be flexible. Parents who have to work til 6 some nights, or who have nontraditional work schedules in general may not be better served by the state's option.
It may be suboptimal, but what isn't? The problem here is assuming that the expensive bureaucratic credential based system is optimal or even better at all. "Everybody knows $SOME_NEIGHBOR and she's great with kids" is just a much better indicator of quality in child care than "$SOME_DAYCARE is licensed by $SOME_BUREAUCRACY."
Also, I'm not even against state support for parents needing childcare, but giving $500 a month to each parent who needs it to find childcare in an informal system will actually be much better than a state run system that spends $2000 per kid.
Until recently, you had personally known everyone, for years, who you might hand your child off to for a few hours.
We have things like licensing because we're handing off our children to perfect strangers, and want some level of assurance that it's not going to be a disaster.
We are only handing them off to complete strangers because the informal system has been driven underground by laws that only allow the state licensed bureaucratic monopoly. If state licensing was optional and people were allowed to run neighborhood businesses I bet you would see something very different.
I dunno -- it's not like you know people in your neighborhood the way humans used to know members of their tribes. And I've known people in the neighborhood who seemed totally normal and safe, and then got arrested for something shocking. We're not spending all day long with even our next-door neighbors, let alone the ones five blocks away.
Having standards in training, operation, and oversight of childcare seems just as important as safety standards in the food supply. Even though everybody cooks at home, you're not allowed to run a restaurant without certifications and inspections either. And thank goodness.
I'm sorry, America hasn't been Mayberry since the 1950s, and it never will be again. Most of us live in towns with more than just a post office, so this Norman Rockwell-esque fantasy of just dropping your kid off with the nice housewife next door is not just dead, it's starting to smell really bad.
Even with the terrible state of education in most nations, that is a patently untrue sentence at least in the fact that poor people can have access to education at all.
I didn't say anything about school. This article is about childcare for children below school age. But basic education is also actually quite cheap and easy to provide. Abraham Lincoln was educated in a one room school house. We have made it expensive by turning it into a bureaucratic nightmare with administrators, school boards, lawyers, and PTAs, when all you really need is a few good teachers who are given the authority to set and enforce high standards.
"until very recently" includes pre-industrial times to my understanding when education did not exist in an organized fashion for the poor.
[edit] And in what world is Abraham Lincoln considered "the poor" for his times? I am sure you can come up with some less fortunate people during the same times which didn't really get the experience of that one room schoolhouse.
The world is quite a lot bigger than Illinois though.
And it seems I need to spell it out for you, right there in the US during the same times, children of black people in the south didn't get access to education[1]. Serfdom was a thing in Europe until the early 1900, serfs children didn't get access to proper education[2]. I'm giving you a link to Russian education, but the whole of Eastern Europe was at a similar level. I don't know what kind of rose tinted cool aid you guys have been drinking.
