Cradle to Grave

[Guest guest]

Holy Hell,

Like we didn't see this coming. Can you say indoctrination?

-Shelby

 

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/EM615.cfm

 

How Special Interests Would Kill Day Care Choice

by Patrick F. Fagan

Executive Memorandum #615

July 30, 1999 | |

 

Congress is poised to take the first step toward creating a new federal

bureaucracy to regulate the provision of day care in the United States.

Under the guise of giving lower-paid federal workers a higher employee

benefit, this new bureaucracy would have sweeping powers to determine the

child care options available to federal workers. And with such a system in

place for federal workers, experience suggests that this regulatory

bureaucracy then would be used to build support for a national system of

regulated day care options for every working American parent.

 

THE MORELLA PROPOSAL

This day care provision, which is sponsored by Representative Constance

Morella (R-MD), was incorporated recently into the House Treasury/Postal

Fiscal Year 2000 Appropriations Bill that now must go to conference with a

Senate version that contains a similar proposal. The House provision would

quietly put in place the necessary apparatus to expand federal regulation of

day care, right down to the local neighborhood level--and sharply curb

parental choice for day care of their children.

 

There is no doubt that the regulations in this bill governing federal child

care facilities would become a " standard " toward which all state regulations

would be driven by lobbying pressure. The tendency would be for the federal

standard to supplant the diverse state and local standards of the day care

provider industry, a special-interest group that has long sought to limit

competition from the home and church providers who generally are most

trusted by parents. In a realm in which affection and intimacy are the most

critical factors in a child's development, national bureaucratic standards

would create environments in which conformity and consistency held sway.

 

Under the Morella provision, this new federal bureaucracy would receive

sweeping powers to regulate such things as the design of child care

facilities, the materials to be used in the physical plant, the

qualifications of personnel, the materials to be used by the children, the

developmental appropriateness of educational activities, and the

accreditation of staffing and the facilities. The Morella provision also

includes a vaguely worded " outside monitoring " apparatus, which would leave

the door wide open for special-interest influence and control.

 

If enacted into law, there is little doubt that the Morella provision would

interfere with the day care market and make the cost of child care rise and

the choices for parents more limited. These results would occur because the

federally regulated system would be dominated by professional providers of

day care, their ancillary professions, and their suppliers. These

special-interest groups include child care education and accrediting

specialists, child care equipment and toy manufacturers, and child care

facility engineers and architects.

 

A HISTORY OF FEDERAL WASTE AND FAILURE

The Morella provision would enshrine yet another federal accrediting body,

something that is anathema to what works well in social programs. Congress

should bear in mind that federal and state governments have demonstrated

repeatedly that providing social services is a particularly problematic

endeavor. For example, lawmakers should consider the results of the most

comprehensive and expensive federal experiment in delivering social services

to the poor, the Comprehensive Child Development Program (CCDP). This

program--thought to be the Cadillac of all social service packages ever

assembled--has not made any difference in the development of the poor

children it serves, despite spending $15,756 per family per year, for a

total cost of $47,000 per family. According to the June 1997 conclusions of

a rigorous evaluation by Abt Associates for the Administration for Children

and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services, the CCDP made

no difference in developmental outcomes for children.

 

Based on the effects of federal regulation in the CCDP and other programs,

one can predict with confidence that federal regulation of day care would be

most likely to lead to decreased--not increased--benefits for those children

involved. But history also shows that if this happened, the public response

to that failure would be the marching of day care special interests back to

Washington, D.C., to argue that more money and more regulation were needed.

 

WASHINGTON'S FOOT IN THE DOOR

With this provision, Congress is about to give a new instrument to those who

want more control over the lives of children and their parents. To those

familiar with the policy battles over parental control of their children's

well-being, there is little doubt that, in a few years, these regulations

gradually would supplant all other regulations on facilities that accepted

any federal monies.

 

Through its various child care subsidies, the federal government would gain

the financial leverage to regulate child care services throughout the

country. Much of the institutional child care network that already is

feeding furiously from the federal treasury would lobby Washington for more

money each year, all in the name of helping children. But professionals

would attribute any inferior results by these institutions to too little

funding and too little regulation. Thus, federal regulation gradually would

overtake state regulation of day care facilities, or force the states to

enact similarly constricting regulations at the state level. The Morella

provision would open the door to special-interest control of day care by

those who hope to drive out of business the day care providers most favored

by parents; little of the funding would get to the intended

beneficiaries--America's children and working parents.

 

CONCLUSION

In the past, Congress wisely avoided pressure from the professional day care

industry. Lawmakers would be wise to do so again, and instead leave the

choice of day care in the hands of parents, where it belongs. That a

decision to use the excuse of helping lower-income federal workers to impose

federal control of day care should move through Congress without serious

debate would be inexcusable.