蜜桃影视

Elliot鈥檚 Provocations unpacks current events in the early learning world and explores how we can chart a path to a future where all children can flourish.

I have been than many about the prospects for bipartisan child care reform. My case like how child care is such , increasing attention from conservative media, and a introduced by Senate Republicans with enough co-sponsors to break a filibuster. Two pieces of news over the past few weeks are causing me to update my prediction and become far more concerned about the coming years.

The first is commentary by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Responding to concerns about South Dakota鈥檚 child care struggles鈥攚hich have recently been exacerbated by the closure of several programs serving hundreds of families鈥擭oem .聽鈥淭he one thing people have asked for that I’m not willing to do is directly subsidize child care for families. I just don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 the government鈥檚 job to pay or to raise people鈥檚 children for them,鈥� Noem said, adding vaguely that, “we’ll do all we can to make sure there are resources in their community for [families] to utilize.”

Normally, it wouldn鈥檛 be so consequential that a conservative small-state governor is opposed to the fundamental idea that child care has societal benefits and is thus deserving of societal support (and that helping parents afford the care of their choice is comically far from the government raising parents鈥� children for them). In this case, however, the conservative small-state governor is , if not the frontrunner, to be Donald Trump鈥檚 vice presidential pick should he鈥攁s seems overwhelmingly likely鈥攕ecure the Republican nomination. Knowingly or not, Noem is echoing another highly Trump-aligned Republican, . If this line of thinking becomes Trumpian orthodoxy, that鈥檚 a big problem.

Second, unless you鈥檙e a political junkie, the phrase 鈥淧roject 2025鈥� probably doesn鈥檛 mean much to you, but it should. As :

Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president鈥檚 second term鈥攐r any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024.

With a nearly 1,000-page 鈥淧roject 2025鈥� handbook and an 鈥渁rmy鈥� of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the 鈥渄eep state鈥� bureaucracy鈥�

That handbook has , and the early learning bullets are a rough read. Perhaps most alarmingly, the authors recommend the literal end of Head Start: 鈥渢his program should be eliminated along with the entire [Office of Head Start].鈥� No replacement program is suggested, so following through on that idea would result in nearly one million lower-income children and their parents losing access to free child care and wraparound family support.

When it comes to child care more broadly, Project 2025 wants the government to 鈥減rioritize funding for home-based child care, not universal day care … Instead of providing universal day care, funding should go to parents either to offset the cost of staying home with a child or to pay for familial, in-home child care.鈥� I have argued many times that there should be financial support as well as , but such a proposal ignores the millions of parents who want and need external child care. Doing what the authors recommend would, ironically, restrict parental choices. (Since they can鈥檛 completely kill external child care, the authors do suggest 鈥淐ongress should incentivize on-site child care,鈥� which it and which has its .)

Put together, Noem鈥檚 comments and Project 2025鈥檚 recommendations show a disturbing hostility toward child care as a sector. While there are reasonable disagreements over how to best structure child care policy, the extent of public funding required and who should benefit, those conversations generally start with a few common principles. Such principles include the understanding that a substantial percentage of working parents will always require external child care, the current system is not working and the government has a role to play. If that foundation for discussion and compromise is becoming shaky, we may be in for dark days.

On the Democratic side, it doesn鈥檛 look like much is poised to shift from the Biden Administration鈥檚 first-term approach. An Associated Press article , 鈥淏iden will want to bring back the ideas that were left on the cutting room floor. That includes 鈥� offering universal preschool and limiting the cost of child care to 7% of income for most families.鈥�

The dominant Democratic child care plan continues to be the , which enjoys co-sponsorship by 43 Democratic senators. While the newest version of the Act has some welcome updates (such as combining subsidy vouchers for families with operational grants for providers akin to the highly successful pandemic-era stabilization grants), it still relies on technocratic activity tests and sliding fee scales, and is still mostly silent on school-aged child care, FFN caregivers and stay-at-home parents.

The early months of 2024 would be a good time to try and guide the child care conversation back to a middle ground. That might look like good-faith conservative thinkers and advocates, such as those involved in the * pushing back on the extreme positions being staked out by Noem and Project 2025. These conservatives might remind the far right that Trump actually held a in 2019, and could steer conservatives toward a reasonable alternative like Patrick T. Brown鈥檚 vision for . At the same time, progressives need to reckon with whether the Child Care For Working Families approach is still the right one, and push their party to finally come up with proposals that go far beyond licensed child care programs.

All of the above will be easier if child care is positioned not as an isolated issue, but as one service among many needed within a framework of family flourishing and freedom. There is no reason for child care needs to fall prey to rank partisanship. For instance, even as the warning signs flash red for child care, . I won鈥檛 pretend the danger to child care is coming equally from both parties, but each has work to do to recalibrate in advance of the election — and if they fail, it is ultimately America鈥檚 children and families who stand to suffer.

Disclosure: Elliot Haspel is a senior fellow at Capita, a think tank that participated in the Convergence Collaborative on Supports for Working Families.

This story originally published on Early Learning Nation and is now archived on 蜜桃影视. Learn more here.