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Crawling Behind: America’s Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It
“I’ve totally washed away the dream of having one more child.”
“I had never intended to be a stay-at-home-parent, but the cost of child care turned me into one.”
“We had to pull our toddler out of his program because we couldn’t afford to have two kids in high-quality care.”
These are not the voices of those down on their luck, but the voices of America’s middle class. The lack of affordable, available, high-quality childcare is a boulder on the backs of all but the most affluent. Millions of hard-working families are left gasping for air while the next generation misses out on a strong start.
To date, we’ve been fighting this five-alarm fire with the policy equivalent of beach toy water buckets. It’s time for a bold investment in America’s families and America’s future. There’s only one viable Childcare should be free.
“I had never intended to be a stay-at-home-parent, but the cost of child care turned me into one.”
“We had to pull our toddler out of his program because we couldn’t afford to have two kids in high-quality care.”
These are not the voices of those down on their luck, but the voices of America’s middle class. The lack of affordable, available, high-quality childcare is a boulder on the backs of all but the most affluent. Millions of hard-working families are left gasping for air while the next generation misses out on a strong start.
To date, we’ve been fighting this five-alarm fire with the policy equivalent of beach toy water buckets. It’s time for a bold investment in America’s families and America’s future. There’s only one viable Childcare should be free.
173 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 12, 2019
33 people are currently reading
344 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 10, 2020
Fun choice for the day after the (extremely wealthy) county canceled all its summer care options for middle class folk. During a pandemic. This guy is a self-styled "education policy expert" but seems to be clueless on matters of childcare, honestly.
Anyway, the upshot is that childcare from birth-to-five should be free for families. Families should get a Child Development Credit of $15K/year per child from birth-to-five that can be used for "high quality child care" or as cash funds if the parents stay at home, though they're reduced if the at-home parents have more than one child in the birth-to-five age bracket at the same time (no explanation as to why). To compound the plan, he also wants to add Youth Development Credits of $1000 per year until age 18 for after school and summer care. His assertion is that childcare is a public good and therefore the public should fund or subsidize it for everyone. While there are definitely problems with childcare in this country, and more funding is needed, this plan is no good.
First of all, the author comes off as a rich white liberal who wants "the public" to pay for his luxuries. I don't buy the premise that childcare is a public good. Public goods are neither excludable nor rivalrous, and childcare is *absolutely* rivalrous. The supply is limited, and "high quality" childcare is necessarily exclusive by nature, because a provider caring for 8 or 9 children will be of lower quality than a provider caring for only 4 or 5. Also, while the proposed Child Development Credits are proposed at (a seemingly arbitrary) $15,000 per year per child, there's nothing to stop people from paying *more* for childcare, meaning that those people who can afford some degree of childcare on their own will happily splash out several hundred dollars of their own per month on top of their supplements to make sure their children are in a better quality (or more exclusive) program. People who rely fully on the credits for childcare can send their kids to Head Start or whatever marginal programs are available in their areas. This would have the effect of stratifying care by subsidizing those who can afford it in the first place. Disadvantaged children might get marginally better care than they otherwise would, but they won't be getting the level of care that $15000 per year buys in our current system. Cost is not necessarily an assurance of quality, and giving free money to those who can already afford care diminishes equity.
Another embarrassingly huge area he fails to discuss at all in this 150 page book is WHERE these supposed providers are going to come from. He's certainly not in favor of reducing regulation or lowering other barriers to entry for would-be providers, and he doesn't seem to have any grasp off the (wo)manpower required to provide childcare for a few million children, especially if desiring child-to-caregiver ratios of 5:1 or fewer. If, for example, this plan came to pass, and there were suddenly one million parents seeking organized childcare to apply their credits towards, where would those 200,000+ new providers come from? What kind of certifications are they supposed to possess to make them eligible to receive the credit? Where will they get them and who will pay for that? What kind of new bureaucracy is going to pop up to enforce the safety of childcare centers and home providers and related caregivers? He even mentioned requiring that Grandma get some sort of child development training/certification before being an eligible caregiver for Junior. That's frankly ridiculous. The education sector currently has a shortage of over 100,000 teachers. The author didn't even speculate about the shortage of care providers, other than to mention where facilities close, making shortages even worse. Childcare is a thankless job, and while pumping more money into the system would raise wages, is it going to be enough to fill the shortfall of human capital? Are the people coming into the field going to be capable, intelligent, and possessing the disposition necessary to remain calm with children? (I still recall a scandal years ago where the Fort Myer CDC- military childcare facility- hired 130 people to staff the facility, and 31 of them had criminal records.) The only mention of staffing that I recall reading in this book was where he blithely said that with his Child Development Credits, an informal home provider (which is a very common non-center option) could hire an assistant to give her a break from time to time, but he didn't seem to have any concept of what an undertaking this could be for a small provider. Who would pay for that person's training and background checks? Would they need the same level of training as the primary provider? These are serious issues that don't get even a passing mention.
He didn't throw out any numbers until late in the book. He estimates that $15000 per kid from ages 0-5 and $1000 per kid from 5-18, plus a few regulatory expenses would cost "around $350 billion" but he rounds down quite a bit. And to pay for it (in part) he would abolish the Child Tax Credit, existing Child Care Credit, and roll Head Start and other childcare subsidy programs into it. For a lot of people who have children over age 5, the current Child Tax Credits are worth more than what he's proposing, and frankly, $1000 to subsidize 15 weeks of no school, not to mention after-school care for the other 37 weeks of the year, is laughable. And he pointed out that the US has increased K-12 educational spending from $250B annually to $650B annually over the past 25 years. Are we getting our money's worth?
He could have explored, for example, the DOD's approach to child development/childcare. The service branches have serious childcare shortfalls, a serious lack of qualified/interested civilian personnel, and a ridiculously laborious process to become certified for in-home care (which one is expected to do only on a full-time, maximum-capacity basis, never anything so languid as before-and-after-school care). They do have subsidies, which don't meet demand, but they are the government, so. He could have done research and a hypothetical case study of how injecting subsidy amounts into the military's CDC/CDH/FCC program would improve lives. Honestly, any sort of case study could have bolstered his argument, and it's a shame he didn't include any.
Anyway, the upshot is that childcare from birth-to-five should be free for families. Families should get a Child Development Credit of $15K/year per child from birth-to-five that can be used for "high quality child care" or as cash funds if the parents stay at home, though they're reduced if the at-home parents have more than one child in the birth-to-five age bracket at the same time (no explanation as to why). To compound the plan, he also wants to add Youth Development Credits of $1000 per year until age 18 for after school and summer care. His assertion is that childcare is a public good and therefore the public should fund or subsidize it for everyone. While there are definitely problems with childcare in this country, and more funding is needed, this plan is no good.
First of all, the author comes off as a rich white liberal who wants "the public" to pay for his luxuries. I don't buy the premise that childcare is a public good. Public goods are neither excludable nor rivalrous, and childcare is *absolutely* rivalrous. The supply is limited, and "high quality" childcare is necessarily exclusive by nature, because a provider caring for 8 or 9 children will be of lower quality than a provider caring for only 4 or 5. Also, while the proposed Child Development Credits are proposed at (a seemingly arbitrary) $15,000 per year per child, there's nothing to stop people from paying *more* for childcare, meaning that those people who can afford some degree of childcare on their own will happily splash out several hundred dollars of their own per month on top of their supplements to make sure their children are in a better quality (or more exclusive) program. People who rely fully on the credits for childcare can send their kids to Head Start or whatever marginal programs are available in their areas. This would have the effect of stratifying care by subsidizing those who can afford it in the first place. Disadvantaged children might get marginally better care than they otherwise would, but they won't be getting the level of care that $15000 per year buys in our current system. Cost is not necessarily an assurance of quality, and giving free money to those who can already afford care diminishes equity.
Another embarrassingly huge area he fails to discuss at all in this 150 page book is WHERE these supposed providers are going to come from. He's certainly not in favor of reducing regulation or lowering other barriers to entry for would-be providers, and he doesn't seem to have any grasp off the (wo)manpower required to provide childcare for a few million children, especially if desiring child-to-caregiver ratios of 5:1 or fewer. If, for example, this plan came to pass, and there were suddenly one million parents seeking organized childcare to apply their credits towards, where would those 200,000+ new providers come from? What kind of certifications are they supposed to possess to make them eligible to receive the credit? Where will they get them and who will pay for that? What kind of new bureaucracy is going to pop up to enforce the safety of childcare centers and home providers and related caregivers? He even mentioned requiring that Grandma get some sort of child development training/certification before being an eligible caregiver for Junior. That's frankly ridiculous. The education sector currently has a shortage of over 100,000 teachers. The author didn't even speculate about the shortage of care providers, other than to mention where facilities close, making shortages even worse. Childcare is a thankless job, and while pumping more money into the system would raise wages, is it going to be enough to fill the shortfall of human capital? Are the people coming into the field going to be capable, intelligent, and possessing the disposition necessary to remain calm with children? (I still recall a scandal years ago where the Fort Myer CDC- military childcare facility- hired 130 people to staff the facility, and 31 of them had criminal records.) The only mention of staffing that I recall reading in this book was where he blithely said that with his Child Development Credits, an informal home provider (which is a very common non-center option) could hire an assistant to give her a break from time to time, but he didn't seem to have any concept of what an undertaking this could be for a small provider. Who would pay for that person's training and background checks? Would they need the same level of training as the primary provider? These are serious issues that don't get even a passing mention.
He didn't throw out any numbers until late in the book. He estimates that $15000 per kid from ages 0-5 and $1000 per kid from 5-18, plus a few regulatory expenses would cost "around $350 billion" but he rounds down quite a bit. And to pay for it (in part) he would abolish the Child Tax Credit, existing Child Care Credit, and roll Head Start and other childcare subsidy programs into it. For a lot of people who have children over age 5, the current Child Tax Credits are worth more than what he's proposing, and frankly, $1000 to subsidize 15 weeks of no school, not to mention after-school care for the other 37 weeks of the year, is laughable. And he pointed out that the US has increased K-12 educational spending from $250B annually to $650B annually over the past 25 years. Are we getting our money's worth?
He could have explored, for example, the DOD's approach to child development/childcare. The service branches have serious childcare shortfalls, a serious lack of qualified/interested civilian personnel, and a ridiculously laborious process to become certified for in-home care (which one is expected to do only on a full-time, maximum-capacity basis, never anything so languid as before-and-after-school care). They do have subsidies, which don't meet demand, but they are the government, so. He could have done research and a hypothetical case study of how injecting subsidy amounts into the military's CDC/CDH/FCC program would improve lives. Honestly, any sort of case study could have bolstered his argument, and it's a shame he didn't include any.
December 31, 2019
This book was incredibly helpful in understanding the childcare crisis in America and providing possible solutions. While it is a potentially complicated subject, the writing style makes it possible to engage any reader in the topic. As a parent of young children, I could relate to the numerous stories told of families across a variety of socioeconomic and geographic differences. I’m grateful for the research, passion, practicality, and thought leadership of this author! I highly recommend this book!
March 29, 2020
This is a well-researched, well-written book explaining America's child care crisis and how to fix it. It's been fascinating and horrifying to read it during a month in which the current broken early care system is threatened with total collapse due to COVID-19. I'm hopeful that this new level of crisis will finally, as Haspel puts it, "make the politically impossible politically inevitable."
June 17, 2022
Mostly, I just appreciate that something tackling this topic specifically and separately exists, because it's a serious issue. I actually wish this had more anecdotes on how child care costs affected families. I'm not entirely sure Haspel's solution will address the issue, particularly of provider wages, but it is something.
October 3, 2022
This is one of those books that you want to highlight all of the important information in it, but then you would be highlighting the entire thing! The child care crisis affects everyone, whether you have a child using the system or not. I plan on using this book when we speak to our state and National legislators. I may even just gift them a copy! Action needs to be taken NOW!
February 15, 2020
Presenting conservative and liberal cases for why childcare should be a common good (read: free!) was effective. I had a chance to chat with the author and found that his research and knowledge base is even wider than what is cited in the text. I'm looking forward to learning more from him!
June 17, 2024
Quite a holistic view of the childcare crisis. Very well-written and easy to follow. Read this for insight on potential state policies and was slightly disappointed that there was little information that was helpful in that regard.
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December 2, 2020As seen in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews