(The Center Square) – Illinois is near the bottom in a ranking of states for their regulatory environment of child care, which the authors say leads to consequences.
The Knee Regulatory Research Center, a West Virginia University-based academic research center dedicated to producing research on the effects of government regulation, just released the first-ever Childcare Regulation Index in the States.
Researchers said the Index was constructed to help visualize the child care options that are available to U.S. families, as well as the conditions that entrepreneurs face if they are considering becoming licensed and entering the child care industry.
The four major categories of regulation include data points for group size and staff-child ratios by age range (6 months, 9 months, 18 months and so on) and training hours and educational requirements by position (director or teacher), resulting in 17 total variables.
Researcher Anna Flowers said Illinois ranked 32nd in the country for its regulatory restrictions on child care centers.
“It’s actually in the third most restrictive quartile that we find and it looks like a lot of that is coming from the group sizes and educational minimum,” said Flowers.
Flowers said there are important implications from the wide range of U.S. child care regulations.
“There is a really big impact on cost and a negligible impact on quality when it comes to things like group sizes or staff-child ratios,” said Flowers.
The authors also found evidence that more stringent child care regulation is associated with a lower fertility rate.
According to the index, Louisiana, Idaho and Florida have the least restrictive child care regulations, while Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania have the most restrictive regulations.
Last year, Gov. J.B. Pritzker proposed a new state agency that will handle all early childhood development programs and the funding that goes with it. The programs currently are split up across three different state agencies, including the Department of Children and Family Services.
State Rep. Steven Reick, R-Woodstock, said giving the day care licensing oversight responsibility to a new agency does not address the root problems.
“Ironically, he [Pritzker] is removing the day care licensing function and responsibility from DCFS to this new agency,” said Reick. “I don’t think DCFS has any business doing this or many other things.”
