March 1, 2025
States are trying to mitigate the crisis by taking steps to recruit and retain more early childhood professionals— enacting policies to increase wages, provide free child care, and create benefit pools for early educators and caregivers.
Some states, however, are taking a different approach. Rather than increasing professional supports for the workforce, they are proposing policies that will lessen regulations regarding child-staff ratios in child care settings, allowing more children to be cared for by fewer adults. Applying this type of “cost-per-unit” approach to the care of young children raises numerous concerns. This policy brief lays out the concerns and explains why such policies would be ill advised.