\n<\/p>\n
Progressives\u00a0frequently\u00a0pine for the type of\u00a0universal child care system<\/span><\/a>\u00a0found in Nordic countries. But\u00a0earlier this month, the White House released new child care guidance\u00a0illustrating that\u00a0one doesn\u2019t need to dream of Stockholm to\u00a0meaningfully\u00a0expand choices for\u00a0working families.<\/p>\n In a set of new guidelines, the Trump-Vance administration sought to rein in some of its predecessors\u2019 eagerness to impose ever-more regulations on federal child care assistance programs. Their vision, instead, offers conservatives a useful path forward \u2014 recognizing that many families need some kind of child care when both parents work, that child care is often expensive, and that the design of a child care system matters.<\/p>\n The White House\u2019s policy documents\u00a0champion parental choice, offer a high degree of flexibility, and celebrate a\u00a0pluralism<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of values and approaches.\u00a0More moves along these lines\u00a0could\u00a0give an administration and a party seeking an authentically \u201cpro-family<\/span><\/a>\u201d approach to early childhood a\u00a0more\u00a0solid footing.<\/p>\n To start with, the administration tried to resurrect much of what has traditionally given the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) bipartisan\u00a0appeal, before\u00a0it got loaded down with various progressive\u00a0wishlist\u00a0items. The CCDF gives parents who qualify a voucher (or \u201ccertificate\u201d) to take to the provider of their choice \u2013 essentially, it\u2019s school choice, but for child care.<\/p>\n In theory, this means parents could receive assistance to\u00a0have their child attend a\u00a0for-profit day care, a church-run preschool, an after-care program run out of a neighbor\u2019s basement, or, in some cases, the care of a grandparent or relative.\u00a0That was always the purpose of the federal child care assistance program.<\/p>\n But over the years, red tape\u00a0has\u00a0grown<\/span><\/a>. In its waning days, the Biden administration sought to further tie the hands of states that wanted to experiment with different administrative approaches and weaken the emphasis on parental choice. They also forced states to reimburse providers prospectively, rather than after the fact \u2014 a method that would prove controversial in the wake of the viral claims<\/span><\/a>\u00a0about daycare fraud in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n The Trump-Vance administration capitalized on those stories to turn the spotlight on a\u00a0politically potent\u00a0angle of fraud and abuse. And, of course, unwinding overweening federal guidance fits firmly within a conventional conservative approach to policy questions.<\/p>\n But what\u2019s most interesting in their guidance is\u00a0how robustly\u00a0they champion\u00a0the principle of parental choice within child care.\u00a0As Alex Adams,\u00a0assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families\u00a0(ACF),\u00a0wrote in a letter<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to state human services directors,\u00a0the administration\u2019s overriding principle is that\u00a0\u201cparents should be the primary decision-maker of the care that works best for their family and children.\u201d To the untrained ear, that may sound like boilerplate. But it\u00a0actually represents\u00a0a shift in emphasis from the\u00a0traditional\u00a0progressive emphasis on \u201cuniversal, high-quality child care.\u201d<\/p>\n For many parents, the right child care provider isn\u2019t the one that scores highest on a clipboard checklist of various \u201cquality metrics.\u201d It\u2019s the one that speaks the same language as their child, shares their faith, is located near the office, or is the one their child\u2019s friends all attend as well.<\/p>\n This is the spirit that animates ACF\u2019s guidance.\u00a0While care by relatives, friends, or neighbors is provided for in the statutory text of the child care block grant, it tends to be given short shrift by too many states, whose accumulated regulations and red tape naturally favor larger, more established providers. The administration stresses that making parents aware of this kind of informal care \u201ccould expand the supply of home-based child care,\u201d and reminds states that they can exempt certain informal care arrangements from licensing requirements so long as they do not endanger a child\u2019s health or safety.<\/p>\n The guidance also specifies intriguing new angles for states to explore with more flexibility.\u00a0In particular, the administration\u00a0suggests tapping into Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars, a move that could help hundreds of thousands more families access child care support.<\/p>\n For the small number of two-parent households receiving TANF assistance, the administration\u2019s guidance suggests allowing parents\u00a0to share\u00a0the work requirement,\u00a0rather than requiring each parent to engage in paid work. This would\u00a0give low-income\u00a0married\u00a0families more flexibility in\u00a0ensuring both a connection\u00a0to work and\u00a0the ability to care\u00a0for their child, and\u00a0would\u00a0also\u00a0free up more child care money to help serve\u00a0even\u00a0more families.<\/p>\n Many advocates on the left\u00a0wish\u00a0for a massive expansion of federal spending on child care that raises wages for child care workers and treats the years of early childhood as an expansion of our existing K-12 public school system. Yet parents\u2019 wants and needs vary, particularly in the earlier years when care is\u00a0expensive, and many parents want to take a step back from full-time work.<\/p>\n In place of these Scandinavian welfare-state fantasies, the Trump-Vance rollback of federal red tape offers a practical start to expand parents\u2019 options without putting a thumb on the scale in favor of a particular vision of child care or of families\u2019 decisions about work and family life. Resurrecting an emphasis on parental choice \u2014 and shifting the focus away from federal mandates that handcuff states\u2019 ability to pioneer new models and approaches to supporting parents \u2014 is a welcome and necessary step toward expanding child care support for America\u2019s families.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Patrick T. Brown (@<\/i>PTBwrites<\/i><\/span><\/a>) is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he works on advancing a pro-family economic agenda and writes the weekly newsletter \u201c<\/i>Family Matters<\/i><\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/i>