I believe that childcare centers must be licensed and regulated.  It is important that families know that the centers they send their children to meet some minimum standards for health and safety.

The problem is, CCLD as it currently operates is an agency that has clearly lost sight of its mission.  The law that created CCLD begins by saying that the agency “shall not” review “the content of any educational or training program” in childcare centers, which means CCLD has no concern for the quality of the education preschools provide.  Instead, the agency operates essentially as law enforcement, tasked only with enforcing the licensing regulations.  On that front, the bureaucracy at CCLD has implemented many regulations that do nothing for health, safety, or quality.  Moreover, because CCLD’s mission is centered around enforcement, its LPAs and Regional Managers are incentivized to enforce anything and everything. 

Meanwhile, most childcare centers are small businesses, whose owners typically have no background in law and who lack the time and resources to hire attorneys when CCLD oversteps.  And because preschools typically don’t challenge CCLD’s instructions or decisions, CCLD is rarely held accountable when it stretches to find a reason to issue a citation, or when it tries to enforce rules that don’t even exist.

These factors have combined to create a toxic culture at CCLD, centered on obedience and hostile to accountability.  The agency’s inspections of the state’s best preschools have become nothing but citation-hunting expeditions.  The agency and its employees refuse to admit or apologize when it makes a mistake.  And worst, when a center attempts to hold the agency accountable to its obligations under the law, the agency often retaliates, without regard for the harm done to children, families, the centers, or taxpayers.