Reimagining State Child Care Licensing: Improving the Foundation for Quality and Equity in Early Care and Education Environments
State licensing systems are critical levers to ensure child care settings keep children safe and healthy. But they are only effective if we measure the right indicators. Too often, licensing systems don’t include standards that directly and severely impact child health and safety, like ensuring bottles are filled with safe drinking water. Standards to safely, fully, and meaningfully include children with disabilities are often lacking. Emotional safety is often left out completely. Yet, too many systems include trivial standards that do not directly impact children and families, and overburden and overpenalize child care providers. Child care state licensing systems in the United States need a significant overhaul, laser focused on ensuring healthy and physically and emotionally safe places for children and the adults who care for them.
This report from the Children’s Equity Project provides states with recommendations to enhance their child care licensing systems, aligning them with recent research and effective practice, across 1) licensing content, 2) licensing process, and 3) governance and coordination in state early childhood systems. With updates and key modifications, states can improve experiences and outcomes and advance equity by reimagining their child care licensing regulations and systems to serve as the bedrock on which to build quality early care and learning.
Suggested citation:
Allen, R., Bucher, E.Z., Meek, S., Alexander, B., Ameley-Quaye, A., Soto-Boykin, X., Blevins, D., & Cardona, M. (September, 2024). Reimagining state child care licensing: Improving the foundation for quality and equity in early care and education environments. The Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University. https://cep.asu.edu/resources/reimagining-state-childcare-licensing.