When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last month a new proposed rule for Head Start that would strip away federal regulations such as low student-teacher ratios, staff qualifications, and performance requirements, the backlash was swift and immediate.
Much of it came from Head Start administrators and advocates. But a new report gives voice to early childhood employees themselves, and the message they send is clear. The early childhood workforce is largely against weakening industry regulations, and doing so could drive many of them to walk away from the profession altogether.
That’s the most pressing takeaway from the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s survey, Coherence, Not Cuts: Educator Perspectives on How to Improve ECE Regulation, released on Sept. 14. It includes feedback from 3,891 employees representing all early childhood education settings: home-based and center-based childcare, public school preschool, Head Start, and faith- or campus-based settings.
The report, released ahead of the Oct. 6 deadline for public comments in response to the federal government’s proposed rule for Head Start, sheds light on early educators’ serious reservations about loosening industry regulations.
“I really do hope that, if policymakers are considering shifting regulatory requirements and making an assumption that it will allow supply to grow, that this [survey] gives them pause—especially as it relates to regulations around student-teacher ratio, group size, staff qualification, and the need for investment in a workforce,” said Daniel Hains, chief policy and professional advancement officer of NAEYC, who co-authored the report.
Disagreements persist over rationale, impact of loosening regulations
The federal government’s plan to deregulate Head Start is just the most recent of several efforts to loosen regulations in the early child education space.
Idaho and Minnesota are among states that recently loosened childcare regulations. Minnesota’s changes were part of the state’s Child Care Regulation Modernization Project, and will go into effect in July 2027. Idaho’s bill, co-sponsored by Republican lawmakers, deregulated certain aspects of early childcare settings such as child-to-staff ratios.
Lawmakers in favor of de-regulation say it’s a way to address ongoing childcare shortage crises. But many childcare advocates and workers disagree with that stance.
“The idea that loosening rules will expand childcare supply assumes there’s a ready pool of qualified educators. What NAEYC’s survey found is that the opposite is true: strong regulations help keep qualified educators in the field,” wrote Susan Butler-Staub, senior vice president of Network Impact at Child Care Aware of America, in an email to Education Week.
Added Butler-Staub, “When we ask providers, who are already stretched thin, whether they could handle more kids per adult, they tell us that would push them toward burnout, instead of keeping them in the field.”
For the most part, childcare employees agree.
If child-to-provider ratio requirements were loosened, 55% of survey respondents agreed that they would be more likely to leave the profession. (Still, intentions to leave do not always materialize into real turnover.)
Only home-based providers responded differently. Forty-six percent of home-based childcare providers said they would be more likely to stay in the field if restrictions were loosened. The survey did not ask why. But many home-based providers operate their own businesses, so being able to care for more children in a single setting would increase their earnings.
Overall, survey respondents expressed multiple concerns about loosening ratios. Many reported that this change would make it harder for them to meet children’s individual needs, make classroom management more difficult, increase risks to children’s health and safety, lead to poorer working conditions, and reduce their ability to communicate with families.
I believe if ratios were to increase, that would definitely cause more stress and burnout for me and my colleagues, to be honest. This may also cause team members to call out or quit from being overwhelmed.
Pay is a perennial challenge, say advocates
Turnover is already a problem in the early childcare industry.
“Having to continually replace staff is a cost,” Hains said. “If you have a well-compensated, well-supported workforce, you’re more likely to have them stay engaged in your program for longer, and that improves the quality of your program.”
The NAEYC survey captured how today’s childcare providers feel about compensation. Thirty-two percent disagreed that their pay supports their ability to stay in the early childhood education field. Relatedly, 47% disagreed with this statement: “My compensation reflects the education, credentials, and responsibilities required for my role.”
Hains said compensation across the early child education field remains far lower than that of similarly trained professionals.
Like many industry advocates, he points to a lack of public investment in this field—not stringent regulations—as central to the profession’s woes.
“In states that have invested in this workforce and put more public dollars into these systems,” Hains said, “we see a growth of supply where it’s shrinking in other states, and we see more educators coming into the field and staying in the field.”
