State Headliners: Day care workers need more training, credentials and pay, advisory board tells legislators

By Guy Page

Vermont’s early child care and education workers must be “well qualified, trained, and credentialed, accountable for high quality practice, and appropriately compensated,” a state advisory council told a room full of legislators, lobbyists and educators Thursday morning at the Vermont State House.

Guy Page is affiliated with the Vermont Energy Partnership, the Vermont Alliance for Ethical Healthcare, and Physicians, Families & Friends for a Better Vermont.

At present, many state-registered day cares are small operations run by moms whose training is mostly “on the job” and whose official credentials are non-existent. Critics say these day cares don’t prepare children for the academic rigors of kindergarten. Supporters say they provide a home-like environment for pre-school children, employment for stay-at-home moms, and a family-centered, affordable service for working parents.

Rep. Carl Rosenquist (R-Georgia) attended the briefing. He said day cares in his district fear training and credentialing standards could put them out of business. He knows of one 50-child day care that will close if these regulations take effect. He plans to introduce legislation calling for a training moratorium.

The Dec. 13 study by the Building Better Futures Advisory Council circulated at the meeting acknowledges that “Vermont will need to generate additional revenue” to pay these new trained, credentialed child care workers. It lists potential funding streams, including:

  1. Internet tax. (“Everyone’s got their eye on the internet tax,” one Progressive legislator said when learning of that suggestion.)
  2. Income tax surcharge.
  3. Tax on distribution and sale of marijuana.
  4. Recapturing federal tax breaks in state taxes for a net zero tax increase on Vermonters.
  5. Establish a dedicated Early Childhood Fund to serve as a “receptacle” for funding streams.

The advisory board also would fully subsidize tuition for families who cannot meet basic needs, and partial tuition for other families according to need. The study notes that with such assistance “families can get ahead by working more hours, getting a promotion, or getting a raise.”

The full plan of the Building Better Futures Advisory Council will be rolled out at a Statehouse press conference on Jan. 9, the first day of the 2019 session. It’s uncertain what new legislation will be proposed. House bills and resolutions will be posted to the Vermont Legislature website Monday, Jan. 7.  Senate bills will be posted Monday, Jan. 14.

Statehouse Headliners is intended primarily to educate, not advocate. It is e-mailed to an ever-growing list of interested Vermonters, public officials and media. Guy Page is affiliated with the Vermont Energy Partnership; the Vermont Alliance for Ethical Healthcare; and Physicians, Families and Friends for a Better Vermont.

Image courtesy of Public domain

10 thoughts on “State Headliners: Day care workers need more training, credentials and pay, advisory board tells legislators

  1. We need stronger families. Below are several sources for where kids should be before going into kindergarten. We need more love and involvement with families. If you need a high degree to help our youth with the following…we’ve seriously lost our way. Masters degree for teaching kids how to count to 10? Just more lobbyists trying to make things more expensive, complicated and exclusive so only their union members can do the job, because…we’re all too stupid to count to 10 or recite our name.

    https://www.ortingschools.org/Page/391

    https://www.scholastic.com/parents/school-success/school-life/grade-by-grade/preparing-kindergarten.html

    https://www.leapfrog.com/en-us/learning-path/articles/kindergarten-skills-checklist

    What these checklists demonstrate is that the family has totally broken down within certain sections of our Vermont society. There are basic things parents would do with their children. Of course love, spelled time and attention, is the biggest thing needed for young children and that comes only from the home. A school can not replace a parent.

    Vermont is adopting big city school and social policies that have failed in EVERY community that’s adopted it. We need to chart a different course.

    • “we need stronger families” We certainly do! Dhildren need engaged parents

      Taxes are the main reason that both parents think they must each work.
      Then that doubles, or more, their income taxes
      Both parents working, need two good cars to commute different directions and times.
      They spend more on food, prepared, restaurant, take out, open cans etc
      Parents are stressed to keep up – hard to give all that children need
      Both parents working means they deserve – desire – more expensive vacations and hobbies.

      We need stronger families, and, we will have them – when the Government gives our children back to us!! and lowers our horrendous Tax Burdens – by allowing parents to raise their own children..
      Moms are meant to nuture – Kids need Moms and Dads, or state that more politcially correctly

      • I forgot the most obvious. Both parents working means huge costs and grief to find day care –
        and the Gov’t piles on by making Day care as expensive as possible, driving neighbor moms out of the business.
        Seems like today, Day care is costing most of the second income

  2. The preceding message was brought to you by the big public education monopoly. Union jobs, more important than Vermont children and families.

  3. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

    ― C. S. Lewis

  4. “Critics say these day cares don’t prepare children for the academic rigors of kindergarten !! ”

    Are these people real?

    • I guess if you’re a stay at home mom that doesn’t need day care, then your children are not prepared for the “academic rigors of kindergarten”.

      • Only in Vermont do you need a masters degree to teach kids colors, counting to 10, learning the alphabet. Clearly all the parents have been doing it wrong for centuries.

        Our state wastes money of such epic proportions we’re making Washington D.C. jealous.

  5. This is insane. These child care providers are mothers themselves. I think they know how to care for children. These ,care givers need to know emergency procedures, just as any parent would. They need their help to be trained….it doesn’t cost much, if anything, to learn what to do for children. The state just wants their and your money. Nothing more.

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