employers, and policymakers. They note that the expense of wages and regulatory licensing for early childhood educators makes their industry a tough one in which to make a profit. AliceAnne Loftus owns Bright Beginning Children’s Learning Center, with two locations in Anne Arundel County."Childcare is a professional business that requires a specific education and extensive licensure and regulation. It's an industry that lets everyone - including women - go to work. And yet, it's an industry that doesn't get a lot of respect," she said. In fact, early childhood
balance affordability against the disproportionate costs of operations, credentialing, certification, and insurance. If centers have to raise wages to meet the Maryland $15 per hour minimum wage, or even to maintain or grow their staff; if centers try to address the issue of availability by increasing class sizes and therefore procuring more space and hiring more caregivers and teachers; if they absorb the costs of certification and regulation rather than force those costs on new hires, then they have to raise tuition. Lisa Kovacs of the Anne Arundel County Partnership for Children, Youth, and Families said her office's studies found that state
care and education experts earn far less than most public or private school teachers or other childcare professionals. A public school teacher in Anne Arundel County makes about $75,294. A teacher at an early childhood learning center earns $31,309. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
grants like the Child Care Capital Support Revolving Loan Fund that might help ease the operational costs of childcare centers are difficult to access, overly complex, and a heavy demand on the time of busy providers. Likewise, Maryland's child care standards system, EXCELS , has
found that in 2023, the number of childcare workers was 9% below its pre-pandemic level, and the median wage paid to childcare workers is in the bottom 5% of all occupations. The same study found that the median wage paid to childcare workers has grown less quickly than wages paid to workers in other service sector jobs in the post-pandemic period and that childcare workers leave
created multiple barriers to success. A lack of business- specific incentives for providers means the childcare business model has become unsustainable, with small or almost nonexistent profit margins. Between January 1, 2020 and January 1, 2024, Maryland lost 15% of its childcare providers and nearly 7% of its childcare slots, totaling 15,152 slots. "The private provision of child
the occupation frequently, often exiting the labor force entirely or finding other jobs in the low- wage service sector, such as housekeeping or retail sales clerk. These jobs pay higher wages than child care. From AliceAnne's perspective, parents want excellent childcare but are understandably alarmed by tuition increases. "I understand parents' worries about the number of spots or affordability of childcare," she said. "I've been in business for more than 20 years, and in my experience, parents have always struggled to find childcare. The childcare crisis is not a supply and demand issue. It is an economic issue." The childcare industry operates at the lowest margins possible, always walking a tightrope to
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