"Professionalizing" a job means using credential requirements to drive out some workers to raise wages for the remaining ones. Pushing people out of these jobs isn't a bug. It's the whole point.
I updated the piece to clarify that the cited reason was professionalizing the field. I feel like that’s such a weird word. How would someone explain that word without using the word professional? It feels like a discriminatory barrier.
"Professional" *is* a discriminatory barrier. The word is derived from a narrow number of occupations--doctors, lawyers, and clergy--who were required to be "learned." Not competent, that is, but educated in specific ways that might or might not be directly relevant to their job.
My only minor quibble here is remember that even those professions didn’t start out as education barriers, but as training/apprenticeship requirements that made more sense. Most states had you “read law” (apprentice under an attorney). But the American Bar Association is a wildly effective cartel, and at this point only a handful of states still allow you to read law. Everyone else, you have to go to an ABA-accredited law school.
I still can’t get over the states that regulate interior design. Or Nevada’s cosmetology laws, which go so far that I’m pretty sure a Valentine’s Day date night with my spouse constitutes the unlicensed practice of cosmetology. Etc.
Sometimes, quality actually suffers from the education requirements. When I was involved in running a group of Montessori schools we had to de-train our assistant teachers who had completed state-mandated early education credits in California. Much of what they learned ran 100% counter the Montessori philosophy of our schools. One-size-fits-all teacher training isn’t good if you want parents to have choices!
Yeah, Heike and I worked together briefly at LePort before I moved to HGE. Hi Heike!
I had a Head of School with (IIRC) a Master’s in Education Administration from Harvard. CA regs made me send her back to community college for a couple of infant-toddler units before she’d qualify. 🤦♂️
This feels like another instance of “well this intervention was good for me so it must be good for everyone.” It seems to pop up around higher ed more often because so often “more school” is something you’re not allowed to push back on when it doesn’t make sense.
True! Here, I’m surprised they went for the university degree route rather than an apprentice or a certificate model instead. Two years of college feels like a heavy structure here.
Australia requires a Certificate III (effectively the base level in our trade training system) which is, AFAICT, part-time for 18 months with some credit for relevant experience. Seems like a muhc better choice.
Also, formal childcare is heavily subsidised to the extent that (mostly trad-right) opponents complain of discrimination against informal care, also subsidised but not as much.
I call it "Education Maximalism" as a philosophy. The idea that formal education of any kind is always a public good no matter what. This policy was a good handout for the colleges, as now more public money and students are flowing to them as the gatekeepers of employment.
I’m doing a deep dive on daycare and hadn’t figured out yet what the exact impact on the costs. But it did increase the costs by more than the subsidy that DC gov tried to provide.
If they’re just trying to standardize the knowledge/skills that all daycare workers would have, why not just have some on-the-job, paid continuing education/training? Where they don’t have to do it outside of their normal work hours, maybe it’s an online course they do for 1-2 hours of their usual shift or one day a week or something. I think all professions can benefit from continuing education to learn new skills or best practices as fields evolve - but employers are often reluctant to allow workers to pursue those things as part of their official duties or on company time, which is how worker skills stagnate. Professional development should not have to occur on workers’ personal time or expense.
That’s such such an excellent point. Thank you Shawn!! I should probably add that - making it part of worker’s requirements but having do it on their personal time - is not great.
Great article raising an important issue. Also, worth noting when other youth serving organizations create these policies arbitrarily. I used to work full time helping run a massive facility where underserved kids would come after school and all day on the breaks. Because I had a degree, I was able to be a full-time employee with benefits straight out of college, managing the part-time staff who were often paid minimum wage. Because of our funding sources and trying to do more than just let kids free play, we required the part-time staff to teach curriculums, create lesson plans, and report - asking them to basically be teachers in many ways. They were not allowed to become full time without a degree, even if they’d been making a positive impact on the kids for years. All of it seemed to be in the name of “we are a nonprofit” and encouraging staff to continue education. The part time staff had very little opportunity to get raises and were expected to just appreciate the work because it was “rewarding” working directly with the kids.
thanks for sharing. This is fascinating. I’m surprise it was an actual rule rather than based on performance. I’ve heard of that in the think tank world and I figured it was prestige related.
Well getting a paper that actually champions the free market would probably require Bezos to basically fire everyone at the Post and start from scratch.
What is striking is not the desire for professionalism, but the assumption that formal credentials are the only path toward it. When lived expertise is quietly displaced by academic thresholds, the system may gain uniformity but it risks losing continuity.
Also, I’ve been told by Montessori circles that they’ve had to untrain people toward their approach. It makes it likely to lock in specific approaches over others.
One wonders whether the pursuit of professional legitimacy is quietly reshaping what we define as ‘quality.’ And if so, who gets to decide which approaches are preserved and which are permitted to fade.
Do we know of any efforts to repeal this regulation? Would you recommend calling our ANC Council Members or encouraging a local abundance group to organize the daycare workers who left but might want to come back?
It is a serious loss to local parents to lose lower cost, bilingual daycare options.
Those workers can train on the job to deliver curriculum with evidence behind it, in a way that complements their own experience, and/or be supervised by someone with formal early childhood training. What a short-sighted example of credential inflation. Thank you for raising it!
They mean well because they believe evidence that the harms outweigh the costs. If we don’t tackle the actual argument (and just believe they’re bad faith), we are stuck in polarization like we always have been
What stands out most is the tension between professionalization and preservation. Elevating standards may appear progressive, yet when reform quietly narrows who is able to remain, the question becomes not simply about quality but continuity.
"Professionalizing" a job means using credential requirements to drive out some workers to raise wages for the remaining ones. Pushing people out of these jobs isn't a bug. It's the whole point.
I updated the piece to clarify that the cited reason was professionalizing the field. I feel like that’s such a weird word. How would someone explain that word without using the word professional? It feels like a discriminatory barrier.
"Professional" *is* a discriminatory barrier. The word is derived from a narrow number of occupations--doctors, lawyers, and clergy--who were required to be "learned." Not competent, that is, but educated in specific ways that might or might not be directly relevant to their job.
My only minor quibble here is remember that even those professions didn’t start out as education barriers, but as training/apprenticeship requirements that made more sense. Most states had you “read law” (apprentice under an attorney). But the American Bar Association is a wildly effective cartel, and at this point only a handful of states still allow you to read law. Everyone else, you have to go to an ABA-accredited law school.
I still can’t get over the states that regulate interior design. Or Nevada’s cosmetology laws, which go so far that I’m pretty sure a Valentine’s Day date night with my spouse constitutes the unlicensed practice of cosmetology. Etc.
Wow. Someone also flagged for me that in Louisiana you need a credential to arrange flowers...
Do you happen to have a favorite list of these??
If you want to go deep on licensing IHS has a bunch of resources on academic research on licensing laws. Happy to put you in touch with people there
I'll email you! Thank you!
Forget my list, Institute for Justice has been publishing these for years. Well worth subscribing to their Friday court roundup.
Also West Virginia U has one too!! I’ll share it in an upcoming post
Sometimes, quality actually suffers from the education requirements. When I was involved in running a group of Montessori schools we had to de-train our assistant teachers who had completed state-mandated early education credits in California. Much of what they learned ran 100% counter the Montessori philosophy of our schools. One-size-fits-all teacher training isn’t good if you want parents to have choices!
This is such a great point! I’m going to chat with someone who set up a Montessori school and I expect this kind of issue will come up! :)
Yeah, Heike and I worked together briefly at LePort before I moved to HGE. Hi Heike!
I had a Head of School with (IIRC) a Master’s in Education Administration from Harvard. CA regs made me send her back to community college for a couple of infant-toddler units before she’d qualify. 🤦♂️
This feels like another instance of “well this intervention was good for me so it must be good for everyone.” It seems to pop up around higher ed more often because so often “more school” is something you’re not allowed to push back on when it doesn’t make sense.
True! Here, I’m surprised they went for the university degree route rather than an apprentice or a certificate model instead. Two years of college feels like a heavy structure here.
Australia requires a Certificate III (effectively the base level in our trade training system) which is, AFAICT, part-time for 18 months with some credit for relevant experience. Seems like a muhc better choice.
Also, formal childcare is heavily subsidised to the extent that (mostly trad-right) opponents complain of discrimination against informal care, also subsidised but not as much.
Oh fascinating that both are subsidized. Good to know!
I call it "Education Maximalism" as a philosophy. The idea that formal education of any kind is always a public good no matter what. This policy was a good handout for the colleges, as now more public money and students are flowing to them as the gatekeepers of employment.
You didn’t say, but I assume this also raised the cost of childcare, which is the absolute last thing parents need.
I’m doing a deep dive on daycare and hadn’t figured out yet what the exact impact on the costs. But it did increase the costs by more than the subsidy that DC gov tried to provide.
If they’re just trying to standardize the knowledge/skills that all daycare workers would have, why not just have some on-the-job, paid continuing education/training? Where they don’t have to do it outside of their normal work hours, maybe it’s an online course they do for 1-2 hours of their usual shift or one day a week or something. I think all professions can benefit from continuing education to learn new skills or best practices as fields evolve - but employers are often reluctant to allow workers to pursue those things as part of their official duties or on company time, which is how worker skills stagnate. Professional development should not have to occur on workers’ personal time or expense.
That’s such such an excellent point. Thank you Shawn!! I should probably add that - making it part of worker’s requirements but having do it on their personal time - is not great.
Great article raising an important issue. Also, worth noting when other youth serving organizations create these policies arbitrarily. I used to work full time helping run a massive facility where underserved kids would come after school and all day on the breaks. Because I had a degree, I was able to be a full-time employee with benefits straight out of college, managing the part-time staff who were often paid minimum wage. Because of our funding sources and trying to do more than just let kids free play, we required the part-time staff to teach curriculums, create lesson plans, and report - asking them to basically be teachers in many ways. They were not allowed to become full time without a degree, even if they’d been making a positive impact on the kids for years. All of it seemed to be in the name of “we are a nonprofit” and encouraging staff to continue education. The part time staff had very little opportunity to get raises and were expected to just appreciate the work because it was “rewarding” working directly with the kids.
thanks for sharing. This is fascinating. I’m surprise it was an actual rule rather than based on performance. I’ve heard of that in the think tank world and I figured it was prestige related.
This also doesn’t fit with the free market ethos that WaPo is supposed to be championing these days.
Well getting a paper that actually champions the free market would probably require Bezos to basically fire everyone at the Post and start from scratch.
What is striking is not the desire for professionalism, but the assumption that formal credentials are the only path toward it. When lived expertise is quietly displaced by academic thresholds, the system may gain uniformity but it risks losing continuity.
Also, I’ve been told by Montessori circles that they’ve had to untrain people toward their approach. It makes it likely to lock in specific approaches over others.
One wonders whether the pursuit of professional legitimacy is quietly reshaping what we define as ‘quality.’ And if so, who gets to decide which approaches are preserved and which are permitted to fade.
Credentials are like jargon: it feels good when you have it, but feels pointlessly obstructionist when you don't.
Do we know of any efforts to repeal this regulation? Would you recommend calling our ANC Council Members or encouraging a local abundance group to organize the daycare workers who left but might want to come back?
It is a serious loss to local parents to lose lower cost, bilingual daycare options.
Those workers can train on the job to deliver curriculum with evidence behind it, in a way that complements their own experience, and/or be supervised by someone with formal early childhood training. What a short-sighted example of credential inflation. Thank you for raising it!
> I think the Washington Post staff mean well
This kind of naivete is why I have a hard time seeing how the abundance movement will be able to accomplish much of anything in practice.
They mean well because they believe evidence that the harms outweigh the costs. If we don’t tackle the actual argument (and just believe they’re bad faith), we are stuck in polarization like we always have been
"If I just explain why I'm right, surely everyone will come to agree with me".
What stands out most is the tension between professionalization and preservation. Elevating standards may appear progressive, yet when reform quietly narrows who is able to remain, the question becomes not simply about quality but continuity.