AG Abbott Rules That School District Summer Day Camps Need Licenses

Leave it to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to determine that Texas school districts need licenses from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation to run summer day camp programs.

Evidently, the daycare center lobby has been giving Abbott some change for his warchest, because his latest AG opinion on the topic is one of his most idiotic to date.

Why did Abbott ask for this opinion? Because Dallas Republican Will Hartnett heard too many complaints from private daycare center owners claiming that the programs offered by schools constituted unfair competition.

While a more sensible legislator would have probably told the daycare center owners to “suck it up,” Hartnett asked for an AG Opinion.

Abbott’s logic in coming to the determination is, admittedly, a bit tortured. After all, after school programs are already exempt from licensing requirements under state law, and summer day camps by schools are a fairly new thing. Yet, instead of ruling that the day camps and after school programs are essentially identical for the purposes of state regulation (something the AG’s office has done before when it suits them), Abbott hauls off and rules that state funded, state regulated institutions of public instruction which employ certified teachers should be regulated the same as private daycare centers.

Of course, the daycare lobby is thrilled, although this statement to the Houston Chronicle by National Child Care Coalition President David Fincher borders on the totally stupid:

“I am encouraged by the ruling,” he said. “Public school districts that do summer care programs will need to be licensed and therefore the kids will be safer. And districts will be less able from a business standpoint to take children from the private sector into their sector simply for the purpose of making money.”

Kids will be safer? Please. There is zero evidence to suggest that kids are safer in a summer daycare program than in a summer program sponsored by their local elementary school. If data is collected on such things, I’d venture to say that kids are less safe in programs run by private daycare facilities. As for Fincher’s statement that public schools are holding summer programs to make money, it is even more idiotic. The purpose of summer programs isn’t financial; it is to make sure kids aren’t out roaming the streets and that parents who can’t afford skyrocketing rates at private daycare facilities have a safe place for their children. Summer programs by school districts are good public and social policy, and aren’t about the fiscal bottom line. If they were about the fiscal bottom line, do you really think school districts–being hit with skyrocketing energy bills–would open their doors in the summer and be willing to pay the electricity bill for cooling the classrooms? No.

Once again, private industry steps in and tries to screw a perfectly good public school program for no other reason than money.

The National Child Care Coalition (a group we were unfamiliar with until this issue cropped up) would have been better off to keep their mouths shut on this issue, because they really look like a bunch of greedy pencil pushers. Do they not realize that many inner city families can’t afford private daycare rates and need the programs offered by public schools? Evidently not.

On another note, it’s unclear what will happen with summer programs in public schools going on right now. The opinion has no clause that delays its enforcement. Presumably, all such programs will have to shut down immediately or get licensed immediately (the latter of which is probably an impossibility).

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