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ABC News
12 hours ago
- Business
- ABC News
Why Trump and Musk were stronger together
Sam Hawley: Breaking up can be hard and fascinating to watch from afar. So where is the disintegration of the relationship between Donald Trump and Elon Musk up to now? Today, Geoff Kabaservice from the centre-right think tank, the Niskanen Center, on the real-world consequences of the split and whether there's any chance of reconciliation between the President and the billionaire. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Donald Trump, US President: I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot. People leave my administration, some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile. I don't know what it is, it's sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it. News report: Within hours of his Oval Office comments, their once-close relationship had disintegrated. The world's richest man firing back in a barrage of hostile posts on X. News report: Mr Musk, until recently a major ally of the President, continues to publicly criticise a government spending bill, even agreeing that Mr Trump should be impeached and replaced by Vice President J.D Vance. News report: Donald Trump also fired off on his truth social platform. He posted, I asked him to leave, I took away his EV mandate and he just went crazy. News report: Elon Musk then claimed that Trump is in the files about child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein tweeting, that is the real reason they have not been made public. Sam Hawley: Geoff, talk about a clash of the titans, if we could put it that way. How would you describe the last few days? Geoff Kabaservice: Well it's good to be with you Sam and of course this feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk is causing plenty of amusement for anyone who pays attention to US politics. The memes practically write themselves. Is this alien versus predator? Is this the gayest thing to have happened during the whole of Pride Month so far? You know, it's amusing but it's also quite consequential in the sense that Elon Musk is not just the richest man in the world but somebody whose businesses directly impacts US national security and the fate of global affairs. And of course Donald Trump is the most powerful man possibly in the world. So it's entertaining but it's also disturbing. Sam Hawley: So there is deeper implications to all of this. One of them of course for Donald Trump is that the richest man in the world could switch his allegiances to the other side of politics. If he really wants to annoy Donald Trump he could back the Democrats, right? Geoff Kabaservice: You know, Elon Musk is unlike anyone who Trump has ever had in his circle because he's not a creature of Trump. He is independent. He has his own base in the world of business and of course his vast fortunes and the companies that he controls. So it's entirely possible that Musk could say I am flipping over to the Democrats or as he has already tweeted during the course of his epic meltdown that he is going to support a third party. Anything's possible. But of course there are also some people wondering if maybe this is a big put on of some kind, if maybe this was staged, if there's going to be an immediate kiss and make up session - to be determined. Sam Hawley: Well during an interview on NBC, Donald Trump did warn Elon Musk against that move. He said there'd be serious consequences although he didn't mention what those consequences would be. And even though he kept saying that he doesn't spend any time thinking about Elon Musk, he was happy to keep answering questions about Elon Musk. Reporter: What's your view on Elon Musk as of today? I mean, have you heard from him at all? Donald Trump, US President: I've been so busy working on China, working on Russia, working on Iran, working on so many, I'm not thinking about Elon. Geoff Kabaservice: This is a breakdown that I've been predicting for a while. I can at least say that I was correct in foreseeing that egos this Titanic could not comfortably coexist for long on the same team. But you know, Elon Musk has considerable cards, shall we say, because he is, as we've said, the world's richest man. He actually has a number of businesses that are critical to how government and the world works. Just as an example, SpaceX has under its umbrella Starlink, which does I think 80% of satellite communications launches in this country. It had a material impact on the outcome of the Ukraine war and the conduct of that war. And, you know, Elon Musk also controls a very important social media platform. It is as though he were the head of, let's say, the Washington Post 50 years ago. This is a person with a lot of formidable weapons, should he choose to go to all out war with Donald Trump, as opposed to just flinging insults at each other and calling each other paedophiles. Sam Hawley: Yes, because of course, Elon, without evidence, accused the US president of being named in the Epstein sex trafficking files, a post which he later deleted. So let's just delve a bit further, though, into what Elon Musk could actually do to harm President Trump. As we said, he also has, of course, this very large social media platform with millions of followers. Could he use that against the president, do you think? Will he want to? Geoff Kabaservice: Well, Elon Musk has a lot of say over what messages get broadcast on his platform, X, which is his new name for Twitter, of course. And it's entirely possible that he could actually go up against some of Trump's biggest supporters on that platform and simply suppress their messages, as well as putting out his own using one of the world's biggest microphones. But that's an entirely foreseeable outcome. Sam Hawley: And of course, as we mentioned, he could also set up a new political party, support the Democrats. Geoff Kabaservice: Well, you know, Elon Musk doesn't really have a lot of followers among Democrats. And in fact, a lot of people on the left have fled his platform for Blue Sky and others. But Elon Musk does have considerable amount of influence over the so-called tech right. Elon Musk is one of the biggest beasts in Silicon Valley, and a lot of people do look up to him and have followed his lead in being willing to support Donald Trump, even despite the fact that Silicon Valley's institutional political perspective, if that makes sense, is really quite different from Trump's populism. So there's a lot of points of stress in politics that if Elon Musk chooses to exacerbate them could widen the divides within the Trumpian coalition such as it is. And that might or might not benefit the Democrats. It's hard to say, but at least would weaken Trump. Sam Hawley: Mm hmm. All right. Well, there's also, of course, a number of ways that Trump could also make life very difficult for Elon Musk. You mentioned SpaceX. Donald Trump, he's threatened to tear up all of the contracts that Musk companies have with the federal government. And that includes, of course, SpaceX. Can Trump actually do that, do you think? Geoff Kabaservice: Well, Trump has certainly threatened other institutions with the withdrawal of federal funds, most notably Harvard University, which stands to lose close to $3 billion if Trump's actions are upheld by the courts. So it's certainly not an idle threat to take action against Elon Musk's companies. Certainly, SpaceX would be the most vulnerable to that kind of Trumpian threat because they get something on the order of $20 billion a month from the federal government. And in many ways, Trump's threat, it would really matter, would not just be to withhold funds from SpaceX, but actually to nationalise it. And Steve Bannon, who is in so many ways Elon Musk's antagonist, has actually called for Trump to do just that. And there's a real argument that somebody who does so much of the United States rocketry business, who has such an incredible sway over its Starlink and satellite apparatus, who in many ways is almost a sovereign entity at this point, you could make a real argument that nationalisation of SpaceX should happen. And I'm sure you would actually find a lot of Democrats supporting that motion as well. Sam Hawley: Trump could also suspend his security clearances, right? Which would make life somewhat difficult. Geoff Kabaservice: You know, Trump in extremis could even deport Elon Musk, who after all is from another place, shall we say. Sam Hawley: Yeah. And Steve Bannon, a former advisor to Trump, he's actually raised that, hasn't he? Geoff Kabaservice: He has indeed. Sam Hawley: That Donald Trump should investigate the immigration status of Elon Musk, even though, of course, he is an American citizen. Geoff Kabaservice: Right. Sam Hawley: Well, of course, the stoush also did send Tesla stocks plummeting, Geoff. So that's another way, I suppose. This could harm Elon's business operations. And also Trump could tighten regulations, couldn't he, to make it harder for Elon to do business? Geoff Kabaservice: Sure. You know, it's been interesting to see the way the narrative has shifted over the last several months since Elon Musk came aboard. When Elon invested something on the order of $250 million in the 2024 political campaigns, which included not just Trump's election, but also a number of other Republican candidacies in Congress and elsewhere, this seemed like actually a remarkably astute payoff because Elon Musk's personal net worth soared in the first few months. But, you know, there's been incredible pushback, even from some Republicans, against the Doge project of cutting the government that Elon Musk has engaged in. And Elon never quite seemed sure as to what his purpose was in helming that Doge effort. Was it to just help Trump extract political payback against woke enemies and the so-called deep state? Or was it actually to try to genuinely cut the deficit or make government work more efficiently? You know, the blow up between Musk and Trump got its start when Elon started criticising the Republican budget bill, which truly is a fiscally incontinent budget buster, which will add something on the order of over $3 trillion to debt. News report: Tech billionaire Elon Musk has issued a blistering criticism of US President Donald Trump's spending bill. News report: He has said that I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it. Geoff Kabaservice: So, you know, there's a lot of things that are going wrong in the Trump-Musk relationship in the ways that they're not seeing each other eye to eye. And Elon is not very political. So in that sense, Trump could actually have the upper hand on him and could make his life difficult in many ways. And, you know, since you mentioned Tesla, you know, Tesla's stock has really cratered in recent months. People on the left really don't want to be associated with Elon Musk, but the right has never gone in for electric vehicles in the first place. And even Donald Trump's shilling for Teslas on the White House lawn hasn't really done much to encourage people on the right to buy Teslas. And one would imagine that they will be even less willing to do that now. Sam Hawley: Yeah. And Donald Trump, of course, says he's going to sell his Tesla. I wonder if this might be better for Tesla, then Elon might have somewhat of a recovery when it comes to Tesla if he's not so closely associated with Donald Trump. Geoff Kabaservice: It's kind of amusing. Like I said, this is this sandbox, quarrel of these two extremely powerful men flinging poo at each other. But, you know, let's not forget that the United States is no longer the world's unquestioned superpower. It no longer, in some sense, has the luxury to actually engage in this kind of infantile are facing a serious technological threat from China, which undoubtedly will translate into global mastery of some kind. And frankly, Elon Musk's Tesla is also losing shares not just because of politics, but because it's actually lost the technological edge to some of these other Chinese companies. And the same is true of a number of critical technology areas where the United States is almost visibly falling behind China. And certainly our manufacturing capability, we've now been dwarfed by China, which is why Tesla does so much of its manufacturing in China. So one hopes that cooler heads are going to prevail. And I strongly suspect that both Trump and Musk are looking for ways to back down from this feud. But that doesn't mean that the political alliance that existed between them can be resurrected. Sam Hawley: Yeah. I was going to say, is there a way back from the brink? And if there isn't, who do you think will be the ultimate winner of this stoush, the billionaire or the president? Geoff Kabaservice: Oh, that's awfully hard to say because it's not clear what winning would look like here. I mean, at the end of the day, Elon will still have more money than any human being has had in history, as well as however many children he wants to have, however many consorts he wants to have. One suspects Elon will be fine. And at the end of the day, Donald Trump will still be president as well. And it's unlikely that the Republican Party is going to get out from under his brand of populism anytime soon, whether or not he chooses to run for a third term in 2028, despite the constitutional prohibition on that happening. So it's hard to say who is actually going to come out winners, you know, but I think there's a fair case to be made that they were stronger together than they will be apart, and that they will never quite wield the same power and influence or even be able to affect the cultural vibes in quite the same way. Sam Hawley: Geoff Kabaservice is from the Niskanen Center, a centre right think tank based in Washington episode was produced by Sydney Pead. Audio production by Adair Sheppard. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley, thanks for listening.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
A critical fight over 'quality' child care could shape millions of kids
America's lack of affordable child care has brought a long-simmering question to a boil: What exactly makes child care 'good'? Everyone wants quality care for kids, and the need for child care or preschool to be considered 'high quality' has been embraced by researchers, providers, parents, and policymakers for years. But with rising costs and uneven availability, parents, providers, and policymakers find themselves increasingly divided over whether 'quality' should be measured by caregivers' credentials or by toddlers' happiness, by structured learning outcomes, or by parent preference. Progressives generally champion credentialed and well-paid teachers, academic standards, and standardized ratings as essential for aiding children's development. Conservatives counter that such requirements inflate costs while devaluing the nurturing care that parents and community caregivers provide. The answer to the question of what 'quality' means shapes everything from household budgets to workforce participation to children's school readiness — yet there is no clear consensus on what exactly that entails or how to measure it. 'People know it when they see it, but it's hard to define,' said Josh McCabe, director of social policy at the Niskanen Center think tank. As regulations shift with political winds, the question has become more salient: Who defines quality, and at what cost to kids, families, and society? States have sought ways to measure, improve, and communicate the components of quality to parents and providers alike. Their solution: developing rating systems that attempt to boil aspects of child care settings down into simple metrics, much like hotel or restaurant reviews. Over the past two decades, such Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) have become the primary method for assessing child care quality. These systems, which vary significantly across states, award ratings based on multiple dimensions, including teacher qualifications (such as holding a child development associate credential or a degree in early childhood education); learning environments (including safe teacher-to-child ratios, classroom cleanliness, and availability of age-appropriate books and toys); administrative practices (like documented emergency procedures and business management systems), and the caliber of child-adult interactions (measured through classroom observations). By 2020, nearly all states had implemented some form of QRIS, though participation remains voluntary in many areas. These systems vary widely — some use star ratings (one to five stars), others use tiers or categories. States prioritize different elements: Some emphasize school readiness, others focus on health and safety, cultural responsiveness, or infant and toddler care. Financial incentives also differ, with states offering a variety of supports, technical assistance, and bonuses for higher scores. The evidence is mixed, though, on whether these ratings actually predict better outcomes for children. 'If we're looking at what supports children's well-being and development, it's the quality of the interactions, the relations with the caregiver,' Steven Barnett, senior director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, told me. Yet these critical interactions carry relatively little weight in some QRIS systems, overshadowed by structural features that are easier to quantify and less costly to implement. The QRIS ratings nonetheless drive real behavior. 'The scoring matters in that providers and parents react to it,' McCabe said. 'But like the US News and World Report rankings, I don't know if it actually makes them better colleges or students.' A 2019 Department of Education study found that children who attended higher-rated programs according to QRIS did not have better developmental outcomes than those attending lower-rated ones. This echoed earlier research that found that the overall QRIS ratings were less predictive of child learning than a single measure of teacher-child interactions. 'Quality, in some sense, can take many different forms, and perhaps it should, because child care and early learning is not one-size-fits-all.' Hailey Gibbs, associate director of Early Childhood Policy at the Center for American Progress Further research found 'little evidence' that adopting QRIS in Head Start improved quality when measured against the Head Start Program Performance Standards — the quality benchmarks the federal preschool programs must meet. QRIS showed no significant boost to teacher qualifications or teacher-child interactions. More troublingly, research found that QRIS adoption actually increased annual teacher turnover — potentially undermining the very stability that quality programs need. These rating systems can also create a troubling cycle, said Hailey Gibbs, associate director of early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress. Lower-rated programs receive fewer resources, making it even harder for them to improve. Gibbs notes there's 'valid criticism' that QRIS systems often lack cultural sensitivity and tend to disregard the perspectives of enrolled families when adjudicating which programs are good or bad. This fundamental tension — between standardized measurement and the complex, relationship-based reality of quality care — remains at the heart of ongoing debates about how best to ensure positive outcomes for America's youngest children. As sociologist Zach Griffen notes of performance measurement across other sectors like health care and K-12 schooling, quality assessment tools can be 'wildly successful in policy research at the same time as they fall apart in real-world applications.' While the QRIS measure of 'quality' might be contentious, the stakes are high because quality itself does seem to really affect kids' life trajectories. Back in 2000, the National Academies of Sciences published a 600-page report concluding that both nurturing parenting and caregiving relationships were essential for early childhood development, and that well-designed programs could help improve the lives of kids growing up in poverty in particular. Another landmark federal study tracked more than 1,300 children from infancy through adolescence. Emerging from the contentious 'day care wars' of the 1980s over whether maternal employment and non-parental care harmed children, the researchers found that 'higher-quality' care predicted better cognitive and language development. The study highlighted responsive adult-child relationships as the most critical quality factor, with elements like staff ratios and group sizes also playing important roles. These early studies established a foundation for understanding quality, but even today early childhood experts describe different visions. Ruth Friedman, who directed the Office of Child Care during the Biden administration, defines quality as care that ensures safety, engaging activities, and 'nurturing, consistent, and well-compensated caregivers who support development across multiple domains — including language, early math and science, social-emotional, and physical growth,' she told me. Some advocates stress that trained caregivers are essential for building the kind of stable, high-quality workforce that children need. 'All teachers need to have a foundational knowledge of child development…[with] formal education and training in early childhood education,' the Center for American Progress wrote in a 'Quality 101' report published in 2017. Other experts say the growing demand for professional training devalues the kind of care offered by parents, grandparents, and other informal community leaders. 'What we realize [matters] is the quality of the relationship and [that isn't] typically things you can measure in a simple way, like a child-adult ratio,' said Jenet Erickson, a professor of religious education at Brigham Young University and a researcher of maternal and child well-being. 'It's just not as simple as having trained caregivers. … We need more flexibility in who can provide care, so families can say, 'We really like this neighborhood grandmother because of the way she relates to our children, and we're less concerned about whether or not she got a degree in human development.'' There is perhaps more agreement, however, on what constitutes unacceptably poor care. Gibbs identified warning signs that cross cultural boundaries: 'disorganized or unsafe spaces…young children wandering aimlessly.' These align with the National Academies' findings about the lowest-quality settings: caregivers ignoring children's bids for attention, few appropriate toys, and children spending time 'unengaged with adults, other children, or materials.' Finding the balance between acceptable care and parent preferences can be tricky, especially when public funding is involved and lawmakers pursue multiple policy objectives at once, like promoting child development, supporting moms in the workforce, advancing educational equity, and even broader social concerns like reducing crime or increasing GDP. The Center for American Progress has grown somewhat less prescriptive about quality since it published its 'Quality 101' report in 2017. 'Quality, in some sense, can take many different forms, and perhaps it should, because child care and early learning is not one-size-fits-all,' Gibbs told me, noting that some home-based child care options 'are extremely high quality' yet nevertheless are sometimes 'viewed as second tier to school-like center-based care' when it comes to state ratings. The landscape of child care quality measurement appears poised for significant shifts. The Build Back Better Act, proposed during the Biden administration, represented perhaps the most ambitious federal effort to date to elevate child care quality standards nationwide. States would have been required to develop tiered QRIS frameworks aligned with the federal Head Start preschool standards, and mandate child care provider participation in QRIS to receive federal money. Most significantly, payment rates would have been directly linked to quality ratings — so child care programs achieving higher QRIS scores would have received higher reimbursement rates. However, with the transition to a new administration, a fundamentally different approach is emerging, as states move to reduce restrictions conservatives see as driving up costs without improving outcomes or access. This regulatory rollback fits within a broader conservative vision reshaping child care — one that prioritizes less expensive home-based programs over professionally staffed centers, de-emphasizes academic credentials and curricula, and often encourages more mothers to stay home to raise their children. As Idaho Rep. Rod Furniss argued when promoting his deregulation bill, 'perhaps the most important' small business is the home day care, 'where moms can stay home and supplement the household income and watch a few kids.' This approach also aligns with principles outlined in the American Enterprise Institute's 2024 'Three Principles for Conservative Early-Childhood Policy,' which advocated for subsidizing 'lower-cost' options while keeping 'children connected to their families.' Conservatives specifically warn against what they call the 'Bill de Blasio model' — folding early childhood education into the credentialing, unionization, and compensation structure of K-12 teachers. This approach, which many progressive advocates view as essential for stable and quality care, is viewed by many on the right as a recipe for unsustainable costs. As control shifts in Washington, the very definitions of quality that have guided policy for decades may soon change. But the core questions remain unresolved: What matters most in determining quality and how do we capture it? How should we balance measurable outcomes with family preferences? What trade-offs between quality, affordability, and access are Americans prepared to make? And ultimately, what kind of care do American children deserve? This work was supported by a grant from the Bainum Family Foundation. Vox Media had full discretion over the content of this reporting.
Vox
19-05-2025
- General
- Vox
A critical fight over 'quality' child care could shape millions of kids
is a policy correspondent for Vox covering social policy. She focuses on housing, schools, homelessness, child care, and abortion rights, and has been reporting on these issues for more than a decade. America's lack of affordable child care has brought a long-simmering question to a boil: What exactly makes child care 'good'? Everyone wants quality care for kids, and the need for child care or preschool to be considered 'high quality' has been embraced by researchers, providers, parents, and policymakers for years. But with rising costs and uneven availability, parents, providers, and policymakers find themselves increasingly divided over whether 'quality' should be measured by caregivers' credentials or by toddlers' happiness, by structured learning outcomes, or by parent preference. Progressives generally champion credentialed and well-paid teachers, academic standards, and standardized ratings as essential for aiding children's development. Conservatives counter that such requirements inflate costs while devaluing the nurturing care that parents and community caregivers provide. The answer to the question of what 'quality' means shapes everything from household budgets to workforce participation to children's school readiness — yet there is no clear consensus on what exactly that entails or how to measure it. 'People know it when they see it, but it's hard to define,' said Josh McCabe, director of social policy at the Niskanen Center think tank. As regulations shift with political winds, the question has become more salient: Who defines quality, and at what cost to kids, families, and society? Mixed-quality quality metrics States have sought ways to measure, improve, and communicate the components of quality to parents and providers alike. Their solution: developing rating systems that attempt to boil aspects of child care settings down into simple metrics, much like hotel or restaurant reviews. Over the past two decades, such Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) have become the primary method for assessing child care quality. These systems, which vary significantly across states, award ratings based on multiple dimensions, including teacher qualifications (such as holding a child development associate credential or a degree in early childhood education); learning environments (including safe teacher-to-child ratios, classroom cleanliness, and availability of age-appropriate books and toys); administrative practices (like documented emergency procedures and business management systems), and the caliber of child-adult interactions (measured through classroom observations). By 2020, nearly all states had implemented some form of QRIS, though participation remains voluntary in many areas. These systems vary widely — some use star ratings (one to five stars), others use tiers or categories. States prioritize different elements: Some emphasize school readiness, others focus on health and safety, cultural responsiveness, or infant and toddler care. Financial incentives also differ, with states offering a variety of supports, technical assistance, and bonuses for higher scores. The evidence is mixed, though, on whether these ratings actually predict better outcomes for children. 'If we're looking at what supports children's well-being and development, it's the quality of the interactions, the relations with the caregiver,' Steven Barnett, senior director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, told me. Yet these critical interactions carry relatively little weight in some QRIS systems, overshadowed by structural features that are easier to quantify and less costly to implement. The QRIS ratings nonetheless drive real behavior. 'The scoring matters in that providers and parents react to it,' McCabe said. 'But like the US News and World Report rankings, I don't know if it actually makes them better colleges or students.' A 2019 Department of Education study found that children who attended higher-rated programs according to QRIS did not have better developmental outcomes than those attending lower-rated ones. This echoed earlier research that found that the overall QRIS ratings were less predictive of child learning than a single measure of teacher-child interactions. 'Quality, in some sense, can take many different forms, and perhaps it should, because child care and early learning is not one-size-fits-all.' — Hailey Gibbs, associate director of Early Childhood Policy at the Center for American Progress Further research found 'little evidence' that adopting QRIS in Head Start improved quality when measured against the Head Start Program Performance Standards — the quality benchmarks the federal preschool programs must meet. QRIS showed no significant boost to teacher qualifications or teacher-child interactions. More troublingly, research found that QRIS adoption actually increased annual teacher turnover — potentially undermining the very stability that quality programs need. These rating systems can also create a troubling cycle, said Hailey Gibbs, associate director of early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress. Lower-rated programs receive fewer resources, making it even harder for them to improve. Gibbs notes there's 'valid criticism' that QRIS systems often lack cultural sensitivity and tend to disregard the perspectives of enrolled families when adjudicating which programs are good or bad. This fundamental tension — between standardized measurement and the complex, relationship-based reality of quality care — remains at the heart of ongoing debates about how best to ensure positive outcomes for America's youngest children. As sociologist Zach Griffen notes of performance measurement across other sectors like health care and K-12 schooling, quality assessment tools can be 'wildly successful in policy research at the same time as they fall apart in real-world applications.' So what actually is quality? While the QRIS measure of 'quality' might be contentious, the stakes are high because quality itself does seem to really affect kids' life trajectories. Back in 2000, the National Academies of Sciences published a 600-page report concluding that both nurturing parenting and caregiving relationships were essential for early childhood development, and that well-designed programs could help improve the lives of kids growing up in poverty in particular. Another landmark federal study tracked more than 1,300 children from infancy through adolescence. Emerging from the contentious 'day care wars' of the 1980s over whether maternal employment and non-parental care harmed children, the researchers found that 'higher-quality' care predicted better cognitive and language development. The study highlighted responsive adult-child relationships as the most critical quality factor, with elements like staff ratios and group sizes also playing important roles. These early studies established a foundation for understanding quality, but even today early childhood experts describe different visions. Ruth Friedman, who directed the Office of Child Care during the Biden administration, defines quality as care that ensures safety, engaging activities, and 'nurturing, consistent, and well-compensated caregivers who support development across multiple domains — including language, early math and science, social-emotional, and physical growth,' she told me. Some advocates stress that trained caregivers are essential for building the kind of stable, high-quality workforce that children need. 'All teachers need to have a foundational knowledge of child development…[with] formal education and training in early childhood education,' the Center for American Progress wrote in a 'Quality 101' report published in 2017. Other experts say the growing demand for professional training devalues the kind of care offered by parents, grandparents, and other informal community leaders. 'What we realize [matters] is the quality of the relationship and [that isn't] typically things you can measure in a simple way, like a child-adult ratio,' said Jenet Erickson, a professor of religious education at Brigham Young University and a researcher of maternal and child well-being. 'It's just not as simple as having trained caregivers. … We need more flexibility in who can provide care, so families can say, 'We really like this neighborhood grandmother because of the way she relates to our children, and we're less concerned about whether or not she got a degree in human development.'' There is perhaps more agreement, however, on what constitutes unacceptably poor care. Gibbs identified warning signs that cross cultural boundaries: 'disorganized or unsafe spaces…young children wandering aimlessly.' These align with the National Academies' findings about the lowest-quality settings: caregivers ignoring children's bids for attention, few appropriate toys, and children spending time 'unengaged with adults, other children, or materials.' Finding the balance between acceptable care and parent preferences can be tricky, especially when public funding is involved and lawmakers pursue multiple policy objectives at once, like promoting child development, supporting moms in the workforce, advancing educational equity, and even broader social concerns like reducing crime or increasing GDP. The Center for American Progress has grown somewhat less prescriptive about quality since it published its 'Quality 101' report in 2017. 'Quality, in some sense, can take many different forms, and perhaps it should, because child care and early learning is not one-size-fits-all,' Gibbs told me, noting that some home-based child care options 'are extremely high quality' yet nevertheless are sometimes 'viewed as second tier to school-like center-based care' when it comes to state ratings. The future of quality standards The landscape of child care quality measurement appears poised for significant shifts. The Build Back Better Act, proposed during the Biden administration, represented perhaps the most ambitious federal effort to date to elevate child care quality standards nationwide. States would have been required to develop tiered QRIS frameworks aligned with the federal Head Start preschool standards, and mandate child care provider participation in QRIS to receive federal money. Most significantly, payment rates would have been directly linked to quality ratings — so child care programs achieving higher QRIS scores would have received higher reimbursement rates. However, with the transition to a new administration, a fundamentally different approach is emerging, as states move to reduce restrictions conservatives see as driving up costs without improving outcomes or access. This regulatory rollback fits within a broader conservative vision reshaping child care — one that prioritizes less expensive home-based programs over professionally staffed centers, de-emphasizes academic credentials and curricula, and often encourages more mothers to stay home to raise their children. As Idaho Rep. Rod Furniss argued when promoting his deregulation bill, 'perhaps the most important' small business is the home day care, 'where moms can stay home and supplement the household income and watch a few kids.' This approach also aligns with principles outlined in the American Enterprise Institute's 2024 'Three Principles for Conservative Early-Childhood Policy,' which advocated for subsidizing 'lower-cost' options while keeping 'children connected to their families.' Conservatives specifically warn against what they call the 'Bill de Blasio model' — folding early childhood education into the credentialing, unionization, and compensation structure of K-12 teachers. This approach, which many progressive advocates view as essential for stable and quality care, is viewed by many on the right as a recipe for unsustainable costs. As control shifts in Washington, the very definitions of quality that have guided policy for decades may soon change. But the core questions remain unresolved: What matters most in determining quality and how do we capture it? How should we balance measurable outcomes with family preferences? What trade-offs between quality, affordability, and access are Americans prepared to make? And ultimately, what kind of care do American children deserve?
Axios
13-05-2025
- Business
- Axios
Fewer people want to work in the U.S.
The share of international job seekers looking to work in the U.S. has declined sharply this year, per a report from Indeed out Tuesday. Why it matters: The labor market is slowing down, and stricter immigration policy — beginning with the Biden administration and accelerating under President Trump — is further cooling demand for American jobs. By the numbers: Clicks from job seekers outside the U.S. started climbing in mid-2021 as the job market boomed in the pandemic recovery. They peaked in August 2023, at 2.4% of all postings, and declined to 1.7% by March 2025. The big picture: Certain industries, like health care and construction, rely heavily on workers from outside the country. The share of workers who are born outside the U.S. has been rising for years, as more native-born Americans age out of the workforce than enter it. The intrigue: Immigrants make up 40% of home health aides and 26% of physicians and surgeons, according to data cited by the Niskanen Center. These are jobs that will still be in demand, regardless of an economic downturn. Employers are worried about the possibility of more staffing challenges as immigration restrictions tighten in the Trump administration. How it works: The job site Indeed tracks clicks on U.S. jobs from those with IP addresses outside the country. They also examined clicks on jobs in Australia, Canada and Germany from outside those countries — each saw drops in interest as well, lining up with tighter immigration policies and cooling labor markets there, too. Between the lines: It's not clear from the Indeed data if the job market is possibly following a pattern seen in the tourism industry — where folks are less eager to come to the U.S. because of a rise in hostility to foreigners.
Washington Post
11-05-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Qatar's gift to Trump reveals a loophole big enough to fly a jumbo jet through
Jacob T. Levy is Tomlinson professor of political theory and coordinator of the Research Group on Constitutional Studies at McGill University, and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center. During his first term, Donald Trump tested the boundaries of presidential financial ethics. Most notably, foreign governments spent lavishly at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, raising questions about the constitutional prohibition on public officials receiving 'presents' or 'emoluments' from any foreign state. What would that mean in the context of foreign governments and their lobbyists acting as customers of an ongoing business owned by the official? Who, if anyone, has the authority to do anything about it?
