I work for a mixed private/public funded nonprofit that researches, develops and test ways to make the professional development of early childhood teachers and caregivers better. We partner with a lot of national and state associations to write policy briefs, do trials, and start programs to improve practice. My boss has a refrain that clicked with me: “private money experiments, public money implements” Our private funders, who have a stated stake and interest in the well-being and welfare of children like to fund our projects that push the very edge of what could be best for children and the professionals that work with them. A lot of what we develop is way too advanced, to complex, or too experimental to be considered for codification in the law, but we find other incentives, and enthusiastic schools and organizations in the sate who want to implement them anyway, to be ahead of just “what the law requires”. And analogy could be the LEEDS environmental stamp, or energy star appliances. We charge fees for training and materials, but can often find private and public dollars to cover these and further incentivize. The state doesn’t dictate what we do, think or write but if they see something they like (that we’ve presented to them for funding) they will often fund piloting, and then eventually fund the rollout of new procedures as statute across the state. At this point, the development has all been paid for, and has been done by dedicated people who chose this line of work because they care about outcomes for children, not because they took a civil service exam, and rose through the ranks and ended up in some “child welfare” office. Simple statements about the suckiness of government, or the greed of private citizens doesn’t capture the full picture of what it takes for good policy to be developed, or how to move forward. I don’t have a tidy, related conclusion other than that…
1 Like
