Olympia--Multinational child care companies ABC Learning Centres, which operates La Petite Academy centers (through Learning Care Group Inc), and Knowledge Universe Education, which operates KinderCare centers (through Knowledge Learning Corporation), have launched an effort to stop a state child care reform bill backed by leading early learning advocates, parents, and Washington child care workers who care for low-income children.
The Access to Quality Child Care Workforce Act would help directors and teachers at smaller centers and nonprofits stem high levels of turnover among staff. The bills would give staff a voice to negotiate with the state for resources to improve training and reimbursement rates.
Even though the proponents of the bill agreed to exclude centers operated by the companies and the bills in both House and Senate now do excluded them, an organization funded by the companies, Knowledge Learning Corporation and Learning Care Group, has spent thousands of dollars paying a lobbyist to fight the bill, and KinderCare center directors have testified against the bill without disclosing their corporate connections.
“It seems like they want to protect the power they have and keep the rest of our profession from having a voice,” said Kari Koens, a child care director from Mt. Vernon who testified Jan. 25 in support of the bill. “We’re trying to raise standards for children in Washington, and they see it as a threat to their bottom line.”
While ABC Learning Centres and Knowledge Learning Corporation bring in billions of dollars in revenues each year, directors of small and nonprofit centers struggle to pay themselves and their staff a living wage. The average child care teacher in Washington earns less than $20,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, often with no health insurance.
Top executive of the multinational chains include the chairman of KinderCare’s parent company, deposed junk bond king and convicted felon Michael Milkin, worth $2.1 billion. ABC’s co-founder and CEO of global operations Eddy Groves, named Australia’s richest man under 40 in 2006, commutes by private helicopter.