Money or the kids? The truth about daycare franchises.

When you tour a private daycare center, rarely are you told much about who owns the center or franchise, what their background is, or what drives them to run a business for children and families. Unfortunately, the answers may be disappointing.

A lot of private daycare centers are owned by former teachers and directors with their roots in the world of early childhood education (ECE). However, more and more, entrepreneurs are seeing supply not meeting demand when it comes to care and cashing in. These people come from the business world and may or may not know anything about children and child development. What they do know is that parents need care and always will. If you build it, they will come. Unfortunately, in this case “it” is quite literally a facade for cheap, sub par ECE and low quality care.

I once worked for a man who owned several daycares around Chicago. He hired me to oversee the education component of his programs (as he had zero early childhood education experience). I ran up against a lot of brick walls trying to improve his programs because things he felt were a waste of money, I felt were essential. It was disappointing but also eye-opening.

I have found that franchise owners tend to prioritize making money over supporting children and teachers, which means they pay for what they believe will bring in new families but cut corners when it comes to the actual quality of their programming. Owning a daycare isn’t lucrative unless you continually avoid putting money back into the center to improve it, and I’m not just talking about money for supplies or maintenance. The same owner I mentioned above asked the directors at all of his centers to support a state bill that would LOWER the legal qualifications for lead daycare teachers. This would make hiring “easier” aka cheaper. I said this bill would be detrimental to early learning and put children in danger. He told me to keep it to myself.

Another thing to note is that many private centers boast that they are accredited by an organization like NAEYC or ExceleRate. Achieving these accreditations does not always mean they are then maintained; many owners push for the status just to say they have it and then don’t hold their centers to those standards. And beware any center with a name that includes words like “Academy” or “Genius” or any other lofty term implying academic excellence. This is also a ploy masking a -meh- program.

Is every private daycare owner like this? No. Many are both the owner and director, in the trenches every day working alongside teachers. Some are less present but understand the needs of teachers, children, and families, and put money toward what truly matters. However, I am always skeptical of a franchise because it means the owner's focus is split between several centers; that tells me they probably don't care all that much about what is actually happening in their centers, just how it all looks from the outside.

Next time you tour, ask about the owner. It will tell you a lot about the quality of care your child would get and who your money would go to.