New Players Making Impact on For Profit Landscape

Article Link: http://www.exchangepress.com/article/new-players-making-impact-on-for-profit-landscape/5015514/

Seventeenth Annual Status Report on For Profit Child Care

While the recession has slowed the overall growth of the for profit child care sector, many new players are entering this arena bringing fresh perspectives and new energy.

In the past two years we have added 12 new organizations to the Exchange Top 40 �" North America’s Largest For Profit Child Care Organizations (see page 18). Many of these organizations have been started within the past five years.

Even with some of the largest and oldest organizations there are new players. Four of the six largest chains �" Knowledge Learning Corporation, La Petite Academy, Childtime Learning Centers, and Nobel Learning Communities �" have brought in new leaders in the past 18 months.

Most Serious Threats

Leaders of the 40 largest for profit child care organizations identified the following, in priority order, as the most serious current threats to their organizations:

 1. Competition from the public schools
 2. State of the economy
 3. Shortages of qualified teachers
 4. Changes to state regulations/licensing requirements
 5. Decreases in public subsidies
 6. Child being injured in an accident at one of your centers
 7. Shortages of teacher aide candidates
 8. Accident involving a center vehicle
 9. Availability of center liability insurance
10. Competition from new centers
11. Lack of affordable space for expansion
12. Pressure from parents to teach more academics
13. ...