Pass 3 (2026-08-03) closed: H4.2 supported with criteria met (~40k CDA credentials/yr vs ~220k net-new hires required); H4.1 adjudicated at ~40% — parity is the largest single cost term but not a majority; ARPA replication check ran and found the evaluative literature does not exist yet (single-source-family confidence stands, register entry added); school-age unmet demand quantified (4 in 5 middle schoolers wanting afterschool can't get it — all-time high); anchors 6 (17 supermajority states, not ~12), 10 (DCFSA raised to $7,500 for 2026 — employer channel expanding on two tracks), 14 (Netherlands: 2,000+ children removed), 15 (NYC >60k in two years) closed. Three anchor rows remain blank by rule, none load-bearing.
Pass 2 (2026-08-03) added: adjudication-criteria.md and deviations-log.md (written before evidence, per §0.3/§19); the §4 FTE model (script, results) — 2.8M FTEs required, ~798k hires/yr flow, Anchor 5 corrected ~2×; the formal scorecard — top 4 stable under all four objective weightings (Head Start scaled, supply-first, public option, fallback ladder), H14.2 segmentation supported; the red-team pass (three confidence downgrades applied) and the feasibility steelman; anchors 5, 8, 19 verified plus the 10 Medicaid holdout states (FL/GA overlap finding).
First-pass execution of the protocol's workstreams (docs/research-inquiry.md), 2026-08-03. Each file states its findings with sources, hypothesis calls, and what remains. Baseline data work lives in ../baseline/; Phase 0 in ../docs/phase0-findings.md.
| Workstream | File | Depth |
|---|---|---|
| §2 Baseline | ../baseline/output/baseline-v0.md | Data pipeline + national skeleton |
| §3 Cost | ws03-cost.md | Normalization seed |
| §4 Workforce | ws04-workforce.md | First pass |
| §5 Facilities | ws05-facilities.md | First pass |
| §6 Delivery | ws06-delivery.md | First pass |
| §7 Quality | ws07-quality.md | Adversarial pair done |
| §8 Demand | ws08-demand.md | Partial |
| §9 Market response | ws09-market-response.md | ARPA natural experiment |
| §10 Politics | ws10-politics.md | Skeleton |
| §11 Legislative | ws11-legislative.md | Key precedents |
| §12 Private capital | ws12-private-capital.md | Operator + employer channels |
| §13 Civil society | ws13-civil-society.md | Seed |
| §14 Architectures | ws14-architectures-v0.md | Evidence mapping (formal scorecard pending) |
| §15 Precedents | ws15-precedents.md | Cross-case synthesis |
| §16 Sequencing | ws16-sequencing-v0.md | Draft recommendation |
The one-paragraph state of the inquiry
Across every design examined — Canada, Quebec, Germany, Australia, DC, and the US market itself — educators, not dollars, bind the ramp, and the instrument matters: supply-side operating grants demonstrably suppress prices and hold supply (ARPA), demand-side subsidies demonstrably inflate fees (Australia). The Byrd rule permits financing and kills mandates (the ARP minimum-wage strike is the controlling precedent), which points the procedurally viable path at funded supply and compensation with standards housed inside federal spending programs. The evidence increasingly favors a segmented design — K–12-formula extension for school-age (64% of children, red-state-durable precedent), mixed delivery under a fallback-laddered federal program for 3–4, and a supply-first-plus-caregiver-choice blend for 0–2, whose families demonstrably prefer home-based care. Sequencing follows: supply and compensation money first, demand-side eligibility second, dedicated revenue throughout, no sunsets — the ARPA cliff measured what a sunset does.
What pass 2 requires (highest-value first)
- Formal §14 scorecard under the §14.2 method (anchored scales, double scoring, objective weightings)
- §4 FTE-requirement model (H4.1/H4.2 formal adjudication) + per-hypothesis adjudication criteria per §0.3, written before pass 2 evidence collection
- SIPP/NSECE microdata pass (H2.1 formal adjudication; paid-care precision)
- Primary-source passes flagged in ws10 (1971 veto text), ws06 (Medicaid holdouts, tribal), ws11 (CRS compilations), ws13 (union resolutions, opposition primary texts)
- Remaining anchors (rows 6–11, 14–20) and the §17 register update
- Red-team pass and steelmanned feasibility case assembly (§0.3, §19)