Reason TV has its new Nanny of the Month feature out today, celebrating the antics of busybodies in the month of February. Once again the competition is fierce, but Ted Balaker gives it to the state of California by a nose for shutting down “boot camps” that teach teens to become programmers:

At learn-to-code bootcamps, students spend about 10 weeks and around 15 grand on programs that often lead to good-paying tech jobs. And that’s something the State of California refuses to tolerate.

Never mind that the Golden State’s unemployment rate is the nation’s fifth highest, the real problem is that boot camps don’t have state licenses, so says the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, which recently doled out a bunch of cease and desist letters to the “problem children” (and yes, that’s how the BPPE’s Russ Heimerich refers to boot camp operators).

Maybe the problem children should follow the university model: jack up tuition and fail to prepare students for the job market. Then California might stop busting coding boot camps, and start subsidizing them instead.

In this case, though, I think I’d choose Columbia, South Carolina for its attempts to block private charitable efforts at feeding the poor and hungry. Businesses have to comply with certification requirements, even when they’re arguably intrusive and burdensome, or get the state to change its policies. Apart from the “problem children” comment, the BPPE seems to suggest that the agency will treat the issue with a light hand while the schools come into compliance. As nanny-state intrusions go, that’s not too bad.

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