Child Care Center Directors Speak about Quality Rating and Improvement Systems

Three child care center directors spoke about the benefits and challenges of quality rating and improvement systems during a conference call held last week by the National Women’s Law Center and the Center for Law and Social Policy. Quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) assess the quality of child care programs, offer incentives and assistance to programs to improve their ratings, and give information to parents about the quality of child care. To gain an inside perspective on these systems and develop recommendations for strengthening them, CLASP and NWLC interviewed a number of child care directors from across the country and produced a report, A Count for Quality, based on their experiences and insights. Participants in last week’s conference call had a chance to hear first-hand from three of the directors interviewed for that report.

The directors, who were from Maine, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, praised QRIS for giving high-quality providers validation, setting a bar for quality, establishing high expectations, providing a rallying point and mutual goal for staff, and engaging parents. The directors also appreciated the financial benefits provided by QRIS, including higher reimbursements for higher-quality programs serving children receiving child care assistance, scholarships for staff to receive additional education, and grants for materials, as well as the technical assistance they received. The director from Maine highlighted the fact that parents using highly rated care receive double the standard amount for the state’s child care tax credit.

The directors also discussed a number of challenges in trying to ensure child care programs had an opportunity to participate in QRIS and move up the rating scale and to ensure that the QRIS worked effectively in encouraging high-quality care. They talked about the difficulty of educating parents about the difference in quality between a lower-rated program and a higher-rated program. They also noted that while raising quality involved additional costs for staff, books, materials, and other expenses, they generally could not cover those higher costs by increasing the fees they charged parents, many of whom were already straining to pay for care. In addition, even if an increase in their quality ratings enabled centers to qualify for higher reimbursement rates, a center might have to wait months after paying the upfront costs of improving quality before actually receiving the higher rates.

The directors reported that maintaining a high level of quality is a continuous process. Directors must continually provide trainings for staff, especially since high turnover rates mean there are often new staff to train. They also have to repeatedly adjust to changes in standards, as states frequently revise their standards or how they are interpreted.

The directors offered a number of ideas for making their QRIS work better and helping more centers achieve higher quality ratings. They wanted a broader range of training options, such as training on inclusion of children with disabilities and other special needs and more challenging trainings. Directors had some success in expanding the availability, variety, and accessibility of trainings through partnerships with local colleges as well as through the use of online classes. Directors also supported more feedback about their ratings in both those areas in which they performed well and those areas in need of improvement.

The challenges for these directors in attaining and retaining high quality ratings may increase due to cuts in early childhood funding that have already been made or that are being proposed in their states. In Maine, the governor is proposing child care funding cuts that would eliminate child care assistance for half of the families currently receiving it. North Carolina cut funding for the state prekindergarten program and for Smart Start, which provides communities with funding for child care assistance and other early childhood services. In Pennsylvania, recent regulatory changes reduced the number of days children can be absent before child care assistance is suspended and reduced the number of days a parent can continue to receive child care assistance after losing a job. In addition, Pennsylvania has eliminated all public funding for its T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Scholarship Program, which provided support to teachers to pursue degrees and credentials while continuing to work in the field.

It is clear from the way these three directors have handled past challenges that they will rise to the occasion once again and figure out a way, regardless, to continue providing high-quality care to the children and families they serve. Yet reducing investments in child care will impede many other child care centers and family child care homes in their progress toward higher quality. States should instead be expanding their investments in child care to assist as many providers as possible in achieving a high level of quality.

To find out what other information and insights the directors shared on the conference call, you can listen to a recording or read a transcript of the call on the NWLC website.