Center Will Evaluate Child Care, Quality Rating Systems in Five Rural States

SEPT. 30, 2004 | The National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives is sponsoring a study of the current quality of early care and education programs in five predominantly rural states – Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Mississippi.

The study by the Midwest Child Care Research Consortium also will examine the feasibility of using Quality Rating Systems to promote quality, and parents’ perceptions of quality, in rural early care and education programs.

Quality Rating Systems, developed in individual states, involve standardized assessments of the curriculum, setting, and staff qualifications in child care centers, family child care homes, and other early care and education sites. Some states use their Quality Rating Systems as the basis for tiered reimbursements or child care subsidies. Other states use their systems for certification or recognition, without tying public funding to quality. Quality Rating Systems also are tools for raising parent awareness about the features of high-quality early care and education programs, thus raising the demand for high-quality programs.

The research team will include Kathy Thornburg, Ph.D., a professor of human development and family studies and director of the Center for Family Policy and Research at the University of Missouri-Columbia; Helen Raikes, Ph.D., a consultant with the Gallup Organization and an adjunct associate professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Susan Hegland, Ph.D., an associate professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University; and Jane Atwater, Ph.D., of the University of Kansas.

Their study will include standardized observations of randomly selected care centers and family child care homes in rural areas that receive a high level of child care subsidies, yielding information about where training and technical assistance should be targeted in the five states.

The study also will yield a multi-state dataset that will support deeper analysis of rural early care and education than has been possible before. Although previous studies by the National Center and the Midwest Child Care Research Consortium have included rural communities, the sample sizes have been too small to support meaningful, policy-relevant findings.

 

Updated 12/01/2006