Early Care and Education Quality Indicators, Implementation, and Policy

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

In the past few decades research on early care and education (ECE) has focused on program quality and its relation with children’s development. ECE quality is thought to influence children’s development through supportive and engaging teacher-child and peer interactions, which are thought to be enhanced by structural components like professional development, teacher-child ratios, and teacher education. This model has been very influential in ECE policy and research, and is referred to as the structure-process-outcome model. The focus on ECE quality, including the theoretical model of structure-process-outcome, has led to the creation of policy initiatives, such as state Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). Our symposium broadly seeks to investigate how policy is implemented and what quality indicators look like in practice, and the association with children’s development.
The first paper in the symposium uses nationally representative data from Head Start to empirically test the structure-process-outcome model and whether the model holds using Head Start quality thresholds. The second paper uses latent class analyses to investigate the extent to which a nationally representative sample of center-based care programs group into classes by quality indicators based on NIEER benchmarks. The third paper examines how public ratings of Louisiana ECE centers influence parental ECE choices. The final paper in the symposium looks within a state to examine family child care provider QRIS ratings and individual component trajectories over time. Taken together, these four papers seek to expand our understanding of ECE quality policy implementation.

Sub Unit

• School Readiness/Childcare

Chair

• Ana Whitaker, University of Delaware

Individual Presentations

• An Empirical Examination of the Structure-Process-Outcomes Model Within Head Start Programs - Presenting Author: Cara Lynn Kelly, University of Delaware; Ana Whitaker, University of Delaware; Margaret Burchinal, University of Virginia - Charlottesville

• Early Care and Education Center Quality: A Latent Class Analysis of Quality Indicators - Presenting Author: Gerilyn Slicker, University of Nevada Las Vegas; Ana Whitaker, University of Delaware; Jing Tang, Child Trends -Maryland

• Effects of Public Quality Ratings on Parents’ Early Childhood Program Preferences - Presenting Author: Lindsay Bell Weixler, Tulane University; Jane Lincove, University of Maryland Baltimore County; Matthew Larsen, Lafayette College; Catherine Balfe, University of California Los Angeles

• Unpacking Family Child Care Performance in QRIS: A Latent Growth Mixture Modeling Approach - Presenting Author: Samantha Melvin, Erikson Institute