Innovation Session:
New Tools for Understanding the Implementation and Cost of Quality in Early Care and Education
Friday, November 9, 2018: 3:30 PM-4:15 PM
Atrium - Exhibit Level (Marriott Wardman Park)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Participants: Gretchen Kirby1, Kimberly Boller1, Meryl Yoches Barofsky2 and Lynn Karoly3, (1)Mathematica Policy Research(2)Administration for Children and Families(3)RAND Corporation
Description of Research: Growing evidence about the benefits of high quality care for young children, particularly low-income children, has led to a strong commitment at the federal and state levels to improve the quality of early care and education (ECE). Because of competing demands and limited resources, policymakers, administrators, and other key stakeholders need information to help them effectively target support and funds to increase quality in ECE. Quality includes many dimensions and there is a lack of consensus about how to specifically define it. Regardless of the way quality is defined, existing measures of quality alone do not provide enough information to determine the areas within ECE centers that need investment of time, attention, or money to improve quality. The ultimate goal of this work is to produce measures of implementation and costs that can be used with existing observational measures of quality to examine the variation in ECE center capacities and resources that can make a difference in the early childhood experiences of children.
