Child Care Reports

Child Development and Health

Quality Early Education and Child Care from Birth to Kindergarten
Pediatricians have an important role in helping their communities raise the level of quality of care for all young children. As community leaders, pediatricians can influence families, teachers, and policy makers in improving access and quality of early childhood educational programs.

Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care
This report outlines state policies that support the healthy development of infants and toddlers in child care settings, and provides an online resource to help states implement these policies.

Linking Mental Health and Child Care and Early Education Services
Through interactions with caregivers, adults and peers, children’s mental health is fostered or hindered. Comprehensive support is imperative to address a range of children’s mental health needs and promote positive social-emotional development.

Serving Children in At-Risk Groups

Effects of Quality Early Care on School Readiness Skills of Children at Risk
A full-service program that focuses on the comprehensive needs of the family while providing quality childcare and early education experiences is critical to school readiness for those children who may be at risk.

Inequalities in Early Care and Education: What is America Buying?
Low-income families cannot afford the cost of high quality child care, and providers do not have the resources to offset the costs. Federal and state policies set provider reimbursements below market rate for care, virtually ensuring that quality is reduced.

Early Childhood Care and Education: Effects on Ethnic and Racial Gaps in School Readiness
Public funding of early childhood care and education, particularly Head Start, is already reducing ethnic and racial gaps in preschool attendance. Making preschool enrollment universal for three- and four- year-old children in poverty, and increasing quality could close a significant portion of the gap that still exists.

Child Care Quality: Centers and Home Settings that Serve Poor Families
Little is known about variation in the quality of community-based centers and preschools found among low-income neighborhoods. Such wide disparities in quality prove that states could more carefully strengthen quality improvement efforts.

CCDBG State Plan Reported Activities to Support Limited English Proficient (LEP) and Immigrant Communities
Children born to immigrant parents often face multiple risk factors that would make their participation in quality early education programs particularly beneficial. State policies can assist or deter immigrant families from accessing high-quality early care and education programs.

The Challenges of Change: Learning from the Child Care and Early Education Experiences of Immigrant Families
Unique solutions to improving access to quality early child care and education for immigrant families are already emerging in local communities and state policies. High-quality education opportunities are critical to these children’s success in school and in life.

Effects of Quality Child Care Programs

Unequal Opportunities for Preschoolers
This report by NACCRRA covers why preschool is important, the breakdown of where children attend pre-school, what quality standards NACCRRA uses, and why they are important. It concludes with recommendations on how states can improve the quality of their public programs. The appendices include information about which states meet the quality standards and quality information for each state.

We CAN do better: 2009 Update
This document updates the 2007 NACCRRA report, We can Do Better: NACCRRA’s Ranking of State Child Care Standards and Oversight . The report describes the quality and oversight standards that were ranked and why they are important. It goes on to give an overall picture how the country did as a whole, then explains the scoring system, and offers recommendations. The appendices give information on how each state scored and how the scoring was done.

Modeling the Impacts of Child Care Quality on Children’s Preschool Cognitive Development
Poor quality child care is of concern because infants and preschoolers need responsive and stimulating interactions with adults to enhance social, cognitive, and language development in early childhood.

The Relation of Preschool Child Care Quality to Children’s Cognitive and Social Developmental Trajectories Through Second Grade
Child care quality has a modest, long-term effect on children’s cognitive and socioemotional development at least through Kindergarten, and in some cases, through Second grade. Quality programs also have stronger positive effects for children from at-risk backgrounds.

Child Care Professionals

Early Education Quality: Higher Teacher Qualifications for Better Learning Environments – A Review of the Literature
Academic, business and policy communities now recognize that high-quality preschool programs are an important way to support school success. Quality programs are important and we must ensure that preschool programs have the necessary support to live up to the expectations placed on them.

Finding A Better Way: Defining and Assessing Public Policies to Improve Child Care Workforce Compensation
Increased public awareness of the child care staffing crisis is moving the question of how to improve child care jobs to center stage. An improved system must involve a new and substantial public investment in services for young children to ensure a stable workforce.

Funding

A Guide to Calculating the Cost of Quality Early Care and Education
It is difficult to make the case for increased early care and education investments without having a good definition of quality and solid data about the cost of quality. Producing the price tag to implement the plan allows the real work to begin.