Measures of Implementation and Cost that Work Together to Support Quality in Early Care and Education Centers
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Measures of Implementation and Cost that Work Together to Support Quality in Early Care and Education Centers

OPRE Brief #2022-19
Published: Jan 31, 2022
Publisher: Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US. Department of Health and Human Services
Human Services Early Childhood Child Development Federal
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Associated Project

Assessing the Implementation and Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education (ICHQ)

Time frame: 2014-2022

Prepared for:

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation

Clients
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Authors

Pia Caronongan

Gretchen Kirby

Katie Gonzalez

Key Findings
  • The ICHQ project focuses on implementation and cost measures within center-based ECE settings. A center refers to a specific physical location where ECE classroom-based services are provided to children birth to 5 years (not yet in kindergarten).
  • Key functions are five areas of center operations that contribute to high quality care. Each of five key functions are defined by a specific set of activities and practices that allows us to measure implementation and costs for each function distinctly. All ECE centers carry out the key functions to varying degrees to provide services to young children and their families.
  • Implementation measures summarize what a center does to support quality, including the combination of structural features (for example, teacher–child ratios, group size, and staff qualifications) and adopted practices, as well as how features and practices are supported.
  • Cost measures estimate the amount and allocation of resources needed to support the ECE services a center provides, including how staff use their time.

This brief, part of a series of research briefs presenting findings from a multi-case study, focuses on what we learned about the relationship between the two sets of measures and implications for how they can be used together to better understand how to support quality in ECE centers. The multi-case study helped us develop draft measures and explore how well they summarize implementation, estimate costs, and identify ways centers can achieve quality. The multicase study included 30 ECE centers, 25 of which completed both implementation and cost data collection. The measures are being further tested and validated in a field test with a larger sample of centers in 2021.

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