Title Assessing the validity of the Qualistar early learning quality rating and improvement system as a tool for improving child-care quality / Gail L. Zellman [and others] : prepared for Qualistar Early Learning

Published Santa Monica, CA : RAND Education, 2008

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Description 1 online resource (xxiv, 104 pages) Series Rand Corporation monograph series Rand Corporation monograph series Contents Introduction -- Methods -- Analyses of Q-QRIS components -- Relationships among components and component changes over time for center providers -- Relationships of Q-QRIS components and star ratings to process-quality and child outcome measures for center providers -- Family child-care providers -- Discussion Summary "As a result of the generally low quality of child care in the United States and the increased emphasis on accountability in education policy, quality rating systems (QRSs) are proliferating in the child-care arena. QRSs assess child-care providers on multiple dimensions of quality and integrate these assessments into an easily understood summary rating (such as from 0 to 4 stars). These ratings are intended to help parents, funders, and other stakeholders make more informed choices about child care and to encourage providers to improve. Most QRSs are actually QRISs -- quality rating and improvement systems -- since they include feedback and technical assistance to help providers improve the quality of their care. However, there has been very little empirical examination of the validity of these systems -- how reliable their multiple components are, how effective they are in helping providers to improve the quality of care they provide, and how much children benefit from such improvement. This study assesses the QRIS developed by Qualistar Early Learning, a nonprofit organization based in Colorado that was one of the first organizations to create a QRIS. Zellman et al. set out to validate the Qualistar QRIS by assessing approximately 100 child-care providers and, at the outset, over 1,300 children over three waves of data collection. The study relied on two other, established measures of child-care quality on which to rate providers, as well as a number of direct child assessments. The design allowed for both cross-sectional and time-lagged analyses. The authors analyzed the five components of the Qualistar system separately, then examined how they related to each other; compared the Qualistar measures to the other measures of quality; assessed change in provider quality over time; and examined whether quality improvements as measured by the Qualistar QRIS were associated with better child outcomes."--Publisher's website Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 95-104) Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Print version record Subject Child care -- United States -- Evaluation Child care services -- United States -- Evaluation Early childhood education -- United States -- Evaluation POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Services & Welfare. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Security. SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Children's Studies. Child care -- Evaluation Child care services -- Evaluation Early childhood education -- Evaluation United States Form Electronic book Author Zellman, Gail LC no. 2008022083 ISBN 9780833045232 0833045237

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