Measuring Costs to Support Quality in Early Care and Education Centers
OPRE Brief #2022-20
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Associated Project
Assessing the Implementation and Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education (ICHQ)
Prepared for:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation
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Key Findings
ICHQ cost measures are built from data collected from 25 ECE centers in three states that varied in the following characteristics:
- Licensed capacity (a proxy for size)
- Ages of children served
- Funding sources
- Profit status
- Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) ratings
This brief, part of a series of research briefs presenting findings from a multi-case study, focuses on the cost measures. The multi-case study helped us develop draft measures and explore how well they are working to summarize implementation, estimate costs, and identify ways centers can achieve quality. The multi-case study included 30 ECE centers, 25 of which completed all the 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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