What Is the Quality of Care in the United States?
The evidence reviewed above indicates that child care quality has meaningful effects on children and their parents. Our next question considers the quality of the care that is available in the United States. One part of this question is a determination of whether high-quality care (of the sort that fosters positive developmental outcomes) is the norm or the exception. The flip side of this question is a determination of the likelihood that children are in poor-quality care that can impair development. Unfortunately, at the current time it is not possible to provide a definitive response to these questions, because observations of process quality have not been conducted for a nationally representative sample of children. In the absence of such a report, we must reply on existing data from multisite studies that provide suggestions about the distribution of quality of care in the United States.
This distribution of quality scores in the observed settings, however, may be an optimistic view
The Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Study (Helburn et al., 1995) provides a perspective on center-based care. ECERS assessments were conducted in 398 centers located in four states that varied in economic health and child care regulations. In that study, 12 percent of the centers received ECERS scores lower than 3, indicating care that was less than minimal quality, and 15 percent received ECERS scores higher than 5, indicating good-quality care. (más…)