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National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance

The National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance (ECQA Center) supports state and community leaders and their partners in the planning and implementation of rigorous approaches to quality in all early care and education settings for children from birth to school age. The Center's expert staff use collaborative approaches to do the following:

  • Advance strong health and safety standards and licensing regulations that align with the Child Care and Development Fund and Head Start Performance Standards.
  • Support the development and enhancement of state quality initiatives, including quality rating and improvement systems.
  • Enhance quality assurance systems through the use of technology, data analysis, and research that promote continuous quality improvement, efficiency, and innovation.

 

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Join the Child Care Licensing Community of Practice

The National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance (ECQA Center) understands that child care licensing administrators, managers, and supervisors have unique needs and want to communicate with others in similar roles. To connect you with your peers across the country, the ECQA Center, in...

Highlighted Tools and Resources: 
National Database of Child Care Licensing Regulations

The National Database of Child Care Licensing Regulations is a tool for finding and searching state child care licensing regulations and licensing agency contact information. It also includes links to other state and national early childhood program standards.

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Program Standards Crosswalk

The Program Standards Crosswalk is a tool designed to help States that are developing and aligning program standards for licensing, quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS), and/or prekindergarten programs, to search and compare the content of several sets of national standards.

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QRIS Resource Guide

The QRIS Resource Guide provides guidance for States as they explore key issues and consider decision points during the planning and implementation of a quality rating and improvement system (QRIS).

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Provider Cost of Quality Calculator (PCQC)

The Provider Cost of Quality Calculator (PCQC) is a tool that calculates the cost of care by levels of quality based on site-level provider data. The tool can help state policymakers, child care providers, and other stakeholders understand the costs associated with delivering high-quality child care services.

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Program Participation in QRISs in 2017 Fact Sheet

This fact sheet summarizes QRIS program participation in 2017 by program type and quality level; this document also summarizes the types of data QRISs collect on child demographics.

All of the fact sheets in this series are available...

Quality Rating and Improvement System Fact Sheets

This is a series of fact sheets about the state of quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS). Data are from the Quality Compendium, a catalog of the QRIS operating in the United States.

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Shared Services to Build and Sustain Quality 2018 - Meeting Resources

A library of resources from the 2018 Shared Services to Build and Sustain Quality meetings is available. The National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance (ECQA...

Sustaining Quality Improvement at All Levels of the Early Learning System

This resource was presented as part of the systems-building sessions at STAM 2018.

Evaluating Quality Investments

This resource was presented as part of the impact sessions at STAM 2018.

State Trends in Monitoring License-Exempt CCDF Providers

This resource was presented as part of the policy development sessions at STAM 2018.

Building Better Child Care Business Practices: A Strategy for Increasing Access

This resource was presented as part of the policy development sessions at STAM 2018.

Licensing Caseloads: Finding the Right Ratio of Licensors to Providers

The ratio of child care providers to licensing inspectors differs among states, territories and tribes, depending on a variety of factors. This brief explores how these factors help determine the right ratio of inspectors to providers and how many child care providers a licensor can effectively...

Determining QRIS Ratings Using Cut Points on Observational Tools Fact Sheet

This fact sheet is part of a series fact sheets about the state of QRIS in the United States. It...

QRIS Data Systems Fact Sheet

This fact sheet is part of a series fact sheets about the state of QRIS in the United States. It covers the types of data included in QRIS data systems, how the data are being used, and data system linkages.

All of the fact sheets in this...

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