Page 0
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
A Baseline Report of Early Care
and Education in Pennsylvania:
The 2002 Early Care and
Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
Report prepared for the Governor’s Task Force on Early Childhood Education
September 2002
Written by
Wendy A. Etheridge, Robert B. McCall, Christina J. Groark,
Kelly E. Mehaffie, and Robert Nelkin
University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development
and the
Universities Children’s Policy Collaborative
(UCPC)
Universities Children’s Policy Collaborative is dedicated to contributing to the health and
welfare of children, youth, and families
by providing nonpartisan information on public policy issues.
Pennsylvania State University
Prevention Research Center
College of Health and
Human Development
Mark T. Greenberg, Director
Temple University
Center for Public Policy
College of Liberal Arts
Anne B. Shlay, Director
University of Pittsburgh
Office of Child Development
University Center for
Social and Urban Research
Christina J. Groark and
Robert B. McCall, Co-Directors
Page 1
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
A BASELINE REPORT OF EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION IN
PENNSYLVANIA: THE 2002 EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION
PROVIDER SURVEY
Executive Summary
Report prepared for the Governor’s Task Force on Early Childhood Education1
September 2002
by
Wendy A. Etheridge, Robert B. McCall, Christina J. Groark,
Kelly E. Mehaffie and Robert Nelkin
University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development
and the
Universities Children’s Policy Collaborative (UCPC)
INTRODUCTION
The first five years of a child’s life is a period of incredible cognitive, emotional and
social growth. Experiences during these early years can set children on pathways that have
lifelong emotional, social and academic consequences.
How can we invest in our children’s early development to ensure subsequent academic,
social and emotional success? This question has attracted widespread attention from
Pennsylvania policy makers. Their goal: to develop a system of early care and education that
will meet family’s needs today and help prepare a sophisticated, educated workforce of the
future.
1
This survey was developed, in alphabetical order, by Wendy Etheridge, Anne Farber, Christina Groark, Robert
McCall, Kelly Mehaffie, and Robert Nelkin. The authors thank numerous experts who were consulted during the
survey development process including Joan Benso, Linda Ehrlich, Louise Kaczmarek, Emie Tittnich, the Governor’s
Policy Office, the Secretaries of State, the UCPC team, and other members of the Governor’s Early Childhood Task
Force for their input. Thanks are also extended to the University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR)
Survey Research Department for their assistance in data collection and analysis.
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
Page 2
Toward this goal, Pennsylvania’s Governor Mark Schweiker signed Executive Order
2002-2 on April 17, 2002 to create the Early Childhood Care and Education Task Force. As part
of the work accompanying the task force, the Governor commissioned a series of primary
research efforts to be carried out by three major Pennsylvania Universities (Penn State
University, University of Pittsburgh, and Temple University) that have joined together to form
the Universities Children’s Policy Collaborative (UCPC).
As part of this collaborative effort and under commission from the Governor’s Office, the
University of Pittsburgh initiated the 2002 Early Care and Education Provider Survey, designed
to collect information from 637 child care centers, Head Start centers, preschools and nursery
schools, group home child care providers, family home child care providers, and legally
unregulated home providers (categories defined according to State regulations2) regarding child
care and early education. This executive summary encapsulates the findings from the larger
report on the survey and highlights the policy recommendations that stem from these findings.
This executive summary is one of a series that summarizes reports from UCPC. The other
reports include Benchmarking Early Care and Education in Pennsylvania: The 2002 Family
Survey, The State of Early Care and Education in Pennsylvania: The 2002 Higher
Education Survey, and From Science to Policy: Research on Issues, Programs and Policies
in Early Care and Education.
2
The Department of Education and DPW identify five categories of providers. Preschools/nursery schools are
registered with the Department of Education and meet their regulation requirements. Child care centers serve 13 or
more children. Group home providers serve between 7 – 12 unrelated children. Family home providers serve 4 – 6
unrelated children. Legally unregulated providers serve between 1 – 3 unrelated children.
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
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RESEARCH QUESTIONS GUIDING THE 2002 PENNSYLVANIA EARLY CARE AND
EDUCATION PROVIDER SURVEY
The 2002 Pennsylvania Early Care and Education Provider Survey was designed to
provide answers to a number of important questions:
•
Do the types of early care and education providers differ geographically across the state?
•
What is the quality and the full fees charged for these services, according to providers?
•
What are the characteristics of these programs (e.g., accreditation status, location,
administrative oversight, etc.)?
•
What are the characteristics (e.g., racial background, educational level, experience) of the
staff in these programs, and do the characteristics differ by the type of program?
•
What are the training needs of these programs?
•
What are some of the challenges that these programs face in meeting operating expenses,
hiring staff, and retaining staff?
•
What types of children and families are served, and are the programs adequately
supported to be able to serve all children, including children with special needs?
•
What are the types of programs that are provided to participants, and do these vary by the
type of program?
DESIGN AND METHODS
The researchers obtained exhaustive lists of all the registered providers in the
Commonwealth from the registration databases of the Department of Education, the Department
of Public Welfare (DPW), the Pennsylvania Head Start Association, and the Keystone University
Research Corporation. The goal was to obtain interviews from 600 representative provider sites
(stratified by the six categories of providers and stratified by three categories of the population
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
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density of the county in which the site was located). Data collection began May 28, 2002 and
ended July 17, 2002. Due to the low initial contact rates for certain types of providers, the
original data collection scheme had to be revised to maintain a representative sample. Response
rates ranged from 3.3% of legally unregulated homes to 32.2% of group homes; however, this
calculation included all attempts to contact sites regardless of whether a successful contact was
made. Refusal rates were low across all types of providers, ranging from 13.5% of preschools to
only 2.0% of Head Start sites. For the purposes of this study, we classified child care centers,
Head Start, and preschools as “center-based” types of providers and group homes, family homes,
and legally unregulated providers as “home-based” types of providers according to the primary
type of location in which care is provided.
To provide a rough assessment of quality in the sites, the research team developed an
index of quality based on structural characteristics of quality programs as defined in research.
This Structural Quality Index was measured with 5-16 indices, depending on the type of provider
and ages of children served, that reflected the education and training of directors and staff, group
size, staff-child ratio, staff turnover, parent involvement, transition practices, planned
curriculum, structured assessments, and accreditation. Cut points defining pass/fail on each index
were determined by the literature on the relation between each index and the quality of
classroom interactions, but the Quality Scale itself does not reflect staff-child interactions,
personal and pedagogical dynamics, or social-emotional supports, provided children by
caregivers, which will be represented in a later observational study of quality. That is to say, the
index of quality used in this report focuses on “structural” quality rather than “process” quality.
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Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
FINDINGS
•
Head Start demonstrated the best quality on multiple structural dimensions. Head
Start sites had the highest overall structural quality rating, and no Head Start site was
rated as low quality (see Figure 1). Head Start staff were the most highly educated and
engaged in the most on-going professional development training. Head Start programs
also showed high rates of providing the best practices for transitioning children to school,
using developmental assessments to measure children’s progress, and encouraging parent
involvement. Additionally, Head Start was the best geographically distributed of the
center-based types of providers, with over a quarter of sites being located in rural
counties.
Figure 1: Percentage of Providers of Low, Medium,
and High Quality
285
Average
244
Legally Unregulated
108
45
Family Homes
6 2
171
Group Homes
65
26
Preschools
9
27
31
Head Start 0 8
Child Care Centers
13
16
Low
Medium
High
42
34
0%
13
107
20%
40%
60%
22
80%
100%
Number and Percentage of Providers
•
Most center-based early care and education programs were non-profit entities, and
non-profit programs tended to have lower fees for families yet offered higher quality
and were more often accredited. Non-Profit sites received higher quality ratings
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Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
primarily because their directors were more highly educated and both directors and staff
obtained more in-service training on an annual basis.
•
Rural counties lacked access to center-based programs and accredited facilities. The
relatively few non-Head Start center-based programs available in rural counties were
high quality; however, rural counties had fewer accredited sites, sites managed by
religious organizations, or sites serving high-income families. Generally, there was a
lack of quality early care and education programs in rural counties because of the greater
reliance on home-based forms of care (see Figure 2). Additionally, rural staff earned less
than staff in other counties.
Figure 2: Percentage of Providers Located in
Different Types of Counties
Legally Unregulated
Family Homes
Rural County
Group Homes
Small City County
Metropolitan County
Preschools
Head Start
Child Care Centers
0
20
40
60
Percentage of Providers
•
High-income families appeared to choose higher quality center programs but lower
quality homes. In this sample, fewer center-based sites served predominately highincome families than expected; however, those that did serve high-income families
tended to be of high quality, had more highly educated staff, and were accredited.
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
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Conversely, home-based sites serving predominately high-income families tended to have
staff with lower educational backgrounds and to be of lower quality than were sites
serving low- to middle-income families. Thus, it was not clear what criteria higher
income families used to choose home-based services for their children, but it did not
appear to be based primarily on the educational background of staff.
•
Center-based early care and education providers tended to be of higher structural
quality and charged higher full fees than did home-based programs. Child care
centers and preschools charged higher full fees than did home-based care, and full fees
were higher for higher quality and accredited programs. To offset the cost of quality,
high-quality sites offered more direct financial assistance to families than did low-quality
sites. Also, staff tended to earn more in center-based sites than in home-based settings.
Interestingly, although center-based staff had more education than home-based providers,
both staffs generally had equal amounts of experience working with children.
•
Center-based programs provided more planned curricular experiences and
programs for preschoolers that relate to improved school readiness than did homebased programs. While over 90% of child care centers, Head Start sites, preschools, and
group homes reported that they used a written manual, program guide, curriculum, parts
of a curriculum, or written lesson plans to plan what they do with preschoolers, only
about half of family homes and legally unregulated providers used written sources to plan
activities. Moreover, few providers, except for Head Start, worked with public schools
regarding transition issues; more center-based providers engaged in these kinds of
activities than did home-based providers. Finally, more center-based providers used
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Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
developmental assessments to measure their participants’ progress than did the homebased providers.
•
In child care centers and preschools, accreditation related to increased structural
quality. Accredited child care centers and preschools scored higher on the Structural
Quality Index than sites working toward accreditation and sites that were not accredited
(see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Structural Quality Index Scores of Child
Care Centers and Preschools by Accreditation Status
0.591
0.6146
Preschools
Not Accredited
0.8176
Working Toward
Accreditation
Accredited
0.537
0.5788
0.6791
Child Care
Centers
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Structural Quality Index Score
•
Although the subsidy rate approached the full-fees charged to parents, full-fee
charges and subsidy payments did not meet all expenses associated with operating
early childhood care and education programs. Full fee charges accounted for only
69% of the operating budgets for sites, and the other 31% of the budgets came from
subsidies and government/private grants (see Figure 4). The subsidy rate approximated
full-fees for 10-hour days.
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Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
Figure 4: Percentage of Budget from Parent
Charges, Subsidies/Government Sources, and
Private Sources
2.54
Parent Charges
26.68
Subsidies/Government
Sources
Private Sources
69.08
•
When sites had higher fees, they reported less difficulty meeting operating expenses.
Sites serving predominately high-income families charged more, paid their staff more,
and reported less difficulty making ends meet. More low- to medium-quality sites
indicated difficulty making ends meet. Child care centers reported the most difficulty
meeting operating expenses.
•
Salaries were fairly low for all early care and education staff, and benefits were few,
particularly in homes. In fact, the biggest issues that sites cited in attracting new staff
were low pay for center-based programs and inadequate benefits for home-based
programs.
•
Staff turnover in early care and education programs varied with quality and the
income of the families served. While the average turnover was 19%, it neared 33% in
low quality sites and 21% in sites serving predominately low-income families (as
opposed to an average of 12% in sites serving predominately high-income families).
•
Center-based staff indicated more training needs, actually received more training,
and were more highly connected with the Pennsylvania child care training system
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
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than home-based staff; however, most providers reported several barriers to
attending and benefiting from training. Over half of center-based providers received
training through the Pennsylvania child care training system, and they rated the state
training system as the second most helpful source of training for them (behind on-site
training). However, over half of all providers indicated that lack of funding and inability
to afford training were significant barriers to attending training. Home-based providers
generally participated in less in-service training and reported less need for training than
center-based staff, and it was not clear who provided training to home-based providers
who had reported receiving it.
•
Sites needed more training in behavior management and working with children
with disabilities; however, there were concerns that training was too elementary.
On average, 75% of sites indicated that they needed more training in the discipline of
children, and in fact, 71% of child care centers and preschools excluded or threatened to
exclude a child for aggressive behavior in the past two years. Additionally, over half of
sites reported that they sought assistance to deal with aggressive behavior problems.
Over 96% of center-based programs and 56% of home-based programs reported caring
for a child with disabilities, and 68% of providers said they wanted more training in
caring for children with disabilities. However, 63% of providers reported concerns that
the training they had received was too elementary, which must be considered when
developing training to address their needs.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
•
To improve quality for low-income children, the Commonwealth should consider
expanding Head Start so it and its collaborating organizations can operate full-day,
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
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full-year, and for more eligible children. In Pennsylvania, Head Start showed the
highest structural quality, has the best educated directors and staff, serves more
children with disabilities than other types of programs, is geographically well
distributed especially in rural areas, has an established administrative infrastructure,
and has national standards and a monitoring system. Yet Head Start is primarily a
part-day (3-6 hours per day) part-year (does not operate in the summer) program, and
only half of the income- and age-eligible children in Pennsylvania are enrolled.
Therefore, in its current configuration, Head Start is insufficient to meet the needs of
many low-income families who must be engaged in employment or related activities
full-time all year given current federal proposals.
•
A public information campaign on the nature and importance of quality in early
childhood services should be considered as a way to improve quality of and
access to early care and education programs. Parents would more likely pick
quality if it were available, accessible, and affordable to each family.
•
Both parents and providers of early childhood services need additional financial
support. Early childhood services have always represented an exception to market
forces, because they cost too much for parents to pay and they pay too little for
providers to earn. The average full-fee for centers and preschools in Pennsylvania is
$5,950 for preschoolers, $6,825 for toddlers, and $7,425 for infants a year per child,
and the average first-year teacher wage is $17,250. While state subsidies are
approximately at these full-fee levels, only 69% of a provider’s budget comes from
parent fees, the remainder from subsidies and government/private grants. In fact, a
study by the Keystone Research Center (2001) recommended that Pennsylvania phase
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
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in a new approach to setting child care subsidies that is based on the actual cost of
delivering quality care in each county. Clearly, support is needed for both parents
and providers.
•
Early childhood providers operated by religious organizations that receive
government subsidies should be held to the same standards of quality as
providers managed by non-religious organizations. The data show that centers
operated by religious institutions are no better and sometimes of lower structural
quality than those not operated by a religious institution. Religious institutions that
receive government subsidies should be expected to provide the same quality of care
as other providers.
•
The quality of family, group home, and legally unregulated care that receives
government subsidies should be improved. Family, group homes, and legally
unregulated care is approximately 20-25% less expensive than centers and
preschools, but they are also lower in quality. Caregivers in homes have the lowest
levels of education (88% do not have Bachelors degrees) and training (i.e., more than
half of home-based providers profess not to need in-service training). Although
parents should be able to choose whomever they wish to care for their young
children, the State should require and provide training and financial incentives for
homes that receive public subsidies to achieve a reasonable quality of care.
•
A rating system, such as Keystone Stars, could encourage and recognize quality
and financially reward its attainment. The data show that centers and preschools
that are accredited by professional organizations (principally NAEYC) are of better
structural quality than those seeking but not yet attaining accreditation and those that
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
Page 13
are not seeking accreditation. Thus, becoming accredited does not simply reward an
already high-quality site with a certificate but actually encourages improvement in the
quality of that site in the process. This finding supports the rationale for
Pennsylvania’s Keystone Stars, which should provide a recognizable “certification”
to sites that they can advertise, and reward sites financially according to their level of
quality.
•
In-service training should be made more relevant to providers’ needs and more
financially affordable.
o Providers report they need training in a variety of topics, especially behavior
management (e.g., of aggressive children) and caring for children with
disabilities.
o Providers need more training on helping children make the transition to school.
o In-service training needs to be appropriate and affordable.
•
Pennsylvania should work toward the National Academy of Science
recommendation that every group of children in care should be led by a
“teacher” who has a Bachelors degree in early childhood development, care, and
education. Currently in Pennsylvania, approximately 78% of center, 61% of Head
Start, and 42% of preschool teachers and 82% of home-based staff do not have a
Bachelors degree in any field. The general education of the classroom teacher is one
of the single strongest correlates of beneficial child outcomes, especially when
coupled with specific training in early childhood development, care, and education.
The State should consider ways to financially encourage an educated and well-trained
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
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staff, both by supporting individuals to obtain such education and by supporting
providers to employ them.
FUTURE RESEARCH
There were important areas regarding early care and education providers that the research
team would have liked to explore; however, given the short timeframe of the Task Force
research, it was not feasible. Additionally, further questions became apparent after conducting
the analyses reflected in this executive summary and in the full report. The following
suggestions reflect issues to explore in future research.
•
Develop and maintain a periodic monitoring system that would document and guide
continuous improvements in the varied types of early care and education providers.
The data from this survey provided a baseline of the characteristics of early care and
education providers in Pennsylvania and could be used to measure the impact of future
initiatives and policy decisions and to identify new challenges confronting providers.
•
Evaluate provider needs and ability to adequately educate and care for young
children with disabilities and behavioral health challenges. Compared to findings in a
1989 assessment of providers, far more providers have children with special needs and/or
behavioral health challenges in their care. A more thorough examination of the nature of
the children’s needs and how providers strive to address these needs is justified.
•
Examine the relationship between structural quality, as measured in this study, and
classroom dynamics, as will be measured in the Penn State Quality Study. It will be
important to identify how the structural variables impact classroom dynamics to
determine those aspects of quality that can or should be amended by legislative or
regulatory changes to improve the overall quality of programs.
Early Care and Education Provider Survey
Executive Summary
•
Page 15
Evaluate the use of incentives and their impact on quality and staff turnover.
Incentives can be geared to programs to improve quality (e.g., Keystone Stars) or to
individuals (e.g., TEACH or loan forgiveness programs). As these methods are used to
strengthen early childhood care and education programs, they should be evaluated to
measure their effectiveness.
•
Periodically measure children’s developmental status to identify the impact of
participation in different types of early care and education programs and of
program changes. Although this study (coupled with the Quality Study to be
completed) will provide information about the quality of programs, it is necessary to
measure the children’s progress to identify the critical variables associated with quality
and how they impact child outcomes.
A Baseline Report of Early Care
and Education in Pennsylvania:
The 2002 Early Care and
Education Provider Survey
Report prepared for the Governor’s Task Force on Early Childhood Education
September 2002
Written by
Wendy A. Etheridge, Robert B. McCall, Christina J. Groark,
Kelly E. Mehaffie, and Robert Nelkin
University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development
and the
Universities Children’s Policy Collaborative
(UCPC)
Universities Children’s Policy Collaborative is dedicated to contributing to the health and
welfare of children, youth, and families
by providing nonpartisan information on public policy issues.
Pennsylvania State University
Prevention Research Center
College of Health and
Human Development
Mark T. Greenberg, Director
Temple University
Center for Public Policy
College of Liberal Arts
Anne B. Shlay, Director
University of Pittsburgh
Office of Child Development
University Center for
Social and Urban Research
Christina J. Groark and
Robert B. McCall, Co-Directors
A BASELINE REPORT OF EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION IN
PENNSYLVANIA: THE 2002 EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION
PROVIDER SURVEY
Report prepared for the Governor’s Task Force on Early Childhood Education
September 2002
by
Wendy A. Etheridge, Robert B. McCall, Christina J. Groark, Kelly E. Mehaffie, and
Robert Nelkin
University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development
and the
Universities Children’s Policy Collaborative (UCPC)
Acknowledgements
This survey was developed by Wendy Etheridge, Anne Farber, Christina Groark,
Robert McCall, Kelly Mehaffie, and Robert Nelkin. The authors thank numerous experts who
were consulted during the survey development process including Joan Benso, Linda Ehrlich,
Louise Kaczmarek, Emie Tittnich, the Governor’s Policy Office, the Secretaries of State, and
the UCPC team for their input. Thanks are also extended to the University Center for Social
and Urban Research (UCSUR) Survey Research Department for their assistance in data
collection and analysis.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1
RESEARCH QUESTIONS GUIDING THE 2002 PENNSYLVANIA EARLY CARE AND
EDUCATION PROVIDER SURVEY ........................................................................................ 2
DESIGN AND METHODS .......................................................................................................... 3
POPULATION ........................................................................................................................... 3
SAMPLING ................................................................................................................................ 4
RESPONSE RATE ..................................................................................................................... 6
SURVEY INSTRUMENT .......................................................................................................... 6
STUDY LIMITATIONS............................................................................................................. 7
FINDINGS ..................................................................................................................................... 8
GENEARL DESCRIPTION OF PROVIDERS .......................................................................... 8
Descriptions of Providers ....................................................................................................... 9
Location of Providers ..................................................................................................... 10
Registration with the Department of Public Welfare or the Department of
Education ......................................................................................................................... 11
For Profit vs. Non-profit Status..................................................................................... 11
Religious Affiliation ........................................................................................................ 12
Accreditation ................................................................................................................... 13
Description of Staff ............................................................................................................... 14
Racial/Ethnic Background of Staff ............................................................................... 14
Length of Employment and Turnover .......................................................................... 14
Educational Background of Staff .................................................................................. 15
Wages, Salaries, and Benefits for Staff ......................................................................... 16
Training for Staff ............................................................................................................ 17
Description of Participants................................................................................................... 18
Enrollment ....................................................................................................................... 18
Ages of Children Served................................................................................................. 19
Race .................................................................................................................................. 19
Children Receiving Subsidies......................................................................................... 20
Income of Families Served ............................................................................................. 20
Description of Programs....................................................................................................... 21
Programs for Preschoolers............................................................................................. 21
Programs to Encourage Parent Involvement ............................................................... 22
Services for Children with Disabilities.......................................................................... 22
CHARACTERISTICS OF PROVIDERS THAT RELATE TO POLICY ISSUES .................. 23
Quality................................................................................................................................... 24
Staffing .................................................................................................................................. 33
Training Needs ................................................................................................................ 33
Staff Recruitment and Retention................................................................................... 34
Income of Families Served and Staffing Issues ............................................................ 35
Quality and Staffing Issues ............................................................................................ 35
Cost of Care .......................................................................................................................... 36
Financial Help to Families.............................................................................................. 38
Sites Having Difficulty Making Ends Meet ........................................................................... 39
CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................... 40
RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................................................ 45
FUTURE RESEARCH............................................................................................................... 49
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................ 51
APPENDIX A – SURVEY INSTRUMENS
Center-based Provider Survey……………………………………………………………………1
Home-based Provider Survey……………………………………………………………………17
APPENDIX B - TABLES
Early Care and Education Provider
Page
1
INTRODUCTION
The first five years of a child’s life is a period of incredible cognitive, emotional and
social growth. Experiences during these early years can set children on pathways that have
lifelong emotional, social and academic consequences.
How can we invest in our children’s early development to ensure subsequent academic,
social and emotional success? This question has attracted widespread attention from
Pennsylvania policy makers. Their goal: to develop a system of early care and education that
will meet family’s needs today and help prepare a sophisticated, educated workforce of the
future.
Toward this goal, Pennsylvania’s Governor Mark Schweiker signed Executive Order
2002-2 on April 17, 2002 to create the Early Childhood Care and Education Task Force. As part
of the work accompanying the task force, the Governor commissioned a series of primary
research efforts to be carried out by three major Pennsylvania Universities (Penn State
University, University of Pittsburgh, and Temple University) that have joined together to form
the Universities Children’s Policy Collaborative (UCPC).
As part of this collaborative effort and under commission from the Governor’s Office, the
University of Pittsburgh initiated the 2002 Early Care and Education Provider Survey, designed
to collect information from 637 child care centers, Head Start centers, preschools and nursery
schools, group home child care providers, family home child care providers, and legally
unregulated home providers (categories defined according to State regulations1) regarding child
care and early education. This executive summary encapsulates the findings from the larger
1
The Department of Education and DPW identify five categories of providers. Preschools/nursery schools are
registered with the Department of Education and meet their regulation requirements. Child care centers serve 13 or
more children. Group home providers serve between 7 – 12 unrelated children. Family home providers serve 4 – 6
unrelated children. Legally unregulated providers serve between 1 – 3 unrelated children.
Early Care and Education Provider
Page
2
report on the survey and highlights the policy recommendations that stem from these findings.
This executive summary is one of a series that summarizes reports from UCPC. The other
reports include Benchmarking Early Care and Education in Pennsylvania: The 2002 Family
Survey, The State of Early Care and Education in Pennsylvania: The 2002 Higher
Education Survey, and From Science to Policy: Research on Issues, Programs and Policies
in Early Care and Education.
The purpose of the Early Childhood Provider Survey was to develop a baseline of
information regarding the types, enrollments, capacities, costs, staffing patterns, staff training
needs, and program characteristics of various early childhood providers in the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania. To obtain this information, the University of Pittsburgh Office of Child
Development (OCD) conducted telephone interviews with early care and education providers.
This report of findings focuses on important policy issues facing the Commonwealth and serves
as a baseline to measure the impact of any subsequent policy changes. Additionally, this
information can be paired with information from the observational study of quality of
Pennsylvania early care and education provider sites being conducted by the Pennsylvania State
University, another partner in UCPC, to further inform policy.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS GUIDING THE 2002 PENNSYLVANIA EARLY CARE AND
EDUCATION PROVIDER SURVEY
The 2002 Pennsylvania Early Care and Education Provider Survey was designed to
provide answers to a number of important questions:
•
Do the types of early care and education providers differ geographically across the state?
•
What is the quality and the fees charged for these services, according to providers?
Early Care and Education Provider
•
Page
3
What are the characteristics of these programs (e.g., accreditation status, location,
administrative oversight, etc.)?
•
What are the characteristics (e.g., racial background, educational level, experience) of the
staff in these programs, and do the characteristics differ by the type of program?
•
What are the training needs of these programs?
•
What are some of the challenges that these programs face in meeting operating expenses,
hiring staff, and retaining staff?
•
What types of children and families are served, and are the programs adequately
supported to be able to serve all children, including children with special needs?
What are the types of programs that are provided to participants, and do these vary by the type of
program?
DESIGN AND METHODS
POPULATION
Statisticians at the Pennsylvania State University obtained lists of all the registered
providers in the Commonwealth from the registration databases of the Department of Education,
the Department of Public Welfare (DPW), the Pennsylvania Head Start Association, and the
Keystone University Research Corporation. These lists provided names to fill five categories of
providers based on Department of Education, DPW, and Head Start registration guidelines,
namely child care centers, preschools/nursery schools (preschools), Head Start centers, group
child care homes, and family child care homes. To fill the remaining category of providers
recognized by DPW (legally unregulated home providers), Pennsylvania State University
statisticians obtained lists of individuals who had contacted “The Better Kid Care Project” to
obtain information about becoming home care providers. Since legally unregulated providers are
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not required to be registered with the Commonwealth, researchers determined that this was the
best way to identify the potential legally unregulated providers. The final population consisted
of 15,220 early care and education sites, including 5,067 potential legally unregulated providers,
representing a potentially exhaustive list of licensed and registered facilities within the
classifications.
SAMPLING
UCPC agreed that the unit of analysis would be the provider site, and that the goal was to
obtain interviews from 600 representative provider sites. Statisticians at the Pennsylvania State
University randomly selected sites to interview based on the distribution of types of providers in
the Commonwealth and stratified by metro code (counties comprised of large cities and the most
dense population called “Metropolitan,” counties comprised of small cities called “Small Cities,”
and “Rural”). To ensure that enough provider types stratified by metro code were obtained, the
statisticians developed an elaborate sample replacement strategy whereby an initial sample of
600 was chosen with three to five replacement sites identified for each site to be interviewed if
the initial site refused. Data collection began May 28, 2002 and initially was scheduled to end
June 28, 2002.
Initially, the researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development
(OCD) and the University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR) employed the
sampling strategy and mailed introductory letters to the first 600 providers to solicit their
participation. However, due to the data collection time constraints, introductory letters were
mailed to the entire sample of 3300 randomly selected sites (the number of replacements
provided for each provider selected in the original sample of 600 varied from 3 to 5) after two
weeks using the replacement strategy. UCSUR interviewers then completed interviews with
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providers that were willing to complete the interviews regardless of whether they were in the
initial sample of 600 or in a replacement sample until provider type cells were filled.
Although the latter method improved survey completion rates among child care centers,
preschools, group home providers, and family home providers, interviewers were still unable to
reach sufficient numbers of Head Start sites (because most Head Start sites are closed during the
summer) and legally unregulated providers (due to low response rates). Thus, to reach Head
Start sites, OCD staff consulted with Kathy Yorkevitz, Director of the Pennsylvania Head Start
Association, and she sent an email message on July 1, 2002 requesting the help of the Head Start
Education Coordinators across the Commonwealth. This methodology yielded a suitable sample
of Head Start sites. To reach more legally unregulated providers, another database of 700 legally
unregulated providers was obtained, and introductory letters were mailed on July 1, 2002. Data
collection ended on July 17, 2002. Table 1 in Appendix A presents the original population of
sites from which the sample was drawn and the final sample of providers that completed
interviews.2
Due to deviations from the original sampling procedure necessitated by the condensed
timeline for data collection, it is important to note that the final sample obtained does not reflect
either the total number of sites or children in Pennsylvania. Instead, it is the total number of sites
responding. Although we tried to sample in proportion to the number of sites of each kind in the
population, the sample did not come out to be precisely proportional. Additionally, sites of
different types serve different numbers of children, so the average for a site is not the average for
all children in Pennsylvania.
2
The legally unregulated provider sample initially was 115 providers; however, OCD staff cross-referenced the list
with the list of all registered providers and reclassified the sites that were registered to their appropriate categories,
leaving a final sample of 66 legally unregulated providers.
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RESPONSE RATE
Of the 4,243 sites we attempted to contact, 15% completed telephone interviews. The
completion rate ranged from 3.3% for legally unregulated home providers to 32.2% for group
home providers (see Table 2). While this response rate seems low, only 6.8% refused to do the
interviews. Further, it was difficult to reach programs during the summer, and contact was not
made with 26.7%. Head Start and preschool programs often are not in operation during the
summer. Many home care providers take summer vacations, making interview completion
difficult during the short data collection time period permitted by the study. Additionally, the
names provided for the legally unregulated providers were drawn from a list of individuals who
only had inquired about providing home care but who were not necessarily home care providers.
Almost two-thirds of the sample of legally unregulated providers derived from these lists were
deemed to be ineligible because they did not provide child care in their homes and 35.8% of all
types. Nevertheless, the data seem to be reflective of the experiences and services provided by
the different kinds of early care and education providers in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
SURVEY INSTRUMENT
In consultation with early childhood experts, the researchers developed two surveys to
administer via the telephone – one for center-based providers (e.g., child care centers, Head Start
sites, and preschools) and one for the home-based providers (see Appendix A for copies of the
two surveys). The two surveys were as similar as possible except for differences in the nature of
their type of service. The researchers designed the surveys to be completed by the directors of
center-based sites and by the owners of home-based sites. The surveys then were reviewed and
approved by four early care and education provider experts, four Task Force members, and staff
within the State Departments of Education, Health, and Public Welfare to ensure the usefulness
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and appropriateness of the information to be collected. Additionally, to help respondents, OCD
developed separate worksheets for center- and home-based providers that the respondents could
use to gather information that required research (i.e., the annual operating budget, number of
subsidized children enrolled, etc.) prior to completing the telephone interview. These
worksheets were mailed with the introductory information regarding participation in the study.
Sites that completed interviews were sent a check for $25 as a token of appreciation.
STUDY LIMITATIONS
As in all research studies, certain limitations exist in this study that are important to
remember when drawing conclusions and recommendations from the data. These include the
following:
•
Difficulties identifying legally unregulated providers led to subjects being mistakenly
identified as “legally unregulated providers” when they were actually family or group
home providers, which made our sample less representative of the number of various
types of providers. Initially, we completed interviews with 669 providers but discovered
that 32 were incorrectly identified in our database, leaving 637 for analysis.
Additionally, Penn State data collectors discovered three more misclassified sites when
completing the Observational Study; however, these misclassifications would not change
the conclusions at all and would alter the numerical data only slightly.
•
Head Start sites are not open in the summer. Thus, the data collection procedure had to
be amended to permit interviews with the Regional Education Coordinators (rather than
Site Directors) who were not in classrooms on a daily basis and who may or may not
have reported information according to their perceptions or based on how classrooms
should be rather than how they truly are. Thus, Head Start data may or may not be
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skewed to match national monitoring standards rather than true reflections of their current
environments. The Penn State Observational Study will provide an opportunity to match
the data collected during this survey with validated measures of quality to determine their
correlation.
•
It is unclear how much respondents relied on their perceptions to answer data questions
as opposed to their records. In this survey, we asked questions about operating costs, the
educational and ethnic background of staff, and demographic information about
participants, and providers may or may not have consulted their records to complete these
items. Hence, some of the responses may reflect facts while others may reflect
perceptions, particularly for home-based providers who may maintain less complete
records of clients.
•
To develop information on annual and hourly costs, complex calculations were required
that would yield different amounts if calculated under other assumptions (e.g., a full day
equals 10 hours). For instance, we collected information on full-fee parent charges
according to how the providers set their own rates. So, some information was provided
as hourly, daily, or monthly figures, but we developed several assumptions to be able to
compare hourly costs over all sites. Needless to say, if we changed our assumptions, the
final figures would be altered.
FINDINGS
All tables associated with the findings are presented in Appendix B.
GENEARL DESCRIPTION OF PROVIDERS
The following section provides a general description of characteristics of the provider
sample. It focuses on four characteristics – general description of the site, description of staff,
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description of the families and children served, and a description of the types of programs
provided. For the 269 center-based providers participating in the interviews, center directors or
assistant directors provided information for about 83% of the sites (see Table 3). Program
coordinators or some other kind of administrative personnel provided information for the
remaining 17% of center-based sites. Home provider owners (386) provided the information for
all of the home-based sites.
Descriptions of Providers
Sites were classified into one of six provider types depending upon their classification in
the Department of Public Welfare or the Department of Education – Center-based Providers,
which included Child Care Centers, Head Start, and Preschools/Nursery Schools; and Homebased Providers, which included Group Day Care Homes, Family Day Care Homes, and Legally
Unregulated Providers (see Table 1).
Center-based Providers:
•
Child Care Centers were sites registered with the Department of Public Welfare to serve
13 or more children.
•
Head Start were sites registered as national Head Start centers.
•
Preschools/Nursery Schools (Preschools) were sites registered with the Department of
Education.
Home-based Providers:
•
Group Day Care Homes (Group Homes) were sites registered with the Department of
Public Welfare to serve 7 – 12 children.
•
Family Day Care Homes (Family Homes) were sites registered with the Department of
Public Welfare to serve 4, 5, or 6 children.
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Legally Unregulated Home Care Providers (Legally Unregulated) were sites that were
not registered and serve 1 – 3 children.
Location of Providers
Geographic Location. Population density of the county in which a site was located was
used to categorize the providers into three location types. Specifically, counties were rated from
0 (most urban) to 9 (least urban). Metropolitan County referred to counties scoring 0 – 1,
including counties such as Philadelphia, Allegheny, Montgomery, and Westmoreland. Small
City County referred to counties scoring 2 – 5, such as Dauphin, Mercer, and Lancaster. Rural
County referred to counties scoring 6 – 9, such as Elk, Greene, and Monroe. Findings included
the following (see Table 4):
•
A disproportionate number, sometimes more than half of child care centers, Head Start
sites, and preschools, were located in Metropolitan Counties.
•
Of the center-based providers, Head Start sites were more evenly distributed throughout
the State. Specifically, while 26% of Head Start sites were located in Rural Counties,
less than 10% of child care centers or preschools were located in Rural Counties.
•
The majority of home-based care providers were located in Small City Counties.
Institutional/Building Location. In addition to county location, sites were asked to
identify in what type of institution their facilities were located, such as in a public school or a
religious institution (see Table 5), regardless of who operated the service.
•
Approximately half of child care centers (52%) and preschools (46%) were located in
their own, separate centers.
•
Head Start sites were distributed among public schools (30%), child care centers (26%),
and some other kinds of locations (30%).
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Registration with the Department of Public Welfare or the Department of Education
In Pennsylvania, child care providers register with either the Department of Public
Welfare or Department of Education (to achieve recognized status as a “preschool” or “nursery
school”). To become licensed, child care providers must comply with State regulations
regarding certain health and safety issues, including child:staff ratios and group size. Head Start
sites and legally unregulated providers have a special status in Pennsylvania regulations and do
not have to be registered with the State to operate their services. Table 6 in the Appendix
presents information about registration status.
•
All child care centers and preschools were registered either with the Department of
Public Welfare or the Department of Education.
•
One group home and eight (3%) family homes are not registered. Over 95% of group
and family child care homes were registered with the Department of Public Welfare or
the Department of Education.
•
Interestingly, over 35% of the legally unregulated providers and 30% of the Head Start
sites reported that they were registered with one of the State departments. This finding
will be validated by information gained during the observational visit portion of the
study.
For Profit vs. Non-profit Status
Early care and education providers can apply for recognition as non-profit organizations
under Pennsylvania State law, and considerable numbers of early care and education providers
do. By definition, Head Start sites are considered Non-Profit organizations, but virtually all
home-based care providers should be considered “Profit,” except in the very rare cases that they
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are managed by a larger Non-Profit entity. Table 7 presents information about Profit status for
the six types of providers.
•
While the majority of child care centers (55%) and preschools (59%) were Non-Profits,
For-Profit child care centers and preschools are a major segment of this type of service
(over 40%).
•
No For-Profit preschools were located in Rural Counties (see Table 8)
•
Several home-based providers indicated that they had Non-Profit status (9% of group
homes, 18% of family homes, and 43% of legally unregulated homes). It was not clear
whether the home-based care providers understood that Non-Profit status had to be
received by filing with the state; therefore, it is believed that they may have called
themselves “Non-Profit” if they felt that they did not earn much “profit” from their day
care activities.
Religious Affiliation
Significant numbers of religious organizations own, operate, or manage early care and
education programs (see Table 9).
•
Only child care centers had significant numbers of sites that were managed by religious
organizations (21%).
•
Interestingly, ten family homes, two group homes, and one legally unregulated provider
said that they were affiliated with religious organizations.
•
Only one child care center that was managed by a religious organization was located in a
Rural County (see Table 10).
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Accreditation
Few sites that participated in the telephone interviews were accredited, ranging from 4%
of legally unregulated providers to 18% of Head Start sites (see Table 11). Of the center-based
providers that were accredited, the vast majority (about 68%) received their accreditation from
the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) (see Table 12). For
home-based providers, the vast majority received their accreditation from some “other”
accrediting body (over 66%). Because the responses suggested that several of the types of
providers may have misinterpreted the meaning of accreditation, subsequent analyses were
limited to only child care centers and preschools, since these groups have greater access to
professional information about accreditation.
•
Half of the accredited child care centers and two-thirds of the accredited preschools were
located in Metropolitan Counties (see Table 13). Only one accredited preschool was
located in a Rural County. Families living in Metropolitan and Small City Counties have
far greater access to accredited child care centers and preschools than families living in
Rural Counties.
•
While almost two-thirds of For-Profit child care centers were not accredited, less than
half of Non-Profit child care centers were not accredited (see Table 14).
•
In preschools, over one-fifth of Non-Profit preschools were accredited while less than
one tenth of For-Profit preschools were accredited (see Table 15).
•
More Non-Profit child care centers and preschools were accredited while more For-Profit
centers and schools were not accredited.
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Although many centers managed by religious organizations reported that they were
working toward becoming accredited, much fewer were actually accredited compared to
centers that were not managed by religious organizations (see Table 16).
Description of Staff
The survey asked interviewees to identify how many staff they have, the race/ethnicity of
staff, the number of years employed, educational background, and the wages, salaries, and
benefits received by staff. Early care and education workers in Pennsylvania comprised a
diverse range of individuals from various racial and educational backgrounds. For center-based
providers, responses represented information describing 600 directors or assistant directors, over
2,725 primary classroom staff, and 854 aides. For home-based providers, responses represented
information about over 352 owners and 204 home assistants.
Racial/Ethnic Background of Staff
•
Among center-based providers, higher percentages of Directors/Assistant Directors were
Caucasian (87.5%) compared to other races than among Primary Classroom Staff
(81.6%) and Aides (79.7%) (see Table 17). There was somewhat more diversity among
aides.
•
Approximately 20% of group home care owners were African-American, and almost
30% of the aides in family homes were African-American (see Table 17).
Length of Employment and Turnover
•
Among center-based providers, over 60% of directors had been employed and working
with children for over 5 years compared to only 30% of primary classroom staff and 20%
of aides (see Table 17). About 37% of aides had been employed for less than a year
whereas less than 10% of directors had been employed for less than a year.
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Almost two-thirds of group day care home owners had been employed for over five
years; however, only a quarter of legally unregulated providers had been employed for
over five years (see Table 18). Almost half of assistants in homes had been employed for
one to five years.
•
In center-based providers, average staff turnover rates were fairly low by frequently
reported national levels (approximately 30%), ranging from 14% in preschools to 19% in
Head Start sites and 20% in child care centers.
Educational Background of Staff
•
The vast majority of center-based sites haf directors with at least a Bachelor’s degree
(74% of directors in child care centers, 80% of directors in Head Start sites, and 91% of
directors in preschools) (see Table 19). Directors in center-based types of care were far
more highly educated than home-based provider owners (see Table 19 and 21). While
greater than 80% of child care centers, Head Start sites, and preschools had half or more
of their directors with Bachelor’s degrees, less than 20% of group homes, family homes,
and legally unregulated providers had half or more of their directors with Bachelor’s
Degrees (see Table 21).
•
Less than a quarter of primary classroom staff in child care centers had Bachelor’s
degrees, but over half of primary classroom staff in preschools had Bachelor’s degrees
(see Table 20). Within center-based provider types, Head Start sites and preschools had
more highly educated primary classroom staff than did child care centers. While over
70% of Head Start and preschool primary classroom staff had Bachelor’s degrees or
higher, only 39% of primary classroom staff in child care centers had Bachelor’s degrees
or higher (see Table 20).
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Within home-based provider types, legally unregulated homes had more highly educated
assistants than did group and family homes (see Table 22). While 43% of legally
unregulated assistants had a Bachelor’s degree or higher, less than 25% of group and
family homes had assistants with a Bachelor’s degree or higher (see Table 22).
Additionally, only family homes had staff working with the children who had less than an
eighth grade education, and 11% of the family homes had assistants who did not have a
high school diploma or GED.
Wages, Salaries, and Benefits for Staff
Generally, salaries were fairly low for early care and education staff.
•
While directors of child care centers and preschools earned an average of $23,000 in their
first year, Head Start directors reportedly earned almost $35,000 per year in their first
year of employment (see Table 23). It is believed that the high salary for the Head Start
directors may be due to the fact that the Head Start Regional Education Coordinators who
completed interviews may have reported their own salaries rather than the salaries of
Head Start site directors.
•
The average salary for primary classroom staff in center-based programs was about
$17,402 per year and $14,127 per year for aides during their first year of employment.
•
While salaries of home care provider owners varied greatly, they generally were very
low, ranging from $4,000 for legally unregulated providers to $14,000 per year on
average for group home care providers (see Table 24). It is not clear that all home care
provider owners used the same criteria to calculate their yearly salaries. The question to
derive this information asked for reports of how much they made using Schedule C of the
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1040 after expenses or to report how much they paid themselves in salary, and home
owners that were less business oriented may not have known how to respond.
•
While center-based staff received some benefits, very few home-based providers received
benefits (see Table 25). Most center-based staff received paid vacation (84%), paid sick
leave or personal days (80%), health insurance for self (67%), and child care (64%). In
contrast, the only benefit that more than a fourth of home-based care providers received
was child care (43%). Less than a tenth of home-based care providers received health
insurance for self or retirement benefits.
Training for Staff
•
While over half of the center-based providers had received training from the State’s child
care training system, less than a third of home-based providers had received training from
this source (see Table 26).
•
The predominant source of training for center-based providers was on-site training,
particularly for Head Start sites (see Table 27). For homes, the predominant source of
training was “elsewhere” and not the State training system, on-site, professional
conferences or higher education institutions.
•
More center-based providers (36%) indicated that on-site training was the most helpful
source of training, while most home-based providers (27%) indicated that training
received via the State child care training system was most helpful to them followed
closely by other training opportunities (26%) (see Table 28).
•
Internet options may be viable to provide training to early care and education providers
throughout the State, because over two-thirds of all providers reported having access to
the Internet at their sites (see Table 29).
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Head Start staff spent the most time in training of all types of providers with all of their
staff receiving more than 50 hours of training per year on average (see Table 30).
Surprisingly, staff in group and family homes spent more time in training on average than
did staff in preschools (see Table 31).
•
The majority of sites that had more than one staff member helped staff attend training by
paying their registration fees; however, this practice was more common in center- than
home-based providers (see Table 32).
•
While the majority of center-based providers (over three-quarters) paid for staff time to
attend training, less than half of group homes and a quarter of family homes paid staff for
their time to attend training (see Table 33).
Description of Participants
The providers that completed these interviews served 23,094 children of various
racial/ethnic backgrounds and in families of various economic means.
Enrollment
•
Center-based programs were operating at capacity, whereas group and family homes had
enrollments at approximately 80% of capacity (see Table 34), and they provide services
to children with disabilities and children receiving subsidies (see Table 35). Legally
unregulated homes enrolled more children on average than they technically could serve
based on capacity. Family homes were least full regarding their enrollment figures as a
percentage of their capacity.
o Center-based providers were pretty much enrolled to capacity, so increasing
center care will require more centers.
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o Homes were operating at 80% capacity, perhaps because they are caring for their
own children to a great degree.
o Except for Head Start, all other forms of care were willing to take substantially
more children who were on subsidies than they currently enrolled, indicating that
subsidy rates were not so low to inhibit providers from taking subsidized children.
•
Child care centers and preschools had attendance that was approximately 85% of
enrollment and 75% of capacity, creating some degree of inefficiency and unused
capacity.
•
Center-based providers had wide differences in the number of children that they served,
ranging from as few as 8 in child care centers to 597 at a Head Start site (see Table 36).
Ages of Children Served
•
Virtually all sites served preschoolers (98%), but fewer sites served toddlers and infants
(see Table 37). Infants are primarily served in family homes and centers.
•
The greatest percentage of infants were served in legally unregulated homes (29.3%); the
greatest percentage of toddlers were served in family homes (35.3%); and the greatest
percentage of preschoolers were served in Head Start (96.2%) (see Table 38).
Race
•
Head Start was the most ethnically diverse care setting for children, having a 41%
minority population (see Table 39).
•
Preschools were the least ethnically diverse care settings for children, having a 15%
minority population (see Table 39).
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Children Receiving Subsidies
To conduct these analyses, tertile categories were developed to provide high, middle, and
low levels of sites that served subsidized children. At the lowest end, sites serving no children
were a category, followed by sites serving 1 – 5 children, and sites serving 6 or more children at
the highest end.
•
Family homes and legally unregulated providers were least likely to serve children with
subsidies (see Table 40).
•
The majority of child care centers, Head Start sites, preschools, and group homes served
6 or more children with subsidies, ranging from 46% of group homes to 86% of Head
Start sites (see Table 40). On the other hand, the majority of family homes and legally
unregulated providers did not serve any children with subsidies.
Income of Families Served
Providers were classified as serving low-, middle-, or high-income families based on the
percentage of families at their site whom they described as “struggling to make ends meet.”
Based on the assumption that the approximate poverty rate in Pennsylvania is 20% and to
achieve a high-income distribution of about 25% of the sample, we defined low-income as 51%
or more struggling to make ends meet, middle-income as 6 – 50% struggling, and high-income as
0 – 5% struggling to make ends meet. Using these definitions yielded a distribution of 40% lowincome (the inclusion of Head Start families inflated the low-income group), 37% middleincome, and 23% high-income.
•
Fewer low-income families were served in preschools relative to other types of care.
More middle-income families were served in child care centers and preschools, but fewer
were served in legally unregulated homes. More high-income families were served in
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legally unregulated homes (see Table 43), perhaps because legally unregulated providers
interpreted the question differently from other groups based upon their limited experience
providing day care for only a few families.
•
No child care centers, preschools, or group homes that predominately served high-income
families were located in rural settings (see Table 44). There were more child care centers
and preschools that catered to high-income families in urban counties.
•
Middle-income families seemed more likely to choose For-Profit child care centers and
preschools. In For-Profit child care centers and preschools, more families were middleincome status while in Non-Profit centers and schools, fewer families were middleincome (see Table 45).
•
Centers managed by religious organizations tended to be used by middle-income families
more often than low-income families (see Table 46).
•
While more accredited child care centers served high-income families, more accredited
preschools served low-income families (see Table 47).
Description of Programs
Programs for Preschoolers
•
Over 90% of child care centers, Head Start sites, preschools, and group homes used a
written manual, program guide, curriculum, parts of a curriculum, or written lesson plans
to plan what they do with preschoolers (see Table 48). Only 61% of family homes and
49% of legally unregulated homes used written sources to plan activities for preschoolers.
•
Over 90% of providers taught preschoolers colors and shapes; to hop, skip, and move to
music; to play cooperatively; letters; prewriting skills; to count to ten; to cooperate with
teachers; to follow directions; to work independently; to recognize feelings (see Table
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49). Generally, sites reported that they taught many of the necessary skills to help
prepare children for school.
•
All Head Start sites reported that they used developmental assessments to measure
progress (see Table 50). Over two-thirds of child care centers and preschools and almost
60% of group homes used developmental assessments. Only a small minority of legally
unregulated homes (15%) used assessments. The most commonly used assessments was
the Denver Screening Instrument (10%), followed by the Learning Accomplishment
Profile (LAP) (6%) and the Early Learning Accomplishment Profile (ELAP) (5%).
However, the vast majority indicated that some “other” type of assessment was used
(89%).
•
While Head Start sites reported that they engaged in numerous transition activities to help
their participants’ transition to school, most other providers (ranging from only 1/20th of
legally unregulated providers to about half of preschools engaged in 4 of 8 possible
linkages to schools) did not engage in best practices to promote successful transition to
schools (see Table 51).
Programs to Encourage Parent Involvement
•
Over 97% of sites reported that they regularly discussed children’s progress with their
parents (see Table 52). Almost half of the providers reported that they asked parents to
attend meetings, and over 60% suggested activities to do at home and facilitated parent
education activities.
Services for Children with Disabilities
Early care and education providers that participated in these interviews serve 2,763
children with disabilities.
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Over 96% of center-based providers and 56% of home-based providers served at least
one child whom they perceived had a disability.
•
Center-based providers served 588 children with cognitive delays, 560 children with
social and emotional delays, 218 children with physical impairments, and 814 children
with language delays (see Table 53).
•
Home-based providers served 105 children with cognitive delays, 146 children with
social and emotional delays, 56 children with physical impairments, 185 children with
language delays, and 583 children with learning disabilities (see Table 54).
•
The most commonly mentioned problem for which providers had requested assistance
was language and/or speech delays (55%) followed closely by aggressive behavior
problems (51%) (see Table 55).
•
Of the providers that sought and received help to work with children with disabilities,
over 95% reported that the services were helpful (see Table 56).
•
In spite of most services being rated as helpful, over 70% of child care centers and
preschools had to exclude or threatened to exclude a child for aggressive behavior in the
past two years (see Table 57).
CHARACTERISTICS OF PROVIDERS THAT RELATE TO POLICY ISSUES
Several pertinent issues related to important policy concerns in Pennsylvania were
addressed via questions contained in these surveys. These issues included questions about
quality in early care and education sites across the Commonwealth, the impact of accreditation,
staffing needs and concerns, and the cost of care. The following sections review the information
supplied by survey responses that provide direction about these important issues.
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Quality
The research team developed an index of quality based on characteristics of quality programs
as defined in research (Howes, et al., 1995; Iucovish, et al., 2001). The team identified 16
indices of quality that could be assessed based on responses to the survey. For centers that
served 3 – 5-year olds, all 16 indices were used to compute the Quality Index value. For centers
that did not serve 3 – 5-year-olds, 12 indices were used. For homes that served 3 – 5-year olds, 9
indices were used, and for homes that did not serve 3 – 5-year olds, only 5 indices were used.
These indices and the criterion for obtaining “credit” or “passing” that index are given below.
The criteria were taken from the literature and were often levels that distinguished between
medium and good care as measures by scales of teacher-child dynamics (e.g., ITERS, ECERS;
Howes, et al., 1995).
1. Director General Education – half or more directors with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
2. Director’s In-Service Training – directors spend 18 or more hours per year in in-service
training.
3. Director Professional Career – director expects to continue in the profession in the long
term.
4. Director Supervises Staff – director spends 10 or more hours per week monitoring direct
care staff and providing feedback.
5. Staff General Education – 33% or more of teaching staff have college degrees or higher.
6. Staff Specialized Training – 70% of primary teaching staff have CDA or other certificate
or college degree or higher.
7. Staff In-Dervice Training – staff spends 18 or more hours in in-service training on
average.
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8. Staff Turnover Rate – less than 30%.
9. Planned Curriculum – provider regularly uses a written manual, program guide,
curriculum, parts of a curriculum, or written lesson plans.
10. Teach Specific Skills – provider teaches 10 or more of 13 specific socio-emotional and/or
cognitive skills to children in care.
11. Use of Structured Assessments – provider uses a developmental achievement assessment
to guide what is taught to children and to measure progress.
12. Accreditation – accredited by national accrediting or professional organization.
13. Parent Involvement – encourages 3 or more of 4 parent involvement activities.
14. Transition to School – regularly promotes 4 or more of 8 linkages with the public schools
regarding transition to school.
15. Enrolled Group Size – group sizes smaller than professional and State maximum
standards for different ages.
16. Enrolled Child:Staff Ratio – child:staff ratios smaller than professional and State
standards.
The Quality Index was the percentage of relevant indices that were passed. Thus, categories
for low, medium, and high quality were derived based on national research such that 20% were
deemed good, 60% mediocre, and 20% poor on the basis of child care centers and preschools
only. Cut-off scores were as follows:
•
Low Quality – Quality Index less than 0.50 (That is, the site passed fewer than
half of the relevant indices.)
•
Medium Quality – Quality Index greater than or equal to 0.50 but less than 0.70
(i.e., the site passed 50% - 69% of indices).
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High Quality – Quality Index of 0.70 or higher (i.e., the site passed more than
70% of indices).
The Quality Index Score does not reflect social and emotional factors or teacher-child
dynamics, but it does reflect variables that can be subject to regulatory actions. That is to say,
the index of quality used in this report focuses on “structural” quality rather than “process”
quality. Once the Observational Study is completed, the researchers will be able to measure how
closely scores on the Quality Index correspond to assessments techniques that have been
nationally standardized and validated as measures of quality in early care and education
programs.
Using a combination of actual Average Quality Index Scores, mean scores on the 16
individual components of the Quality Index Score, and the three quality categories, several
findings were noted regarding relations between type of provider and quality of care.
•
Head Start demonstrated the highest overall structural quality of any type of provider
while legally unregulated providers scored the worst (see Table 58). All Head Start sites
were of medium- to high-quality with 84% of their sites being rated as high in structural
quality (see Table 59). Generally, center-based types of care were of higher structural
quality than home-based types of care. Forty-two percent of group homes, 68% of family
homes, and 73% of unregulated providers were judged to be of low quality while no
Head Start, 16% of preschools, and 21% of child care centers were of low quality.
•
Rural counties tended to have proportionally more low quality sites (55%) while early
childhood providers located in Metropolitan counties had proportionally more high
quality sites (see Table 60). This finding seemed to be carried by the greater number of
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center-based providers located in Metropolitan counties and the greater use of homebased providers in Rural counties.
•
Directors of Head Start, preschools, and child care centers were more highly educated
than group, family, and legally unregulated home providers (see Table 61).
•
Staff education and training was much better in Head Start and preschools than in child
care centers. Only 29% of child care centers reported that one-third or more of their staff
had college degrees, and only 19% said staff received 18 or more hours of in-service
training per year (see Table 62).
•
Most providers reported that they used a planned curriculum and taught children specific
socio-emotional and cognitive skills; however, few providers, except for Head Start,
actually worked with public schools around transition issues (see Table 63). In short,
providers may work on skills to help children be ready for school, but they do not gather
information to ensure that they are teaching children those skills that will be valued in the
public schools.
•
Findings Relating to Income of Families and Quality:
o Low-income families seemed to be served to greater extent than other income
groups by high quality programs, primarily due to the use of Head Start programs.
Conversely, high-income families were more likely to be served in low quality
sites, primarily due to their use of legally unregulated homes (see Table 64).
Including Head Start, over 64% of the high quality sites in Pennsylvania served
predominately low-income families. Over half of the sites that served highincome families were of low quality. If Head Start sites were not included in the
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analyses, access to low- vs. high-quality sites was more evenly distributed (see
Table 65).
o High-income families seemed to select centers, preschools, and homes with more
educated and specially trained directors and staff, who exhibited fewer turnovers,
than other income groups. Directors apparently did less monitoring of staff and
were less likely to use a planned curriculum, but their centers were more likely to
be accredited. Specifically,
!
In child care centers, no center that served high-income families was of
low quality (see Table 66). Centers that served predominately highincome families also had more educated staff, less turnover (Table 59),
and were more likely to be accredited (see Table 67).
!
In family homes, higher income families tended to choose family home
providers that had more education (see Table 67). But, high-income
families tended to chose group homes and legally unregulated providers
that were less likely to report using a planned curriculum (see Table 59).
!
In child care centers, sites serving low income families had more directors
that spent 10 or more hours per week supervising their staff (see Table
67). Conversely, sites serving high-income families had more staff that
were significantly more educated; thus, directors at these sites may have
felt less of a need to closely monitor their staff.
o Quality within Center-Based Providers Serving 3 – 5 year-olds. Several findings
occurred when looking at relations between quality and the other parameters only
within center-based types of care that served 3 – 5-year olds.
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Head Start sites were of significantly higher quality than preschools and
child care centers. In fact, no Head Start centers were rated as low quality.
!
Not including Head Start, only 5% of sites serving predominately highincome families were of low quality whereas 22% of sites serving middleincome and 24% of sites serving low-income families were of low quality
(see Table 68). Generally, quality was higher in centers and preschools
serving predominately high-income families than in sites serving middleto low-income families.
!
Though few in number, those center-based sites that existed in rural areas
were more likely to be of high quality, primarily due to the relatively high
number of Head Start sites compared to child care centers and preschools
in Rural counties (see Table 69). Of those center-based sites rated as low
quality, a greater proportion (26%) were located in Small City counties.
Generally, ratings of quality varied across location with those in Rural
locations (mean of Quality Index = .6737) being of higher quality than
those in Small City counties (mean of Quality Index = .6428) and than
those in Metropolitan counties (mean of Quality Index = .5967).
However, when analyses were conducted without Head Start, child care
centers and preschools in Metropolitan counties were of higher structural
quality (mean of Quality Index = .6091) than those in Rural counties
(mean of Quality Index = .5941), which were of higher quality than those
in Small City counties (mean of Quality Index = .5521).
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Center-based providers managed by religious organizations were slightly
lower in quality (mean of Quality Index = .5916 vs. 5678). Less than 10%
of high quality child care centers were managed by a religious
organization. In particular, centers managed by religious organizations
had staff that had lower general education and less often used structured
assessments to measure children’s progress.
•
Quality within Home-Based Providers. There were significant differences in quality
when analyzing only across home-based sites that serve children between the ages of 3 –
5 years.
o Group homes (mean of Quality Index = .5701) were significantly higher quality
than were family homes (.4158) than were legally unregulated providers (.3248).
More group homes were of high quality and fewer were of low quality than
family homes or legally unregulated (see Table 58). More legally unregulated
homes were of low quality; furthermore, of those home-based providers that were
rated as high quality (N = 28), only two were legally unregulated providers.
o In contrast to center-based forms of care, home-based providers located in
Metropolitan counties (mean of Quality Index = .4959) were of significantly
higher quality than those located in Small City counties (.4225) and than those
located in Rural counties (.3703). Home-based providers in Metropolitan
counties were less likely to be rated as low quality; moreover, of those sites that
were rated as high quality, more were located in Metropolitan counties and fewer
were located in Rural locations (see Table 70). Thus, rural families tended to use
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home-based types of care more often, and this care was more likely to be of lower
quality.
o Also in contrast to center-based types of care, home-based providers serving lowincome families (mean of Quality Index = .4637) were of higher quality than
those serving middle-income families (mean of Quality Index = .4577) than those
serving high-income families (mean of Quality Index = .3793). Differing from
the centers, home-based providers serving high-income families tended to be of
the lowest quality.
•
Quality Relating to Profit Status. Quality differed for Non-Profit vs. For-Profit child care
centers and preschools (see Table 71). For-Profit status was associated with lower
quality, and of those centers and preschools that were rated as high quality, fewer were
For-Profit. Overall, quality was significantly higher in Non-Profit centers and preschools
(mean Quality Index score = .6208) compared to For-Profit centers and preschools
(.5435). More specifically:
Child Care Centers
o More directors in For-Profit centers were less well educated than directors in
Non-Profit child care centers. Of the child care centers in which less than half of
their directors had at least a Bachelor’s degrees, more were For-Profit than NonProfit sites.
o More For-Profit child care centers had directors that spent less than 18 hours per
year in in-service training compared to Non-Profit centers.
o In child care centers, more sites that had staff that annually participated in 18 or
more hours of in-service training were Non-Profits rather than For-Profit.
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o For-Profit child care centers were less likely to encourage parent involvement.
Preschools
o Staff members in For-Profit preschools were less well trained and participated in
fewer ongoing professional development opportunities than staff in Non-Profit
preschools. Staff members in For-Profit preschools received less specialized
training in preparation to work with young children, such as having a CDA, other
certificate, or a college degree or higher, than staff in Non-Profit preschools.
Additionally, fewer preschool staff members in For-Profit preschools participated
in 18 or more hours of in-service training on an annual basis.
•
Quality Relating to Accreditation Status. Accreditation status significantly related to
quality. In both child care centers and preschools, accredited sites were often of higher
quality. In fact, almost 90% of the accredited preschools were rated as high quality while
no accredited preschools were rated as low quality (see Table 72). Only one accredited
center was rated as low quality. Several significant findings also were apparent within
the individual components of the Quality Index.
o Directors in preschools significantly more often participated in 18 or more hours
of in-service training at sites that were accredited or that were working toward
accreditation.
o In child care centers, staff were significantly more highly educated and more
often had received specialized training to prepare them to work with children in
accredited sites.
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o In preschools, more staff at accredited sites participated in 18 or more hours of inservice training on an annual basis than staff in sites working toward
accreditation, which in turn were more than staff in not accredited sites.
o Parent involvement was one area in which accreditation status for child care
centers did not directly relate to quality. Although child care centers that were
working toward accreditation provided greater parent involvement activities,
accredited sites actually provided fewer involvement activities, looking more
similar to non-accredited sites.
•
Quality Relating to Serving Subsidized Children. While over 60% of high quality sites
served 6 or more children with subsidies, less than 20% of low quality sites served 6 or
more children with subsidies (see Table 41). Furthermore, about half of the low quality
sites did not serve any subsidized children. However, this trend diverged within child
care centers in which almost 80% of the low quality centers served 6 or more subsidized
children while only 64% of high quality centers served 6 or more subsidized children (see
Table 42).
Staffing
Several issues concerning the needs of staff were indicated during the analysis of the
data. These issues focus on training needs and issues that make it challenging to hire staff.
Training Needs
•
On average, center-based providers indicated more training needs than home-based
providers (see Table 73).
•
On average, three-quarters of sites reported that they needed more training in behavior
management, or discipline, of children, and 64% wanted training in helping children get
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along with each other (see Table 73). The next highest training need (68%) was
education and care of children with disabilities.
•
Almost three-quarters of owners of group and family homes had received training in how
to run a home-based business (see Table 74).
•
While 88% of center-based sites reported that they administer medications, not all (71%)
had received training to administer medication (see Table 75). In home-based programs,
79% reported that they administered medication, but only 57% had received training to
do so.
•
Over half of sites (on average) indicated that barriers to attending training included
training being too elementary (63%), lack of funding for substitutes (56%), and inability
to afford training (55%) (see Tables 76, 77, and 78). More center-based providers
indicated concerns regarding barriers to attending training than home-based providers.
Staff Recruitment and Retention
•
Staff turnover rates in center-based providers, while lower than national rates overall
(often estimated to be approximately 30%), varied by quality and income of families
served. The turnover rate was nearly 32% in low quality sites vs. less than 14% in high
quality sites (see Table 79). The turnover rate was 21% in sites serving low-income
families vs. about 12% in sites serving predominately high-income families.
•
Half of child care providers indicated that hiring staff is a big challenge due to a lack of
qualified people (see Table 80).
•
Almost two-thirds of child care providers and over half of preschools indicated that
hiring staff is a big challenge due to low pay (see Table 81).
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Over half of group homes and 64% of family homes indicated that hiring staff is a big
challenge due to inadequate benefits (see Table 82).
Income of Families Served and Staffing Issues
•
Although director’s educational background did not vary substantially by income of
families served across center-based types of providers, primary classroom staff
educational background did vary. While over half of the sites serving predominately
high-income families had staff with a Bachelor’s degree or more, less than a third of sites
serving middle-income families and approximately a quarter of the sites serving lowincome children had such highly educated staff (see Table 83).
•
Conversely within home-based providers, sites serving predominately high-income
families tended to have slightly lower educational backgrounds than sites serving low- to
middle-income families (see Table 84).
•
All staff in Rural counties tended to earn less than staff in Metropolitan and Small City
counties (see Table 85).
•
Salaries of owners of home-based programs that served predominately high-income
families were higher than those that served low- to middle-income families (see Table
86). However, assistants in sites that served predominately high-income families earned
the least.
Quality and Staffing Issues
•
Staff in high quality sites were more highly educated than staff at sites of low- to
medium-quality (see Tables 87 – 89).
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Directors and primary classroom staff in high quality center-based sites tended to be
better compensated than those in lower quality sites (see Table 90). However, aides in
high-quality sites earned less than their colleagues in low- to medium-quality sites.
•
Owners and their assistants in low-quality sites earned the least (see Table 91). However,
high percentages of owners in high-quality sites earned in the lowest and highest quartiles
(45% in the lowest and 40% in the highest), suggesting that some families pay more for
quality programs while others pay less than expected (see Table 92).
Cost of Care
Sites were asked to indicate how much they charge families to attend their programs
separately for infants (0 – 18 months), toddlers (18 – 35 months), and preschoolers (3 – 5 years).
Providers were asked to indicate “full fees” (i.e., the maximum a parent would pay for full-time
attendance) and whether the fees were charged hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly, and then all
figures were recalculated to reflect hourly rates (based on the assumption of 10 hour days, 21.75
work days per month, and 50 weeks per year).
•
Provider Type (see Table 93). The full fees were higher for child care centers and
preschools and less for home-based forms of care regardless of child age; however, the
trend was not as strong for preschoolers. Families paid more for younger children than
older children. The cheapest annual full-fee care for families was for preschoolers in
legally unregulated homes at $4,600 per year, and the most expensive full-fee care was
for infants in preschools at $7,325 per year.
•
Income (see Table 94). Sites charged more when they were serving predominately highincome families across all ages; thus, it appears that fees are charged, to an extent,
according to what families can afford to pay.
Early Care and Education Provider
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Quality Category (see Table 95). Generally, the full fees were higher for high-quality
programs and less for low quality programs; however, sites of medium quality (within
categories of service to particular age groups) had the highest full-fees for toddlers and
preschoolers in home-based sites and for preschoolers in center-based sites. Among
home-based providers, the relation between quality and what families pay was not as
strong as it was for child care centers and preschools. The greatest discrepancy between
high quality and low quality fees was in center-based sites serving toddlers while the
smallest discrepancy was in center-based sites serving infants. Overall, the highest fees
were in high-quality center-based programs serving infants at $7,700 per year, and the
lowest fees were in low quality home-based programs serving preschoolers at $4,975 per
year.
•
Metro Code (see Table 96). Across all provider types and ages, full fees were higher for
providers located in Metropolitan areas and the least for providers located in Rural areas.
The cheapest fees were for toddlers and preschoolers in home-based programs in Rural
locations at $4,575 per year while the most expensive fees were for infants in centerbased programs located in Metropolitan counties at $8,100 per year.
•
Profit Status. Overall, For-Profit centers had slightly higher fees than Non-Profit centers
(see Table 97).
•
Religious Affiliation (see Table 98). Child care centers managed by religious
organizations had lower full fees than those managed by non-religious organizations.
This difference is greatest for preschoolers ($.24 per hour) and least for toddlers ($.06).
•
Accreditation (see Table 99). In child care centers and preschools, accredited sites had
higher fees. Interestingly, sites working toward accreditation had the lowest fees for
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infants and preschoolers; however, analyses of their reported yearly operating costs
revealed that those working toward accreditation cost the most to run (see Table 100.
Apparently, sites that were working to become accredited were not, or not yet, passing on
their greater costs to parents in the form of higher parent fees.
Financial Help to Families
Questions were asked to determine if sites offered financial assistance to families either
directly or by providing information to them about subsidies. Furthermore, if sites responded
that they directly offered financial assistance, they were asked how they offered the assistance –
either via sliding fees or scholarships. Although 75% of sites did not directly offer financial
help, over 78% reported that they provided information to parents about subsidies. Results
included the following:
•
Center-based providers were more likely to offer direct financial assistance than homebased types of providers (see Table 101).
•
In centers, sites serving low- to mid-income families offered slightly more direct forms of
financial support to families (see Table 102). Interestingly, the trend was reversed within
group homes and legally unregulated providers. In both types of providers, slightly more
assistance was offered to high-income families (see Table 102). Scholarships tended to
dominate the type of assistance offered compared to sliding fees (see Table 103).
•
High-quality sites were more likely to offer direct financial assistance to families than
were low quality sites (see Table 104). While only 13% of low quality sites offered
assistance, over half of high quality sites reported that they offered financial assistance to
families.
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Most providers shared information with parents about subsidies, ranging from a low of
49% of legally unregulated homes sharing information to highs of 94% of Head Start
sites and group homes sharing information (see Table 105).
•
More providers shared information with parents about subsidies if they were serving
higher numbers of low-income families (see Table 106). However, group homes serving
high-income families also were likely to share information with parents about subsidies.
Sites Having Difficulty Making Ends Meet
Sites were asked to indicate how difficult it was for them to “make ends meet” financially
to keep their services going. Sites could indicate that it was very, somewhat, or not at all
difficult.
•
Provider Type (see Table 107). Child care centers were more likely to say that they were
having difficulty making ends meet. Over a third indicated that it was “very” difficult
for them, while less than one in five reported that it was “not at all” difficult. On the
opposite end of the spectrum, legally unregulated providers reported the least difficulty
making ends meet, with 60% reporting that it was “not at all” difficult for them.
•
Income (see Table 108). Generally, sites were serving high-income families reported the
least amount of financial difficulties. While over half of the sites serving high-income
families felt that they had no difficulties, a little more than a third of sites serving
middle-income families and one quarter of sites serving low-income families reported
that they had no difficulties. Moreover, this tendency ran true in virtually all provider
types.
•
Quality Category (Table 109). Of the sites that had a very difficult time making ends
meet, over half were of medium quality, and approximately another third were low
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quality. However, medium and low quality sites were more likely to report that they had
no difficulty at all except within preschools. Over 88% of low quality preschools
indicated some difficulty making ends meet, which was a higher percentage that reported
difficulty compared to medium and high quality preschools.
CONCLUSIONS
•
Head Start demonstrated the best quality on multiple structural dimensions. Head
Start sites had the highest overall structural quality rating, and no Head Start site was
rated as low quality (see Figure 1). Head Start staff were the most highly educated and
engaged in the most on-going professional development training. Head Start programs
also showed high rates of providing the best practices for transitioning children to school,
using developmental assessments to measure children’s progress, and encouraging parent
involvement. Additionally, Head Start was the best geographically distributed of the
center-based types of providers, with over a quarter of sites being located in rural
counties.
Figure 1: Percentage of Providers of Low, Medium,
and High Quality
Average
285
244
Legally Unregulated
108
45
Family Homes
6 2
171
Group Homes
65
26
Preschools
9
27
31
Head Start 0 8
Child Care Centers
13
16
42
34
0%
13
107
20%
40%
60%
22
80%
100%
Number and Percentage of Providers
Low
Medium
High
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Most center-based early care and education programs were non-profit entities, and
non-profit programs tended to have lower fees for families yet offered higher quality
and were more often accredited. Non-Profit sites received higher quality ratings
primarily because their directors were more highly educated and both directors and staff
obtained more in-service training on an annual basis.
•
Rural counties lacked access to center-based programs and accredited facilities. The
relatively few non-Head Start center-based programs available in rural counties were
high quality; however, rural counties had fewer accredited sites, sites managed by
religious organizations, or sites serving high-income families. Generally, there was a
lack of quality early care and education programs in rural counties because of the greater
reliance on home-based forms of care (see Figure 2). Additionally, rural staff earned less
than staff in other counties.
Figure 2: Percentage of Providers Located in
Different Types of Counties
Legally Unregulated
Family Homes
Rural County
Group Homes
Small City County
Metropolitan County
Preschools
Head Start
Child Care Centers
0
20
40
Percentage of Providers
60
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High-income families appeared to choose higher quality center programs but lower
quality homes. In this sample, fewer center-based sites served predominately highincome families than expected; however, those that did serve high-income families
tended to be of high quality, had more highly educated staff, and were accredited.
Conversely, home-based sites serving predominately high-income families tended to have
staff with lower educational backgrounds and to be of lower quality than were sites
serving low- to middle-income families. Thus, it was not clear what criteria higher
income families used to choose home-based services for their children, but it did not
appear to be based primarily on the educational background of staff.
•
Center-based early care and education providers tended to be of higher structural
quality and charged higher full fees than did home-based programs. Child care
centers and preschools charged higher full fees than did home-based care, and full fees
were higher for higher quality and accredited programs. To offset the cost of quality,
high-quality sites offered more direct financial assistance to families than did low-quality
sites. Also, staff tended to earn more in center-based sites than in home-based settings.
Interestingly, although center-based staff had more education than home-based providers,
both staffs generally had equal amounts of experience working with children.
•
Center-based programs provided more planned curricular experiences and
programs for preschoolers that relate to improved school readiness than did homebased programs. While over 90% of child care centers, Head Start sites, preschools, and
group homes reported that they used a written manual, program guide, curriculum, parts
of a curriculum, or written lesson plans to plan what they do with preschoolers, only
about half of family homes and legally unregulated providers used written sources to plan
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activities. Moreover, few providers, except for Head Start, worked with public schools
regarding transition issues; more center-based providers engaged in these kinds of
activities than did home-based providers. Finally, more center-based providers used
developmental assessments to measure their participants’ progress than did the homebased providers.
•
In child care centers and preschools, accreditation related to increased structural
quality. Accredited child care centers and preschools scored higher on the Structural
Quality Index than sites working toward accreditation and sites that were not accredited
(see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Structural Quality Index Scores of Child
Care Centers and Preschools by Accreditation Status
0.591
0.6146
Preschools
Not Accredited
0.8176
Working Toward
Accreditation
Accredited
0.537
0.5788
0.6791
Child Care
Centers
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Structural Quality Index Score
•
Although the subsidy rate approached the full-fees charged to parents, full-fee
charges and subsidy payments did not meet all expenses associated with operating
early childhood care and education programs. Full fee charges accounted for only
69% of the operating budgets for sites, and the other 31% of the budgets came from
subsidies and government/private grants (see Figure 4). The subsidy rate approximated
full-fees for 10-hour days.
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Figure 4: Percentage of Budget from Parent
Charges, Subsidies/Government Sources, and
Private Sources
2.54
Parent Charges
26.68
Subsidies/Government
Sources
Private Sources
69.08
•
When sites had higher fees, they reported less difficulty meeting operating expenses.
Sites serving predominately high-income families charged more, paid their staff more,
and reported less difficulty making ends meet. More low- to medium-quality sites
indicated difficulty making ends meet. Child care centers reported the most difficulty
meeting operating expenses.
•
Salaries were fairly low for all early care and education staff, and benefits were few,
particularly in homes. In fact, the biggest issues that sites cited in attracting new staff
were low pay for center-based programs and inadequate benefits for home-based
programs.
•
Staff turnover in early care and education programs varied with quality and the
income of the families served. While the average turnover was 19%, it neared 33% in
low quality sites and 21% in sites serving predominately low-income families (as
opposed to an average of 12% in sites serving predominately high-income families).
•
Center-based staff indicated more training needs, actually received more training,
and were more highly connected with the Pennsylvania child care training system
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than home-based staff; however, most providers reported several barriers to
attending and benefiting from training. Over half of center-based providers received
training through the Pennsylvania child care training system, and they rated the state
training system as the second most helpful source of training for them (behind on-site
training). However, over half of all providers indicated that lack of funding and inability
to afford training were significant barriers to attending training. Home-based providers
generally participated in less in-service training and reported less need for training than
center-based staff, and it was not clear who provided training to home-based providers
who had reported receiving it.
•
Sites needed more training in behavior management and working with children
with disabilities; however, there were concerns that training was too elementary.
On average, 75% of sites indicated that they needed more training in the discipline of
children, and in fact, 71% of child care centers and preschools excluded or threatened to
exclude a child for aggressive behavior in the past two years. Additionally, over half of
sites reported that they sought assistance to deal with aggressive behavior problems.
Over 96% of center-based programs and 56% of home-based programs reported caring
for a child with disabilities, and 68% of providers said they wanted more training in
caring for children with disabilities. However, 63% of providers reported concerns that
the training they had received was too elementary, which must be considered when
developing training to address their needs.
RECOMMENDATIONS
•
To improve quality for low-income children, the Commonwealth should consider
expanding Head Start so it and its collaborating organizations can operate full-day,
Early Care and Education Provider
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46
full-year, and for more eligible children. In Pennsylvania, Head Start showed the
highest structural quality, has the best educated directors and staff, serves more
children with disabilities than other types of programs, is geographically well
distributed especially in rural areas, has an established administrative infrastructure,
and has national standards and a monitoring system. Yet Head Start is primarily a
part-day (3-6 hours per day) part-year (does not operate in the summer) program, and
only half of the income- and age-eligible children in Pennsylvania are enrolled.
Therefore, in its current configuration, Head Start is insufficient to meet the needs of
many low-income families who must be engaged in employment or related activities
full-time all year given current federal proposals.
•
A public information campaign on the nature and importance of quality in early
childhood services should be considered as a way to improve quality of and
access to early care and education programs. Parents would more likely pick
quality if it were available, accessible, and affordable to each family.
•
Both parents and providers of early childhood services need additional financial
support. Early childhood services have always represented an exception to market
forces, because they cost too much for parents to pay and they pay too little for
providers to earn. The average full-fee for centers and preschools in Pennsylvania is
$5,950 for preschoolers, $6,825 for toddlers, and $7,425 for infants a year per child,
and the average first-year teacher wage is $17,250. While state subsidies are
approximately at these full-fee levels, only 69% of a provider’s budget comes from
parent fees, the remainder from subsidies and government/private grants. In fact, a
study by the Keystone Research Center (2001) recommended that Pennsylvania phase
Early Care and Education Provider
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47
in a new approach to setting child care subsidies that is based on the actual cost of
delivering quality care in each county. Clearly, support is needed for both parents
and providers.
•
Early childhood providers operated by religious organizations that receive
government subsidies should be held to the same standards of quality as
providers managed by non-religious organizations. The data show that centers
operated by religious institutions are no better and sometimes of lower structural
quality than those not operated by a religious institution. Religious institutions that
receive government subsidies should be expected to provide the same quality of care
as other providers.
•
The quality of family, group home, and legally unregulated care that receives
government subsidies should be improved. Family, group homes, and legally
unregulated care is approximately 20-25% less expensive than centers and
preschools, but they are also lower in quality. Caregivers in homes have the lowest
levels of education (88% do not have Bachelors degrees) and training (i.e., more than
half of home-based providers profess not to need in-service training). Although
parents should be able to choose whomever they wish to care for their young
children, the State should require and provide training and financial incentives for
homes that receive public subsidies to achieve a reasonable quality of care.
•
A rating system, such as Keystone Stars, could encourage and recognize quality
and financially reward its attainment. The data show that centers and preschools
that are accredited by professional organizations (principally NAEYC) are of better
structural quality than those seeking but not yet attaining accreditation and those that
Early Care and Education Provider
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48
are not seeking accreditation. Thus, becoming accredited does not simply reward an
already high-quality site with a certificate but actually encourages improvement in the
quality of that site in the process. This finding supports the rationale for
Pennsylvania’s Keystone Stars, which should provide a recognizable “certification”
to sites that they can advertise, and reward sites financially according to their level of
quality.
•
In-service training should be made more relevant to providers’ needs and more
financially affordable.
o Providers report they need training in a variety of topics, especially behavior
management (e.g., of aggressive children) and caring for children with
disabilities.
o Providers need more training on helping children make the transition to school.
o In-service training needs to be appropriate and affordable.
•
Pennsylvania should work toward the National Academy of Science
recommendation that every group of children in care should be led by a
“teacher” who has a Bachelors degree in early childhood development, care, and
education. Currently in Pennsylvania, approximately 78% of center, 61% of Head
Start, and 42% of preschool teachers and 82% of home-based staff do not have a
Bachelors degree in any field. The general education of the classroom teacher is one
of the single strongest correlates of beneficial child outcomes, especially when
coupled with specific training in early childhood development, care, and education.
The State should consider ways to financially encourage an educated and well-trained
Early Care and Education Provider
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49
staff, both by supporting individuals to obtain such education and by supporting
providers to employ them.
FUTURE RESEARCH
There were important areas regarding early care and education providers that the research
team would have liked to explore; however, given the short timeframe of the Task Force
research, it was not feasible. Additionally, further questions became apparent after conducting
the analyses reflected in this executive summary and in the full report. The following
suggestions reflect issues to explore in future research.
•
Develop and maintain a periodic monitoring system that would document and guide
continuous improvements in the varied types of early care and education providers.
The data from this survey provided a baseline of the characteristics of early care and
education providers in Pennsylvania and could be used to measure the impact of future
initiatives and policy decisions and to identify new challenges confronting providers.
•
Evaluate provider needs and ability to adequately educate and care for young
children with disabilities and behavioral health challenges. Compared to findings in a
1989 assessment of providers, far more providers have children with special needs and/or
behavioral health challenges in their care. A more thorough examination of the nature of
the children’s needs and how providers strive to address these needs is justified.
•
Examine the relationship between structural quality, as measured in this study, and
classroom dynamics, as will be measured in the Penn State Quality Study. It will be
important to identify how the structural variables impact classroom dynamics to
determine those aspects of quality that can or should be amended by legislative or
regulatory changes to improve the overall quality of programs.
Early Care and Education Provider
•
Page
Evaluate the use of incentives and their impact on quality and staff turnover.
Incentives can be geared to programs to improve quality (e.g., Keystone Stars) or to
individuals (e.g., TEACH or loan forgiveness programs). As these methods are used to
strengthen early childhood care and education programs, they should be evaluated to
measure their effectiveness.
•
Periodically measure children’s developmental status to identify the impact of
participation in different types of early care and education programs and of
program changes. Although this study (coupled with the Quality Study to be
completed) will provide information about the quality of programs, it is necessary to
measure the children’s progress to identify the critical variables associated with quality
and how they impact child outcomes.
50
Early Care and Education Provider
Page
REFERENCES
Howes, C, Smith, E. & Galinsky, E. (1995). The Florida Child Care Quality
Improvement Study: Interim Report. New York: Families and Work Institute.
Iucovish, J., Fiene, R., Johnson, J., Koppel, R. & Langan, F. (2001). Professional
development and the quality of child care: An assessment of Pennsylvania’s child care training
system. Early Education and Care and Reconceptualizing Play, 11, 115 – 168.
51
Center-based Provider Survey
Page 1
APPENDIX A – SURVEY INSTRUMENTS
Early Childhood Task Force
Early Care & Education Provider Survey – Center Care, Preschools, & Head Start
Introduction
Hello, you should have received a letter from the Governor’s Office last week
informing you that University of Pittsburgh specialists would call to ask you to
complete a telephone survey to assess needs in early care and education across
the state. Specifically, we are asking that you participate in this telephone
interview to gather information that would be available to inform state policies.
As a way of thanking you for completing this survey, we will send you a $25
check.
We want to assure you that, while the surveys ask for identifying information, we
don’t intend to release identifying information to anyone for any purpose, except
the research team or in the unlikely event they would be subpoenaed. We ask
for this information in case we have any questions regarding your responses and
need to contact you directly.
This interview will take about 30 minutes. Is this a good time to complete it? [IF
NOT, SCHEDULE A CALL BACK TIME.]
Do you have any questions before we get started?
Great, just let me clarify some information about your center. Your name is …,
and your center is ….. [CLARIFY THE NAME OF RESPONDENT, TELEPHONE
NUMBER, ORGANIZATION, TYPE OF SITE, PROFIT STATUS, AND
REGISTRATION STATUS BASED ON SPREADSHEET INFORMATION.]
Respondent information
Name of respondent: _________________________________________________________
Telephone number:___________________________________________________________
Organization: ______________________________________________________________
Type of Site
INTERVIEWER – INDICATE THE TYPE OF SITE BY CHECKING THE
APPROPRIATE BOX
! Child Care Center (13 or more children)
! Head Start or Early Head Start
! Preschool/Nursery School
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1. What is your title? [ASK IN INTRODUCTION]
a. Director
b. Assistant Director
c. Program Coordinator
d. Home caregiver
e. Other (specify)_______________________________________
2. Are you a for-profit or a non-profit site?
a. Yes (non-profit)
b. No (for-profit)
3. Are you registered by the Department of Public Welfare, Department of Education, or
both? [INTERVIEWER – INDICATE ALL THAT APPLY]
a. PA Department of Public Welfare Certificate of Compliance
b. PA Department of Education, including a private academic school license
c. No, not registered
4. Where is your facility located, such as in a public or private school, an independent
center, a home, or in a religious institution?
a. Public school
b. Non-public or private school
c. Child care center
d. Private home
e. Church/synagogue or other religious institution
f. Other (specify) _________________________________________
5. Is your site owned, operated, or managed by a religious organization? (This does not
include simply occupying or renting space in a religious building.)
a. Yes
b. No
[INTERVIEWER – CODE AS “No, not accredited” and SKIP TO #8 IF
UNREGULATED]
6. Is your center accredited by any professional organization, or are you working toward
accreditation?
a. Yes
b. Working toward accreditation
c. No, not accredited [SKIP TO #8]
7. If accredited or working toward accreditation – By whom? (INDICATE ALL
THAT APPLY)
a. National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
b. National Child Care Association (NCCA)
c. Council on Accreditation of Services for Children and Families (COA)
Center-based Provider Survey
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d. National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC)
e. Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI)
f. Other (specify) ____________________________________
[SKIP TO #9]
8. If not accredited – What are some reasons that you are not accredited? [OPEN
ENDED RESPONSE ]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
The next set of questions focuses on the cost of operating your facility. Please
answer to the best of your ability.
Funding Characteristics
9. What is your total yearly operating budget for this site? $___________
a. Do you receive donated space or space at a substantially reduced cost that is
not included in the figure that you just gave for your operating budget?
1. Yes
2. No
10. What percentage of your operating budget comes from parent charges, from public
subsidies or the government, or from private sources such as foundations or
corporations?
a. From parent charges? _______________%
b. From public subsidies or government? _____________%
c. From private sources (e.g., foundations or corporations)?_____________%
[INTERVIEWER – SKIP TO #14 IF DO NOT COLLECT PARENT CHARGES.]
11. Do you serve [INSERT CATEGORY]?
a. Infants (0-17 months)
b. Toddlers (18 – 35 months)
c. Children ages 3 – 5 years
Yes
1
1
1
No
2
2
2
12. What is the full charge (that is, the maximum paid by a parent for one child) for each
age group of children you serve? Please specify whether the charge is hourly, part
day, full day, weekly, or monthly. [INTERVIEWER –MAKE SURE RESPONDENT
INDICATES THE HIGHEST NORMAL FEE PAID BY PARENTS, NOT
INCLUDING DISCOUNTS FOR SPECIAL FEES. ONLY COMPLETE ONE
Center-based Provider Survey
Page 4
FIGURE PER LINE, EXCEPT IF RATE IS DIFFERENT FOR DIFFERENT
BILLING PERIODS.] [do you serve these ages and how do they pay]
a. For infants (0 – 17
months), what is the charge?
b. For toddlers (18 – 35
months), what is the charge?
c. For children ages 3 – 5
years, what is the charge?
Hourly
$_____
Part Day
$_______
Full Day
$_______
Weekly
$_______
Monthly
$_______
$_____
$_______
$_______
$_______
$_______
$_____
$_______
$_______
$_______
$_______
13. Do you offer some kind of sliding fee, scholarship, or other special financial help to
low-income families, other than government subsidies, to help them afford your
services?
a. Yes – If yes - Is it a sliding fee scale based upon family income or a
scholarship or other kind of fee reduction?
1. Sliding fee scale based upon family income
2. Scholarships or other fee reductions
b. No
14. How many children do you have whose charges are paid for fully or in part by
subsidies, government funds, or another agency? Number of children receiving
subsidies ________________#
15. What is the maximum number of full time children receiving subsidies that you could
enroll? Maximum enrollment of full time subsidized
children_________________#
16. Do you provide information to parents about government subsidies for child care?
a. Yes
b. No
17. How difficult is it for you to make ends meet to keep your center going – very
difficult, somewhat difficult, or not at all difficult?
a. Very difficult
b. Somewhat difficult
c. Not at all difficult
18. When did you last increase your charges?
a. Month ___ Year___ [BE SURE TO PROBE FOR ESTIMATE OF MONTH
AND YEAR]
b. New program so N/A
c. Never [SKIP TO #20]
19. The last time you raised your charges, what was the average percentage increase?
__________%
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In this section, we would like to obtain information about the characteristics of the
staff at your site, including information about the number employed, their length
of employment at your facility site, their race, educational background and salary
history. The following categories will be used to group the type of staff that you
may have: Director/Program Coordinator, Primary Classroom Staff (includes
Group and Assistant Group Supervisors or Teachers and Teaching Assistants
but not aids), and Aids. [INTERVIEWER NOTE – ONLY READ DEFINITIONS IF
THEY ASK FOR CLARIFICATION OF STAFF CATEGORIES—HELP SCREEN]
Director/Program Coordinator/Assistant Director – A director is
responsible for the general management of the facility, including the
following minimum duties: (1) Administering finances, personnel,
maintenance, meal planning and preparation and transportation.
(2) Administering the facility’s program objectives and activities.
(3) Designating a staff person who is responsible for compliance
with this chapter in the Director’s absence. (4) Coordinating and
planning daily activities with the group supervisors or with the
assistant group supervisors in school-age program. (5) Overall
program planning. (6) Written evaluation of staff persons on a
regular basis, a minimum of one evaluation every 12 months.
Primary Classroom Staff includes Group Supervisor/Assistant
Group Supervisor/Teacher/Teaching Assistant – A group
supervisor is responsible for the following minimum duties:
(1) Planning and implementing daily program activities.
(2) Coordinating activities of assistant group supervisors and aides.
(3) Assisting the director with designated activities. An assistant
group supervisor is responsible for the following minimum duties:
(1) Assisting in the implementation of daily activities under the
guidance of the group supervisor. (2) Coordinating daily activities
and supervising aides in the absence of the group supervisor.
Aide– An aide is responsible for assisting in the implementation of
daily program activities.
Staff Characteristics
Demographic Information
20. Our first set of questions focuses on demographic information about your staff.
[INTERVIEWER – COMPLETE EACH COLUMNS FOR ROWS 1, 2, AND 3
BEFORE GOING TO THE NEXT COLUMN.]
a. DIRECTOR/PROGRAM COORDINATORS. (a1, a2, a3)
b. PRIMARY CLASSROOM STAFF (b1, b2, b3)
c. AIDES (c1, c2, c3)
.
Center-based Provider Survey
Page 6
a
Director/Assistant
Director/Program
Coordinator
b
Primary
Classroom Staff
C
Aide
First of all, how many [INSERT STAFF
CATEGORY] do you employ?
1. Employment
How many [INSERT STAFF CATEGORY] are
on your payroll full-time?
How many [INSERT STAFF CATEGORY] are
on your payroll part-time?
2. Race/ethnicity - What is the race/ethnicity of the
[INSERT STAFF CATEGORY]?)
African-American/Black
Caucasian/White
Asian/Pacific Islander
Latino/Hispanic
Other (specify) __________________
3. Length of employment at center
How many [INSERT STAFF CATEGORY]
have been employed for less than 1 year?
How many [INSERT STAFF CATEGORY]
have been employed 1 to 5 years?
How many [INSERT STAFF CATEGORY]
have been employed for more than 5 years?
Educational Background
21. In the next question, we’d like to know about the highest level of education attained
by your staff.
a. What is the HIGHEST level of education attained by the Director/Program
Coordinator(s)?
b. You mentioned that you have a total of [INSERT NUMBER] Primary
Classroom Staff, what is the (are their) highest education level(s) attained?
[INTERVIEWER, ENTER APPROPRIATE NUMBERS FOR EACH CELL BASED
ON RESPONSE. PROBE IF RESPOND THAT A STAFF PERSON HAS LESS THAN
A HIGHSCHOOL DEGREE TO FIND OUT IF IT’S LESS THAN 8TH GRADE.]
Less than 8th grade education
Less than high school diploma but more than
8th grade education
High school diploma or GED
Certificate, credential or Associate Degree
(including Child Development Associate)
Bachelor Degree
Master’s, Doctorate, or other advanced degree
a. Director/Assistant
Director/Program
Coordinator
b. Primary Classroom
Staff, not including
Aides
[INTERVIEWER NOTE: THIS SHOULD ADD UP TO SAME TOTALS AS IN 20]
Center-based Provider Survey
Page 7
22. Do any of your Directors or Program Coordinators also function as primary care or
teaching staff on a regular basis?
a. Yes
1. How many function in this dual capacity? _______
b. No
Wage and Salaries
23. Next, we would like to find out about average salaries in the first and fifth years of
employment for staff in various positions.
a. For Director/Program Coordinator(s), what is the average salary in the first
year? In the fifth year? Is that number hourly, monthly, or annual? [a1, a2]
b. For Primary Classroom Staff, what is the average salary in the first year? In
the fifth year? Is that number hourly, monthly, or annual? [b1, b2]
c. For Aides, what is the average salary in the first year? In the fifth year? Is that
number hourly, monthly, or annual? [c1, c2]
a. Director/Assistant
Director/Program
Coordinator
b. Primary Classroom Staff
c. Aides
1. In their first year?
2. In their fifth year?
Benefits and Vacation
24. Do full-time staff receive any of the following types of benefits?
a. Paid vacation
b. Health insurance for self
c. Health insurance for family members
d. Retirement benefits
e. Child care (includes free or reduced care in your facility)
f. Paid sick leave/personal days
Yes No
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
2
25. Do part-time staff receive any benefits?
a. If yes – Are they equal to full-time benefits, or are they pro-rated based on the
number of hours worked?
1) Equal to benefits received by full-time employees
2) Benefits are pro-rated based on hours worked
3) Other (specify) _________________________________
b. No
This next section focuses on training needs and recruiting and retaining staff.
Please provide your best assessment of what would be beneficial to prepare and
retain staff in early childhood programs.
Center-based Provider Survey
Page 8
Training and Professional Development
26. Please indicate the average hours per year that a typical staff person at your center
spends in in-service workshops or receiving training to enhance their professional
skills?
a. Director/Assistant Director/Program Coordinator: __________ hours
b. Primary Classroom Staff: ___________ hours
c. Aide: __________ hours
27. Does your organization pay for training expenses, such as registration fees, for staff
to attend training for at least 6 hours?
a. Yes, full payment
b. Yes, partial payment
c. No
28. Does your organization pay staff for at least 6 hours of staff’s time to attend training?
a. Yes, at full wages
b. Yes, at part wages
c. No
29. Has any of your staff have received training from any of the following sources in the
past year? [INTERVIEWER—HELP SCREEN=
[KURC=Keystone University Research Corporation]
[PAEYC=Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children]
[DVAEYC=Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children]
[PACCA=Pennsylvania Child Care Association]
[TEACH=Teacher Education And Compensation Helps]
a. From the child care training system (e.g., Pathways (old
KURC) or local contractors)
b. On-site (e.g., mentoring, consulting, technical assistance)
c. At professional conferences (e.g., PAEYC, DVAEYC,
PACCA)
d. At higher education institutions (e.g., TEACH)
e. Any other sources? (specify) _________________
Yes
1
No
2
1
1
2
2
1
1
2
2
[SKIP TO #31 IF DID NOT RECEIVE ANY TRAINING OR IF ONLY RECEIVED
ONE TYPE OF TRAINING.]
30. You reported that staff received training at [INSERT RESPONSES WHERE THEY
SAID “YES” TO 29]. Of these, which source of training was most useful?
a. Child care training system (KURC or local contractors)
b. On-site (e.g., mentoring, consulting, technical assistance)
c. Professional conferences (e.g., PAEYC, DVAEYC)
Center-based Provider Survey
Page 9
d. Higher education institutions (e.g., TEACH)
e. Other
31. On average, what is your best estimate of how much your organization spends on
training and professional development on an annual basis? $__________________
32. Does your facility have a computer with access to the Internet?
a. Yes
b. No
33. In which of the following areas do you feel that your staff, new or current, need more
training?
a. Training areas:
Yes No
Training areas:
a) Health and safety practices
1
2
b) Education and care of infant/toddler ages birth to 34 months
1
2
c) Education and care of children ages 3 – 5 years
1
2
d) Education and care of young children with disabilities
1
2
e) Working with families
1
2
f) Early number skills
1
2
g) Early literacy skills (reading, writing)
1
2
h) Early language skills
1
2
i) Helping children get along with others
1
2
j) Behavior management (e.g., discipline)
1
2
k) Measuring children’s progress
1
2
l) Classroom management/organization of a group of children
1
2
[INTERVIEWER – SKIP TO #34 IF ONLY INDICATE ONE OR TWO TRAINING
AREA NEEDS]
b. You said that your staff need more training in [INTERVIEWER READ
BACK THE AREAS MENTIONED]. Of these, in which two areas is there
the greatest need for more training?
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Health and safety practices
Education and care of infant/toddler ages birth to 34 months
Education and care of children ages 3 – 5 years
Education and care of young children with disabilities
Working with families
Early number skills
Early literacy skills (reading, writing)
Early language skills
Helping children get along with others
Behavior management (e.g., discipline)
Measuring children’s progress
Classroom management/organization
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34. Do you feel that Directors and Program Coordinators need more training in program
administration (that is addressing the fiscal, business, and personnel issues related to
running a center)?
a. Yes
b. No
35. How often would you say that each of the following are issues for obtaining training
for you or your staff: always, sometimes, or never.
a) Cannot afford training costs (e.g., registration fees)
b) Staff are not paid for the time they spend in training
c) Staff are not interested in training beyond the required 6
hours
d) Training opportunities are not accessible
e) Training is too elementary
f) Lack of funding for substitutes to replace those
attending training
Always
an issue
Sometimes
an issue
Never
an
issue
1
1
2
2
3
3
1
2
3
1
1
2
2
3
3
1
2
3
Recruitment and Retention of Staff
36. Have any regular (whether full-time or part-time) staff members left the center in the
last 12 months?
a. Yes [INTERVIEWER COMPLETE IN THIS SEQUENCE: a1, a2, b1, b2, c1,
c2]
1. How many [INSERT CATEGORY] left in
the past year? This number can apply to
several people that have left the same
position.
2. What was the average time required to fill
the vacancies?
b. No
a. Director/Assistant
Director/Program
Coordinators
______#
b. Primary
Classroom
Staff
___ #
c. Aides
___ #
37. On a scale of “1” – “Not at all a challenge” to “5” – “A big challenge,” please rate
how much of a challenge the following issues are when recruiting and retaining staff
(including directors and program coordinators)? [LIKERT SCALE 1-5 FOR NOT AT
ALL A CHALLENGE TO VERY BIG CHALLENGE]
Center-based Provider Survey
Page 11
Not at all
a
challenge
a. High competition with other
employers
b. Lack of availability of qualified
people who meet acceptable
standards
c. My site location is undesirable
d. Hours are too long or inconvenient
e. Lack of advancement
opportunities
f. The stress of the job
g. Low pay
h. Inadequate benefits
i.
Neutral
A big
challenge
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
1
2
2
3
3
4
4
5
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
3
4
4
4
5
5
5
Any other challenges?
____________________________________________________
38. Do you see yourself continuing in this line of work in the long term, or is this
temporary?
a. Continue long term
b. Temporary
In this next section, we would like to get some information about the types of
children and families that attend your programs.
Participants
39. What percentage of families that you serve is struggling to make ends meet? ____%
40. What is the racial or ethnic breakdown of children in your program? Please provide
the actual number of children for each racial or ethnic category.
a. African-American/Black ________#
b. Caucasian/White ____________#
c. Asian/Pacific Islander _________#
d. Latino/Hispanic ______________#
e. Other (specify)___________ #
41. Assuming every child were full time, we’d like to know about the number enrolled,
your capacity to serve, the average attendance, number of staff, and number of rooms
or classes for the full time children you serve by age group.
a. For infants, ages 0 – 17 months, what’s the number enrolled? Your capacity?
The average daily attendance? The number of staff? The number of rooms for
infants?
Center-based Provider Survey
Page 12
b. For toddlers, ages 18 – 35 months, what’s the number enrolled? Your
capacity? The average daily attendance? The number of staff? The number of
rooms?
c. For 3 – 5-year-olds, what’s the number enrolled? Your capacity? The average
daily attendance? The number of staff? The number of rooms?
[INTERVIEWER HELP SCREEN]
[ENROLLMENT=NUMBER OF CHILDREN ON ROSTER]
[CAPACITY=MAXIMUM NUMBER OF CHILDREN SITE CAN TAKE]
[AVERAGE DAILY ATTENDANCE=ON ANY GIVEN DAY, HOW MANY
CHILDREN ARE PRESENT]
[# STAFF=NUMBER ASSIGNED TO ROOM]
[# ROOMS OR CLASSESS=NUMBER PER AGE GROUP]
Enrollment
Capacity
Average
daily
attendance
# Staff
# Rooms or
Classes
a. Infants
(0 - 17 months)
b. Toddlers
(18 – 35 months)
c. Preschoolers
(3 – 5 years)
*Enter “0” in Enrollment and Capacity if do not serve children these ages.
42. On average, how many hours per week do Directors spend in rooms with the children
present monitoring direct care staff and providing feedback to staff based on this
monitoring? _____________# hours per week
In this section, we are interested in finding out about things you do in your
program for children ages 3 through 5 years in your care.
[PROGRAM CONTENT – TO BE COMPLETED ONLY BY PROGRAMS FOR 3 – 5
YEAR-OLDS; OTHERWISE, SKIP TO #47]
43. Do you regularly use a written manual, program guide, curriculum, parts of a
curriculum, or written lesson plans?
a. Yes
b. No
Center-based Provider Survey
Page 13
44. Some programs teach specific skills and others do not. Do you attempt to teach
children any of the following skills or behaviors?
a. How to separate from parents
b. The names of many colors and shapes
c. Hop, skip, and move to music
d. Play cooperatively with other children
e. Recognize many letters of the alphabet
f. Prewriting (coloring figures with lines, draw shapes, tracing)
g. Count to ten
h. Cooperate with teacher
i. Follow directions
j. Work independently
k. Read many words
l. Recognize feelings
m. Appreciate their culture and other cultures
YES
NO
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
45. Do you use developmental or achievement assessments to guide what you teach the
children or to measure progress?
a. Yes - What assessment do you use [OPEN-END--CHECK ALL THAT
APPLY]?
1. Denver
2. ELAP (Early Learning Accomplishment Profile)
3. LAP (Learning Accomplishment Profile)
4. Bayley Scales of Infant Development
5. Work Sampling System
6. Woodcock Johnson
7. Bracken Basic Concept Scale
8. Other (specify) __________________________________
b. No
46. Do you regularly interact or communicate with the public schools in your area
regarding the children at your site?
a. Yes – If yes – Do you interact or communicate with the public schools in any
of the following ways?
a. Talk with public school teachers to teach the social and academic skills
Yes No
needed to prepare children for school
b. Routinely pass on records of our children.
Yes No
c. Inform the school of children coming to them with special needs
Yes No
d. Participate in joint training.
Yes No
e. Coordinate kindergarten registration
Yes No
f. Hold conferences with school
Yes No
g. Take preschool children to visit their public schools
Yes No
h. Help inform parents about kindergarten readiness and expectations
Yes No
b. No
Center-based Provider Survey
Parent Involvement in Programs –
Page 14
TO BE ASKED OF ALL AGES
47. Some centers involve parents in their programs and others do not. The next group of
questions focuses on things you might do to involve parents in your program.
a. Do you regularly ask parents to donate snacks or materials for special
events?
b. Do you regularly ask parents to volunteer (e.g., help at parties or drive
for field trips)?
c. Do you regularly ask parents to attend parent meetings?
d Do you regularly discuss children’s progress with parents?
e. Do you regularly provide suggested activities for parents to complete at
home that expand on what is being taught during the day?
f. Do you regularly provide or connect parents with parent education
workshops or activities?
Yes
No
1
2
1
2
1
1
1
2
2
2
1
2
48. Do you administer medication for children in your center?
a. Yes – If yes - Does your staff receive any training on administration of
medication?
1. Yes
2. No
b. No
49. Have you or any of your staff asked for special assistance from anyone within or
outside your site for any of the following problems that children may have?
YES
NO
a. Tantrums, biting
1
2
b. Aggressive behaviors (e.g., toward self, adult, other children)
1
2
c. Withdrawn behaviors (e.g., lack of interaction with others or primarily
1
2
playing alone)
d. Wetting or soiling for a toilet-trained child
1
2
e. Crying, clinging or separation issues
1
2
f. Cognitive or Mental delays
1
2
g. Language or speech delays
1
2
h. Physical impairments (vision, hearing, cerebral palsy)
1
2
50. In the last 2 years, have you had to exclude a child for aggressive behaviors or have
you had to advise parents to get help for a child with such problems or you would
have to exclude the child?
a. Yes
b. No
51. This question focuses on children who have been diagnosed with special needs.
Please indicate the primary category for each child so that children with multiple
delays are counted once and only in their primary category. How many children do
you serve that primarily have [INSERT CATEGORY]?
Center-based Provider Survey
a.
b.
c.
d.
Page 15
Cognitive/Mental delays ___________#
Social/emotional or significant behavior problems ______________#
Physical impairments (including vision, hearing, paralysis) __________#
Speech/language delays ____________________#
52. Have you ever needed to seek services to help you serve children with special needs
or aggressive or withdrawn behaviors?
a. Yes [SKIP to #56]
b. No
53. Did you try to seek services for those children?
a. Yes
b. No [SKIP to #56]
54. Did you get the services?
a. Yes
b. No [SKIP to #56]]
55. Were the services helpful?
a. Yes
b. No
Perceptions Regarding Capacity and Quality in Early Care and Education Programs
Finally, we have a couple of questions about general issues in the field and
potential policy implications.
56. If state government were to take additional action with respect to early childhood
services, what would you advise them to do? List up to three priorities. [OPEN
ENDED]
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
57. If you could borrow at low interest rates funds from the government for your
business, would you?
a. Yes – If Yes - For what would you primarily use those funds? [OPEN
ENDED – INTERVIEWER MUST CODE BASED ON RESPONSE]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
b. No
Center-based Provider Survey
Page 16
Thank you for completing this telephone interview with us. Your responses are
very helpful to the State.
We also want to take this time to let you know that there is a second phase to
this project, an observational visit. In about a week, a specialist from Penn State
will contact you and will send you an invitation letter and informed consent to
obtain your permission for trained observers to visit your site. As a way of
thanking you for participating in this second phase of the project, you will be
given a “goodie bag” for your site. Although you are free to not participate in the
second phase of this project, we do encourage your participation because the
observation along with this interview you just completed will help to inform the
Governor’s Early Childhood Task Force about what is needed in early childhood
care and education in Pennsylvania.
Again, thank you for your time today.
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 17
Early Childhood Task Force
Early Care and Education Provider Survey – Family Homes, Group Homes, and
Legally Unregulated Homes
Introduction
Hello, you should have received a letter from the Governor’s Office last week
informing you that University of Pittsburgh specialists would call to ask you to
complete a telephone survey to assess needs in the early care and education
system across the state. Specifically, we are asking that you participate in this
telephone interview to gather information to inform state policies. As a way of
thanking you for participating, we will send you a $25 check.
We want to assure you that, while the surveys ask for identifying information, we
don’t intend to release identifying information to anyone for any purpose, except
the research team or in the unlikely event they would be subpoenaed. We ask
for this information in case we have any questions regarding your responses and
need to contact you directly.
This interview will take about 30 minutes. Is this a good time to complete it? [IF
NOT, SCHEDULE A CALL BACK TIME.]
Do you have any questions before we get started?
Great, just let me clarify some information about your home. Your name is …,
and your telephone number is ….. [CLARIFY THE NAME OF RESPONDENT,
TELEPHONE NUMBER, ORGANIZATION, TYPE OF SITE, PROFIT STATUS,
AND REGISTRATION STATUS BASED ON SPREADSHEET INFORMATION.]
Respondent information
Name of respondent: _________________________________________________________
Telephone number:___________________________________________________________
INTERVIEWER – INDICATE THE TYPE OF SITE BY CHECKING THE
APPROPRIATE BOX
! Group Child Care Home (7 through 12 children)
! Family Child Care Home (4, 5, or 6 unrelated children)
! Legally Unregulated Relative/neighbor caregiver (3 or fewer children cared for)
This first section of the survey focuses on general information about your home
and the types of services you offer.
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 18
Type of Site
58. Are you a for-profit or a non-profit home?
a. Yes (non-profit)
b. No (for-profit)
59. Are you registered by the Department of Public Welfare, Department of Education, or
both? [INTERVIEWER – INDICATE ALL THAT APPLY. IF FAMILY CHILD
CARE HOME AND IS REGISTERED BY DPW, THEN CODE AS “A –
CERTIFICATE OF REGISTRATION”; IF GROUP CHILD CARE HOME AND
REGISTERED BY DPW, THEN CODE AS “B – CERTIFICATE OF
COMPLIANCE”]
a. PA Department of Public Welfare Certificate of Registration
b. PA Department of Public Welfare Certificate of Compliance
c. PA Department of Education, including a private academic school license
d. Not registered
60. Do you provide services in your private home or do you rent or lease space from a
public or private school or a religious institution?
a. Public school
b. Non-public or private school
c. Child care center
d. Private home
e. Church/synagogue or other religious institution
f. Other (specify) _________________________________________
61. Are you working under the umbrella of a religious organization? (This does not
include simply occupying or renting space in a religious building.)
a. Yes
b. No
[INTERVIEWER – CODE AS “No, not accredited” and SKIP TO #7 IF NOT
REGISTERED]
62. Is your home accredited by any professional organization, or are you working toward
accreditation?
a. Yes
b. Working toward accreditation
c. No, not accredited [SKIP TO #7]
63. If accredited or working toward accreditation – By whom? [CHECK ALL THAT
APPLY]
a. National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
b. National Child Care Association (NCCA)
c. Council on Accreditation of Services for Children and Families (COA)
d. National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC)
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 19
e. Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI)
f. Other (specify) ____________________________________
[SKIP TO #8]
64. If not accredited – What are some reasons that you are not accredited? [OPEN
ENDED RESPONSE]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
The next set of questions focuses on the cost of operating your facility. Please
answer to the best of your ability.
Funding Characteristics
65. On a yearly basis, how much do you pay for food, supplies and materials, any
assistants that may help you, and any other things you use to provide for children in
your care? $___________
66. How much do you earn from parent charges, from public subsidies or the
government, or from private sources such as foundations or corporations on a yearly
basis? Is this amount earned weekly, monthly, or yearly?
a. From parent charges? ______________$/week/month/year
b. From public subsidies or government? _____________$/ week/month/year
c. From private sources (e.g., foundations or corporations)?_____________$/
week/month/year
[INTERVIEWER – SKIP TO #13 IF DO NOT COLLECT PARENT FEES.]
67. Do you serve [INSERT CATEGORY]?
a. Infants (0-17 months)
b. Toddlers (18 – 35 months)
c. Children ages 3 – 5 years
Yes
1
1
1
No
2
2
2
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 20
68. What is the full charge (that is, the maximum paid by a parent for one child) for each
age group of children you serve? Please specify whether the charge is hourly, part
day, full day, weekly, or monthly. [INTERVIEWER –MAKE SURE RESPONDENT
INDICATES THE HIGHEST NORMAL FEE PAID BY PARENTS, NOT
INCLUDING DISCOUNTS FOR SPECIAL FEES.]
a. For infants (0 – 17
months), what is the charge?
b. For toddlers (18 – 35
months), what is the charge?
c. For children ages 3 – 5
years, what is the charge?
Hourly
$_____
Part Day
$_______
Full Day
$_______
Weekly
$_______
Monthly
$_______
$_____
$_______
$_______
$_______
$_______
$_____
$_______
$_______
$_______
$_______
69. Do you offer some kind of sliding fee, scholarship, or other special financial help to
low-income families, other than government subsidies, to help them afford your
services?
a. Yes – If yes - Is it a sliding fee scale based upon family income or a
scholarship or other kind of fee reduction?
1. Sliding fee scale based upon family income
2. Scholarships or other fee reductions
b. No
70. How many children do you have whose charges are paid for fully or in part by
subsidies, government funds, or another agency? Number of children receiving
subsidies ________________#
71. What is the maximum number of full time children receiving subsidies that you
would enroll? Maximum enrollment of full time subsidized
children_________________#
72. Do you provide information to parents about government subsidies for child care?
a. Yes
b. No
73. How difficult is it for you to get the amount of money you need to keep your services
going – very difficult, somewhat difficult, or not at all difficult?
a. Very difficult
b. Somewhat difficult
c. Not at all difficult
74. When did you last increase your charges?
a. Month ___ Year___ [BE SURE TO PROBE FOR ESTIMATE OF MONTH
AND YEAR]
b. New program so N/A
c. Never [SKIP TO #19]
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 21
75. The last time you raised your charges, what were the old and new charges? Old
charge - $_________
New charge $__________
In this section, we would like to learn about you and any paid assistants you may
have, including information about the number of paid assistants you have, how
long you’ve provided care in your home for pay, how much experience any
assistants may have in providing childcare, and the race, educational
background and salary history of you and any paid assistants.
Staff Characteristics
Demographic Information
76. We’ll start with information about assistants, your race/ethnicity, and how long
you’ve worked in the field.
a. Do you have any assistants?
1. Yes
1. How many work full-time with you? ________#
2. How many work part-time with you? ________#
2. No
b. [RACE AND ETHNICITY QUESTIONS]
1. What is your race/ethnicity?
2. [IF HAVE ANY PAID ASSISTANTS] – What is the race/ethnicity
of your paid assistant(s)? [INDICATE THE NUMBER OF
ASSISTANTS FOR EACH CATEGORY IF HAVE MORE THAN
ONE]
1. You
African-American/Black
Caucasian/White
Asian/Pacific Islander
Latino/Hispanic
Other (specify) __________________
2. Assistant(s)
‫ڤ‬
‫ڤ‬
‫ڤ‬
‫ڤ‬
‫ڤ‬
c. [LENGTH OF EMPLOYMENT]
1. How long have you been providing care in your home for pay?
2. [IF HAVE ANY PAID ASSISTANTS] – How long has your
assistant(s) been working with children?
You
Less than 1 year
1 to 5 years
More than 5 years
‫ڤ‬
‫ڤ‬
‫ڤ‬
Assistant(s)
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 22
Educational Background
77. In the next question, we’d like to know about educational background.
a. What is your HIGHEST level of education attained?
b. You mentioned that you have a total of [INSERT NUMBER] assistant(s),
what is the (are their) highest education level(s) attained?
[INTERVIEWER, ENTER APPROPRIATE NUMBERS FOR EACH CELL BASED
ON RESPONSE.]
Less than 8th grade education
Less than high school diploma but more than 8th grade
education
High school diploma or GED
Certificate, credential, or Associates Degree (including Child
Development Associate)
Bachelor Degree
Master’s, Doctorate, or other advanced degree
a. You
b. Assistant(s)
‫ڤ‬
‫ڤ‬
‫ڤ‬
‫ڤ‬
‫ڤ‬
‫ڤ‬
78. Have you received education or training in how to run a home-based business?
a. Yes
b. No
Wage and Salaries
79. Next, we would like to find out about average salaries.
a. How much did you make (e.g., Schedule C of 1040 after expenses) or pay
yourself in salary last year? $_________ last year
b. [ONLY ASK IF HAVE ASSISTANTS] What is your assistant(s)’ current
salary? Is that hourly, weekly, monthly, or yearly? $_________ per
hour/week/month/year
[ONLY ASK #23 IF HOME PROVIDER HAS ASSISTANTS AND IS REGISTERED
OR LICENSED; OTHERWISE, SKIP TO #24.]
80. Did your assistant’s salary increase last year?
a. Yes – If yes - On average, how much did it increase last year – that is, what
were the old and new amounts? Is that hourly, weekly, monthly, or yearly?
Old salary $____________ per hour/week/month/year to
New salary
$___________ per hour/week/month/year
b. No
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 23
Benefits and Vacation
81. Have you received any of the following types of benefits?
a. Paid vacation
b. Health insurance for self
c. Health insurance for family members
d. Retirement benefits
e. Child care (take care of your own children in your home)
f. Paid sick leave/personal days
Yes No
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
2
[IF DON’T HAVE ANY ASSISTANTS, SKIP TO #26]
82. Do your assistants receive any benefits?
a. Yes – If yes – Are those benefits equal to or less than yours?
1. Equal to mine
2. Less than mine
b. No
This next section focuses on training needs and recruiting and retaining staff.
Please provide your best assessment of what would be beneficial to prepare and
retain staff in early childhood programs.
Training and Professional Development
83. On average, how many hours do you (and your assistant(s)) spend in workshops or
receiving training to enhance your professional skills?
a. Self: __________ hours
b. [ONLY ASK IF HAVE ASSISTANTS] Assistants: ___________ hours
[SKIP TO #29 IF HAVE NO ASSISTANTS]
84. Do you pay for your assistants to attend training, such as for registration fees, for
your assistants to attend training for at least 6 hours?
a. Yes, full payment
b. Yes, partial payment
c. No
85. Do you pay assistants for at least 6 hours of their time to attend training?
a. Yes, at full wages
b. Yes, at part wages
c. No
86. Have you (or your assistant(s)) received training from any of the following sources in
the past year? [INTERVIEWER—HELP SCREEN=
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 24
[KURC=Keystone University Research Corporation]
[PAEYC=Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children]
[DVAEYC=Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children]
[PACCA=Pennsylvania Child Care Association]
[PHCCPA = Pennsylvania Home-based Child Care Providers Association]
[TEACH=Teacher Education And Compensation Helps]
a. From the child care training system (e.g., Pathways (old
KURC) or local contractors)
b. In your home (e.g., mentoring, consulting, technical
assistance)
c. At professional conferences (e.g., PAEYC, DVAEYC,
PACCA, PHCCPA)
d. At higher education institutions (e.g., TEACH)
e. Any other sources? (specify) _________________
Yes
1
No
2
1
2
1
2
1
1
2
2
[SKIP TO #31 IF DID NOT RECEIVE ANY TRAINING OR IF ONLY RECEIVED
TRAINING FROM ONE SOURCE.]
87. So, you (or your assistant(s)) received training at [INSERT RESPONSES WHERE
THEY SAID “YES” TO 32]. Of these, which source of training was most useful?
a. Child care training system (KURC or local contractors)
b. In my home (e.g., mentoring, consulting, technical assistance)
c. Professional conferences (e.g., PAEYC, DVAEYC)
d. Higher education institutions (e.g., TEACH)
e. Other
88. On average, what is your best estimate of how much you spend on training and
professional development on a yearly basis? $________________ per year
89. Do you have a computer with access to the Internet?
a. Yes
b. No
90. Do you feel that you (or your assistants) need more training in any of the following
areas?
a. Training areas:
Yes No
Training areas:
a) Health and safety practices
1
2
b) Education and care of infant/toddler ages birth to 34 months
1
2
c) Education and care of children ages 3 – 5 years
1
2
d) Education and care of young children with disabilities
1
2
e) Working with families
1
2
f) Early number skills
1
2
g) Early literacy skills (reading, writing)
1
2
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 25
1
1
1
1
1
h) Early language skills
i) Helping children get along with others
j) Behavior management (e.g., discipline)
k) Measuring children’s progress
l) Classroom management/organization of a group of children
2
2
2
2
2
[INTERVIEWER – SKIP TO #34 IF ONLY INDICATE ONE OR TWO TRAINING
AREA NEEDS]
b. You said that you (or your assistants) need more training in [INTERVIEWER
READ BACK THE AREAS MENTIONED]. Of these, in which two areas is
there the greatest need for more training?
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Health and safety practices
Education and care of infant/toddler ages birth to 34 months
Education and care of children ages 3 – 5 years
Education and care of young children with disabilities
Working with families
Early number skills
Early literacy skills (reading, writing)
Early language skills
Helping children get along with others
Behavior management (e.g., discipline)
Measuring children’s progress
Classroom management/organization
91. Do you feel that you need more training in how to run a home-based business?
a. Yes
b. No
92. How often would you say that each of the following are issues for you (and your
assistants) to obtain training: always, sometimes, or never.
a) Cannot afford training costs (e.g., registration fees)
b) Staff are not paid for the time they spend in training
c) Staff are not interested in training beyond the required 6
hours
d) Training opportunities are not accessible
e) Training is too elementary
f) Lack of funding for substitutes to replace those
attending training
[SKIP TO #38 IF HAVE NO ASSISTANTS]
Always
an issue
Sometimes
an issue
Never
an
issue
1
1
2
2
3
3
1
2
3
1
1
2
2
3
3
1
2
3
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 26
Recruitment and Retention of Staff
93. How many regular (whether full-time or part-time) assistants have stopped working
for you in the last 12 months? This number can apply to several people that have left
the same position. ___________#
a. If assistants have left – What was the average time required to fill the
position? ___________________
94. On a scale of “1” – “Not at all a challenge” to “5” – “A big challenge,” please rate
how much of a challenge the following issues are for you when trying to hire and
keep assistants? [LIKERT SCALE 1-5 FOR NOT AT ALL A CHALLENGE TO
VERY BIG CHALLENGE]
Neutral
Not at all
a
challenge
a. High competition with other
employers
b. Lack of availability of qualified
people who meet acceptable
standards
c. My location is undesirable
d. Hours are too long or
inconvenient
e. Lack of advancement
opportunities
f. The stress of the job
g. Low pay
h. Inadequate benefits
i.
A big
challenge
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
3
4
4
4
5
5
5
Any other challenges? ___________________________________________
95. Do you see yourself continuing in this line of work in the long term, or is this
temporary?
a. Continue long term [SKIP TO 40]
b. Temporary
96. Why won’t you continue in this line of work? [OPEN ENDED – INTERVIEWER
CODE ACCORDING TO RESPONSE]
! Low pay
! Lack of benefits
! Lack of advancement opportunities
! The stress of the job
! Hours are too long/inconvenient
! Too much competition
Home-based Provider Survey
!
!
!
!
!
Page 27
Wear and tear on my home
Want to work outside of my home
Want to resume prior career
My own child will be in school and not in my home care
Other ______________________________________________
In this next section, we would like to get some information about the types of
children and families that attend your programs.
Participants
97. What percentage of families that you serve is struggling to make ends meet? ____%
98. What is the racial or ethnic background of the children you serve?
a. African-American/Black ________#
b. Caucasian/White ____________#
c. Asian/Pacific Islander _________#
d. Latino/Hispanic ______________#
e. Other (specify)___________ #
99. Assuming every child were full time, we’d like to know about the number of children
enrolled, the average attendance, and number of rooms or classes for the full time
children you serve by age group.
a. Do you (and/or assistants) have any children that are included in your home?
1. Yes – If yes – What are their ages? ______________________
2. No
b. How many infants, ages 0 – 17 months, do you care for? _____#
c. How many toddlers, ages 18 – 35 months, do you care for? _____#
d. How many 3 – 5-year-olds, do you care for? _____#
e. On a given day, how many children are usually present? _____#
f. Do you have a designated room or space in your home only for child care?
1. Yes
2. No
In this section, we are interested in finding out about things you do in your
program for children ages 3 through 5 in your care.
[PROGRAM CONTENT – TO BE COMPLETED ONLY BY PROGRAMS THAT
HAVE AT LEAST ONE 3 – 5 YEAR-OLD CHILD; OTHERWISE, SKIP TO #50]
100. Do you regularly use a written manual, program guide, curriculum, parts of a
curriculum, or written lesson plans?
a. Yes
b. No
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 28
101. Some care providers teach specific skills, and others do not. Do you attempt to
teach children any of the following skills or behaviors?
a. How to separate from parents
b. The names of many colors and shapes
c. Hop, skip, and move to music
d. Play cooperatively with other children
e. Recognize many letters of the alphabet
f. Prewriting (coloring figures with lines, draw shapes, tracing)
g. Count to ten
h. Cooperate with teacher
i. Follow directions
j. Work independently
k. Read many words
l. Recognize feelings
m. Appreciate their culture and other cultures
YES
NO
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
102. Do you use developmental or achievement assessments to guide what you teach
the children or to measure progress?
a. Yes - What assessment do you use?
1. Denver
2. ELAP (Early Learning Accomplishment Profile)
3. LAP (Learning Accomplishment Profile)
4. Bayley Scales of Infant Development
5. Woodcock Johnson
6. Bracken Basic Concepts Scale
7. Other (specify) __________________________________
b. No
103. Do you regularly interact or communicate with the public schools in your area
regarding the children at your site in the following ways?
a. Yes – If yes - Do you interact or communicate with the public schools in any
of the following ways?
a. Talk with public school teachers to teach the social and academic skills
Yes No
needed to prepare children for school
b. Routinely pass on records of our children.
Yes No
c. Inform the school of children coming to them with special needs
Yes No
d. Participate in joint training.
Yes No
e. Coordinate kindergarten registration
Yes No
f. Hold conferences with school
Yes No
g. Take preschool children to visit their public schools
Yes No
h. Help inform parents about kindergarten readiness and expectations
Yes No
i. No formal contact with the public school
Yes No
b. No
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 29
Parent Involvement in Programs – TO BE ASKED OF ALL AGES
104. Some care providers involve parents in their programs, and others do not. The
next group of questions focuses on things you might do to involve parents in your
program.
a. Do you regularly ask parents to donate snacks or materials for special
events?
b. Do you regularly ask parents to volunteer (e.g., help at parties or drive
for field trips)?
c. Do you regularly ask parents to attend parent meetings?
d Do you regularly discuss children’s progress with parents?
e. Do you regularly provide suggested activities for parents to complete at
home that expand on what is being taught during the day?
f. Do you regularly provide or connect parents with parent education
workshops or activities?
105.
Yes
No
1
2
1
2
1
1
1
2
2
2
1
2
Do you administer medication for children in your care?
a. Yes – If yes – Have you (or your assistants) received any training on
administration of medication?
1. Yes
2. No
b. No
106. Have you (or any of your assistants) asked for special assistance from anyone
within or outside your home for any of the following problems that children ages
birth to five years may have?
YES
NO
a. Tantrums, biting
1
2
b. Aggressive behaviors (e.g., toward self, adult, other children)
1
2
c. Withdrawn behaviors (e.g., lack of social interaction/presence of
1
2
primarily solitary play)
d. Wetting or soiling for a toilet-trained child
1
2
e. Crying, clinging/separation issues (recent onset)
1
2
f. Cognitive/mental delays
1
2
g. Language/speech delays
1
2
h. Physical impairments (vision, hearing, cerebral palsy)
1
2
107. In the last 2 years, have you had to exclude a child for aggressive behaviors or
have you had to advise parents to get help for a child with such problems or you
would have to exclude the child?
a. Yes
b. No
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 30
108. This question focuses on children who have been diagnosed with special needs.
Please indicate the primary category for each child so that children with multiple
delays are counted once and only in their primary category. How many children do
you serve that primarily have [INSERT CATEGORY]?
a. Cognitive/mental delays ___________#
b. Social/emotional or significant behavior problems ______________#
c. Physical impairments (including vision, hearing) __________#
d. Speech/language delays ____________________#
e. Learning disabilities __________________________#
109. Have you ever needed to seek outside services to help you serve children with
special needs or aggressive or withdrawn behaviors?
a. Yes [SKIP to #56]
b. No
110.
Did you try to seek services for those children?
a. Yes
b. No [SKIP to #56]
111.
Did you get the services?
1. Yes
2. No [SKIP to #56]
112.
Were the services helpful?
a. Yes
b. No
Perceptions Regarding Capacity and Quality in Early Care and Education Programs
Finally, we have a couple of questions about general issues in the field and
potential policy implications.
113. If state government were to take additional action with respect to early childhood
services, what would you advise them to do? List up to three priorities. [OPEN
ENDED]
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Home-based Provider Survey
Page 31
114. If you could borrow at low interest rates funds from the government for your
business, would you?
a. Yes – If Yes - For what would you primarily use those funds? [OPEN
ENDED – INTERVIEWER MUST CODE BASED ON RESPONSE]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
b. No
Thank you for completing this telephone interview with us. Your responses are
very helpful to the State.
We also want to take this time to let you know that there is a second phase to
this project, an observational visit. In about a week, a specialist from Penn State
will contact you and will send you an invitation letter and informed consent to
obtain your permission for trained observers to visit your site. As a way of
thanking you for participating in this second phase of the project, you will be
given a “goodie bag” for your site. Although you are free to not participate in the
second phase of this project, we do encourage your participation because the
observation along with this interview you just completed will help to inform the
Governor’s Early Childhood Task Force about what is needed in early childhood
care and education in Pennsylvania.
Again, thank you for your time today.
Provider Survey Tables
Page 1
APPENDIX B - TABLES
Table 1
Population and Final Sample of Early Care and Education Providers Interviewed
Total Population of Providers
Final Sample
(Percent of Total Number of Providers)
(Percent of Population of
Provider Type)
3,938 (25.9%)
163 (25.6%)
Head Start
689 (4.5%)
50 (7.8%)
Preschools
625 (4.1%)
56 (8.8%)
Group Homes
791 (5.2%)
66 (10.4%)
Family Homes
4,110 (27.0%)
249 (39.1%)
Legally Unregulated
5,067 (33.3%)
53 (8.3%)
N = 15,220
N = 637
Child Care Centers
Table 2
Child Care Provider Telephone Survey: Summary of Contact Outcomes and Response
Rates
Total
Sample
Child
Care
Centers
(N = 4,243)
(N = 900)
Completed
Interviews
637
(15.0%
)
163
(18.1%
)
50
(12.4%
)
56
(28.0%
)
66
(32.2%
)
249
(26.4%
)
53
(3.3%)
Refusals
289
(6.8%)
42
(4.7%)
8
(2.0%)
27
(13.5%
)
26
(12.7%
)
102
(10.8%
)
84
(5.3%)
Never Able
to
Contact
1,135
(26.7%
)
467
(51.9%
)
105
(26.1%
)
98
(49.0%
)
40
(19.5%
)
176
(18.6%
)
249
(15.6%)
Ineligible/Ba
d Contact
1,519
(35.8%
119
(13.2%
48
(11.9%
15
(7.5%)
47
(22.9%
247
(26.2%
1,021
(64.1%)
Outcome
Head
Start
PreSchools
(N = 402)
Group
Homes
Family
Homes
(N = 205)
(N = 944)
(N = 200)
Legally
Unregulate
d
(N = 1592)
Provider Survey Tables
Info.
No Phone #
(Not Called)
Page 2
)
)
)
663
(15.7%
)
109
(12.1%
)
191
(47.5%
)
4
(2.0%)
)
)
21
(10.2%
)
165
(17.5%
)
173
(10.9%)
Table 3
Title of Individuals That Completed Telephone Interviews in Center-Based Providers
Number (N = 269)
216
Percent
80.3%
Assistant Director
6
2.2%
Program Coordinator
12
4.5%
Other
35
13.0%
Director
Table 4
Type of County in Which Providers Are Located
Child Care Centers (N = 163)
Metropolitan
County
53.4% (87)
Metro Code
Small City
County
36.8% (60)
Rural County
9.8% (16)
Head Start (N = 50)
42.0% (21)
32.0% (16)
26.0% (13)
Preschools (N = 56)
57.1% (32)
35.7% (20)
7.1% (4)
Group Homes (N = 66)
40.9% (27)
45.5% (30)
13.6% (9)
Family Homes (N = 249)
32.9% (82)
46.2% (115)
20.9% (52)
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
24.5% (13)
47.2% (25)
28.3% (15)
TOTAL (N = 637)
41.1% (262)
41.8% (266)
17.1% (109)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 3
Table 5
Type of Building in Which Providers Are Located1
Public School
Child Care Centers (N = 163)
3.1% (5)
Type of Building in Which Site Is Located
Non-public
Child Care
Private
Religious
School
Center
Home
Institution
5.5% (9)
52.1% (85)
1.2% (2)
19.6% (32)
Other
18.4% (30)
Head Start (N = 50)
30.0% (15)
0
26.0% (13)
0
14.0% (7)
30.0% (15)
Preschools (N = 56)
1.8% (1)
8.9% (5)
46.4% (26)
3.6% (2)
23.2% (13)
16.1% (9)
Group Homes (N = 66)
0
0
4.6% (3)
81.5% (53)
1.5% (1)
12.3% (8)
Family Homes (N = 249)
0
0
0
100% (249)
0
0
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
0
0
0
94.3% (50)
0
5.7% (3)
3.3% (21)
2.2% (14)
20.0% (127)
56.0% (356)
8.3% (53)
10.2% (65)
TOTAL (N = 636)
1
This refers to physical location only; it does not refer to who operated the service program.
Provider Survey Tables
Page 4
Table 6: Provider Type by Registration Status
Child Care Centers (N = 163)
Head Start Centers (N = 50)
Registration Status
Not Registered
Registered
0%
100%
70.0% (35)
30.0% (15)
0%
100%
Group Child Care Homes (N = 66)
1.5% (1)
98.5% (65)
Family Child Care Homes (N = 249)
3.2% (8)
96.8% (241)
Legally Unregulated Homes (N = 53)
64.2% (34)
35.8% (19)
TOTAL (N=637)
12.2% (78)
87.8% (559)
Preschools/Nursery Schools (N = 56)
Table 7: Provider Type by For-Profit/Non-Profit Status
Child Care Centers (N = 163)
Head Start Centers (N = 50)
Profit Status
For Profit
Non-profit
44.8% (73)
55.2% (90)
0%
100%
Preschools/Nursery Schools (N = 56)
41.1% (23)
58.9% (33)
Group Child Care Homes (N = 66)
90.9% (60)
9.1% (6)
Family Child Care Homes (N = 249)
82.3% (205)
17.7% (44)
Legally Unregulated Homes (N = 53)
56.6% (30)
43.4% (23)
TOTAL (N = 637)
61.4% (391)
38.6% (246)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 5
Table 8
Profit Status by Type of County in Which Child Care Centers and Preschools Are
Located
Child Care Centers
(N = 163)
Preschools (N = 56)
Type of County
Metropolitan
Small City
47.9% (35)
39.7% (29)
Profit (N = 73)
Rural
12.3% (9)
Non-profit (N =90)
57.8% (52)
34.4% (31)
7.8% (7)
TOTAL
53.4% (87)
36.8% (60)
9.8% (16)
Profit (N = 23)
52.2% (12)
47.8% (11)
0
Non-profit (N = 33)
60.6% (20)
27.3% (9)
12.1% (4)
TOTAL
57.1% (32)
35.7% (20)
7.1% (4)
Table 9
Provider Type by Religious Affiliation
Child Care Centers (N = 162)
Managed by Religious Organization
Yes
No
21.0% (34)
79.0% (128)
Head Start (N = 50)
4.0% (2)
96.0% (48)
Preschools (N = 56)
12.5% (7)
87.5% (49)
Group Homes (N = 65)
3.1% (2)
96.9% (63)
Family Homes (N = 249)
4.0% (10)
96.0% (239)
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
1.9% (1)
98.1% (52)
TOTAL (N = 635)
8.8% (56)
91.2% (579)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 6
Table 10
Religious Affiliation and Type of County in Which Child Care Centers are Located
Type of County in Which Located
Metropolitan
Small City
Rural
47.1% (16)
50.0% (17)
2.9% (1)
Yes, Managed by a Religious
Organization
Not Managed by a Religious
Organization
54.7% (70)
33.6% (43)
11.7% (15)
TOTAL (N = 162)
53.1% (86)
37.0% (60)
9.9% (16)
Table 11
Provider Type by Accreditation Status
Accredited
Child Care Centers (N = 163)
16.0% (26)
Working toward
Accreditation
27.6% (45)
Head Start (N = 50)
18.0% (9)
14.0% (7)
68.0% (34)
Preschools (N = 56)
16.1% (9)
21.4% (12)
62.5% (35)
Group Homes (N = 66)
15.2% (10)
15.2% (10)
69.7% (46)
Family Homes (N = 249)
7.6% (19)
9.2% (3)
83.1% (207)
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
3.8% (2)
9.4% (5)
86.8% (46)
11.8% (75)
16.0% (102)
72.2% (460)
TOTAL (N = 637)
Not Accredited
56.4% (92)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 7
Table 12
Percent (Number) of Providers That Were Accredited and Their Accrediting
Organization2
NAEYC
68.0% (17)
NCCA
4.0% (1)
COA
4.0% (1)
NAFCC
0
Other
28.0% (7)
Head Start (N = 50)
66.7% (6)
11.1% (1)
11.1% (1)
0
44.4% (4)
Preschools (N = 56)
66.7% (6)
0
0
0
33.3% (3)
Group Homes
(N = 66)
22.2% (2)
10.0% (1)
0
11.1% (1)
66.7% (6)
Family Homes
(N = 249)
5.6% (1)
22.2% (4)
0
16.7% (3)
66.7% (12)
0
0
0
0
100% (1)
45.1% (32)
9.7% (7)
2.8% (2)
5.6% (4)
46.5% (33)
Child Care Centers
(N = 163)
Legally Unregulated
(N = 53)
TOTAL (N = 637)
2
NAEYC = National Association for the Education of Young Children, NCCA = National Child Care
Association, COA = Council on Accreditation of Services for Children and Families, NAFCC = National
Association for Family Child Care
Provider Survey Tables
Page 8
Table 13
Accreditation Status of Child Care Centers and Preschools and the Type of County in
Which They Are Located
Child Care
Centers
(N = 163)
Metropolitan
50.0% (13)
Type of County
Small City
34.6% (9)
Rural
15.4% (4)
Working
Toward
Accreditation
60.0% (27)
37.8% (17)
2.2% (1)
Not Accredited
51.1% (47)
37.0% (34)
12.0% (11)
Accredited
66.7% (6)
22.2% (2)
11.1% (1)
Working
Toward
Accreditation
66.7% (8)
33.3% (4)
0
Not Accredited
51.4% (18)
40.0% (14)
8.6% (3)
Accredited
Preschools
(N = 56)
Table 14
Accreditation Status of Child Care Centers and Profit Status
For Profit (N = 73)
Accredited
15.1% (11)
Working Toward Accreditation
19.2% (14)
Not Accredited
65.8% (48)
Non-profit (N = 90)
16.7% (15)
34.4% (31)
48.9% (44)
TOTAL (N = 163)
16.0% (26)
27.6% (45)
56.4% (92)
Table 15
Accreditation Status of Preschools and Profit Status
For Profit (N = 23)
Accredited
8.7% (2)
Working Toward Accreditation
26.1% (6)
Not Accredited
65.2% (15)
Non-profit (N = 33)
21.2% (7)
18.2% (6)
60.6% (20)
TOTAL (N = 56)
16.1% (9)
21.4% (12)
62.5% (35)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 9
Table 16
Accreditation Status of Child Care Centers and Preschools and Whether Managed by a
Religious Organization
Accredited
Yes, Managed by a Religious
Organization (N = 41)
12.2% (5)
Working Toward
Accreditation
36.6% (15)
Not
Accredited
51.2% (21)
Not Managed by a Religious
Organization (N = 177)
16.9% (30)
23.7% (42)
59.3% (105)
TOTAL (N = 218)
16.0% (26)
27.6% (45)
56.4% (92)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 10
Table 17
Racial/Ethnic Background of Directors, Primary Classroom Staff, and Aides in Child Care Centers, Head Start Sites, and Preschools
and Home Care Owners and Their Assistants in Group, Family, and Legally Unregulated Homes
Type of Staff
Type of Provider
Directors
(N = 600)
Child Care Centers (N = 331)
Head Start (N = 173)
Preschools (N = 96)
TOTAL
Child Care Centers (N = 1,906)
Head Start (N = 315)
Preschools (N = 504)
TOTAL
Child Care Centers (N = 510)
Head Start (N = 119)
Preschools (N = 225)
TOTAL
Primary
Classroom Staff
(N = 2725)
Aides (N =854)
Owners
(N = 368)
Assistants
(N = 204)
Group Homes (N = 66)
Family Homes (N = 249)
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
TOTAL
Group Homes (N = 126)
Family Homes (N = 58)
Legally Unregulated (N = 20)
TOTAL
Caucasian
AfricanAmerican
Center-based Providers
86.4% (286)
11.2%(37)
86.7% (150)
11.0% (19)
92.7% (89)
4.2% (4)
87.5% (525)
10.0% (60)
82.0% (1,563)
14.1% (268)
77.1% (243)
16.8% (53)
82.7% (417)
13.3% (67)
81.6% (2,223)
14.2% (388)
76.7% (391)
18.0% (92)
80.7% (96)
18.5% (22)
86.2% (194)
6.2% (14)
79.7% (681)
15.0% (128)
Home-based Providers
71.2% (47)
19.7%(13)
80.7% (201)
16.9% (42)
84.9% (45)
11.3% (6)
79.6% (293)
16.6% (61)
77.0% (97)
19.0% (24)
67.2% (39)
29.3% (17)
70.0% (14)
10.0% (2)
73.5% (150)
21.1% (43)
Asian
Latino
Other
0
1.7% (3)
0
0.5% (3)
0.8% (16)
1.0% (3)
0.8% (4)
0.8% (23)
1.4% (7)
0.8% (1)
0.9% (2)
1.2% (10)
2.4% (8)
0.6% (1)
2.1% (2)
1.8% (11)
2.6% (50)
4.8% (15)
1.8% (9)
2.7% (74)
3.7% (19)
0
2.2% (5)
2.8% (24)
0
0
1.0% (1)
0.2% (1)
0.5% (9)
0.3% (1)
1.4% (7)
0.6% (17)
0.2% (1)
0
4.4% (10)
1.3% (11)
0
0
0
0
0
1.7% (1)
0
0.5% (1)
1.5% (1)
1.2% (3)
0
1.1% (4)
2.4% (3)
1.7% (1)
0
2.0% (4)
7.6% (5)
1.2% (3)
3.8% (2)
2.7% (10)
1.6% (2)
0
20.0% (4)
2.9% (6)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 11
Table 18
Length of Time Employed for Directors, Primary Classroom Staff, and Aides in Child Care Centers, Head Start Sites, and Preschools
and Home Care Owners and Their Assistants in Group, Family, and Legally Unregulated Homes
Type of Staff
Directors
(N = 600)
Primary Classroom
Staff (N =2731)
Aides (N = )
Owners
(N = )
Assistants
(N = )
Type of Provider
Employed for Less
Than a Year
Center-based Providers
Child Care Centers (N = 331)
9.1% (30)
Head Start (N = 173)
11.0% (19)
Preschools (N = 96)
10.4% (10)
TOTAL
9.8% (59)
Child Care Centers (N = )
24.1% (462)
Head Start (N = )
11.4% (36)
Preschools (N = )
16.2% (82)
TOTAL
21.2% (578)
Child Care Centers (N = )
43.7% (223)
Head Start (N = )
14.3% (17)
Preschools (N =)
33.8% (76)
TOTAL
37.0% (316)
Home-based Providers
Group Homes (N =)
4.6% (3)
Head Start (N = )
5.4% (13)
Preschools (N = )
27.1% (13)
TOTAL
8.2% (29)
Group Homes (N = )
14.3% (18)
Family Homes (N = )
8.6% (5)
Legally Unregulated (N = )
35.0% (7)
TOTAL
14.7% (30)
Employed for 1 – 5
Years
Employed for More
Than 5 Years
37.2%(123)
16.8% (29)
25.0% (24)
29.3% (176)
47.4% (906)
25.1% (79)
46.5% (235)
44.7% (1220)
41.6% (212)
43.7% (52)
43.1% (97)
42.3% (361)
53.8% (178)
72.3% (125)
64.6% (62)
60.8% (365)
28.5% (545)
63.5% (200)
37.2% (188)
34.2% (933)
14.7% (75)
42.0% (50)
23.1% (52)
20.7% (177)
29.2% (19)
41.4% (99)
47.9% (23)
40.1% (141)
50.0% (63)
46.6% (27)
55.0% (11)
49.5% (101)
66.2% (43)
53.1% (127)
25.0% (12)
51.7 % (182)
35.7% (45)
44.8% (26)
10.0% (2)
35.8% (73)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 12
Table 19
Education Level of Center-Based Directors
Less than High
School Diploma
0%
High School
Diploma or GED
7.4%
Certificate or
Associate’s Degree
18.7%
Bachelor’s
Degree
61.4%
Master’s Degree
or Higher
12.5%
Head Start
0%
3.5%
16.2%
53.3%
27.1%
Preschools
0.9%
2.3%
5.5%
63.3%
28.0%
Child Care Centers
Table 20
Education Level of Center-based Primary Classroom Staff
Less than High
School Diploma
1.12%
High School
Diploma or GED
59.22%
Certificate or
Associate’s Degree
17.35%
Bachelor’s
Degree
20.08%
Master’s Degree
or Higher
2.23%
Head Start
1.42%
19.99%
40.04%
36.75%
1.81%
Preschools
0.56%
27.49%
14.19%
47.25%
10.52%
Child Care Centers
Provider Survey Tables
Page 13
Table 21
Education Level of Home-Based Owners
Group Homes
Less than High
School Diploma
0
High School
Diploma or GED
59.1%
Certificate or
Associate’s Degree
22.7%
Bachelor’s
Degree
15.2%
Master’s Degree
or Higher
3.0%
Family Homes
3.2%
61.0%
26.1%
7.2%
2.4%
Legally Unregulated
7.5%
52.8%
22.6%
9.4%
7.5%
Table 22
Education Level of Home-Based Assistants
Group Homes
Less than
8th Grade
0
Less than High
School Diploma
1.64%
High School
Diploma or GED
76.24%
Certificate or
Associate’s Degree
14.60%
Bachelor’s
Degree
7.18%
Master’s Degree
or Higher
0.34%
Family Homes
5.83%
10.83%
62.29%
8.96%
10.63%
1.46%
0
0
57.14%
14.29%
28.57%
0
Legally Unregulated
Provider Survey Tables
Page 14
Table 23
Average Annual Salaries of Directors, Primary Classroom Staff (PCS), and Aides in the First and Fifth Years of Employment for
Center-Based Providers
Director Salary
in 1st Year
$23,544
Director Salary
in 5th year
$27,705
PCS Salary in 1st
Year
$16,831
PCS Salary in 5th
Year
$20,468
Aide Salary in
1st Year
$14,916
Aide Salary in
5th Year
$17,416
Head Start
$34,716*
$43,569*
$18,063
$20,772
$11,731
$14,296
Preschool
$22,950
$26,719
$18,507
$23,158
$14,110
$17,430
TOTAL
AVERAGE
$25,299
$30,141
$17,402
$21,083
$14,127
$16,842
Child Care
Centers
* See text
Provider Survey Tables
Page 16
Table 24
Average Annual Salaries of Home-Based Owners and Their Assistants
Group Homes
Average Salary of Owners
$14,427
Average Salary of Assistants
$13,644
Family Homes
$10,296
$12,712
Legally Unregulated
$4,440
$14,921
TOTAL AVERAGE
$10,334
$13,371
Table 25
Percent of Center-Based and Home-Based Programs That Provide Benefits for Staff
Center-Based
84.0%
Home-Based
23.5%
Health Insurance for Self
66.5%
7.9%
Health Insurance for Family
39.0%
6.8%
Retirement Benefits
49.8%
8.7%
Child Care
63.9%
42.5%
Paid Sick Leave or Personal Days
79.6%
21.2%
Any Benefits for Part-time Staff
57.6%
N/A
Paid Vacation
Provider Survey Tables
Page 17
Table 26
Where Center-Based vs. Home-Based Providers Receive In-Service Training
State Training
System
58.9% (156)
On-site
Home-based
Providers
(N = 360)
31.1% (112)
14.2%
(51)
26.1% (94)
27.5% (99)
57.8%
(208)
TOTAL
(N = 625)
42.9% (268)
36.8%
(230)
40.3% (252)
40.5% (253)
47.5%
(297)
Center-based
Providers
(N = 265)
67.5%
(179)
Professional
Conferences
59.6% (158)
Higher Education Elsewhere
Institutions
58.1% (154)
33.6%
(89)
Table 27
Where Providers Receive Training
Child Care
Centers
(N =60)
State Training On-site
System
(N =230)
(N =268)
61.3% (98)
66.9%
(107)
Professional
Conferences
(N =252)
52.5% (84)
Higher Education Elsewhere
Institutions
(N =297)
(N =253)
51.3% (82)
36.3%
(58)
Head Start
(N =49)
59.2% (29)
87.8%
(43)
85.7% (42)
79.6% (39)
30.6%
(15)
Preschools
(N =56)
51.8% (29)
51.8%
(29)
57.1% (32)
58.9% (33)
28.6%
(16)
Group Homes
(N =66)
34.8% (23)
19.7%
(13)
28.8% (19)
30.3% (20)
54.5%
(36)
Family Homes
(N =245)
33.5% (82)
13.1%
(32)
27.8% (68)
27.3% (67)
60.8%
(149)
Legally
Unregulated
(N =49)
14.3% (7)
12.2%
(6)
14.3% (7)
24.5% (12)
46.9%
(23)
42.9% (268)
36.8%
(230)
40.3% (252)
40.5% (253)
47.5%
(297)
TOTAL
(N = 625)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 18
Table 28
Most Useful Sources of Training in Center- and Home-Based Programs
Percentage of CenterBased Providers (N = 212)
20.3%
Percentage of HomeBased Providers (N = 146)
27.4%
On-site Training
36.3%
10.3%
Professional Conferences
18.4%
17.8%
Higher Education Institutions
15.6%
18.5%
Other Training Opportunities
9.4%
26.0%
Child Care Training System
Table 29
Percentage of Providers and Their Access to the Internet
Child Care Centers (N =163)
Have Access to Internet
74.2% (121)
Head Start (N =50)
70.0% (35)
Preschools (N =56)
67.9% (38)
Group Homes (N =66)
63.6%
Family Homes (N =249)
71.5% (178)
Legally Unregulated (N =53)
73.6% (39)
TOTAL (N = 637)
71.1% (453)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 19
Table 30
Average Hours of Training Received per Year by Staff in Center-Based Providers
Child Care Centers
Average Hours Spent in Training Per Year
Directors
Primary Classroom
Aides
Staff
38.29
14.20
11.97
Head Start
59.78
63.61
56.51
Preschools
18.29
11.93
9.93
TOTAL AVERAGE
38.04
22.90
19.74
Table 31
Average Hours of Training Received per Year by Staff in Home-Based Providers
Group Homes
Average Hours Spent in Training Per Year
Home Care Owners
Assistants
23.89
12.60
Family Homes
26.20
52.83
Legally Unregulated
15.37
6.14
TOTAL AVERAGE
24.25
26.23
Provider Survey Tables
Page 20
Table 32
Payment for In-Service Training of Staff
Child Care Centers (N = 162)
Percentage that Pay for Training Expenses
Full Payments
Partial Payments
No Payments
87.0% (441)
5.6% (9)
7.4% (12)
Head Start (N = 50)
96.0% (48)
4.0% (2)
0
Preschools (N = 56)
82.1% (46)
8.9% (5)
8.9% (5)
Group Homes (N = 56)
71.4% (40)
7.1% (4)
21.4% (12)
Family Homes (N = 36)
52.8% (19)
2.8% (1)
44.4% (16)
Legally Unregulated (N = 6)
50.0% (3)
16.7% (1)
33.3% (2)
81.1% (297)
6.0% (22)
12.8% (47)
TOTAL (N = 366)
Table 33
Payment of Staff Time to Attend In-Service Training
Child Care Centers (N = 162)
Percentage that Pay for Staff Time to Attend Training
Full Payments
Partial Payments
No Payments
81.5% (132)
3.1% (5)
15.4% (25)
Head Start (N = 4850)
91.7% (44)
2.1% (1)
6.3% (3)
Preschools (N = 55)
76.4% (42)
3.6% (2)
20.0% (11)
Group Homes (N = 57)
38.6% (22)
10.5% (6)
50.9% (29)
Family Homes (N = 37)
16.2% (6)
5.4% (2)
78.4% (29)
0
16.7% (1)
83.3% (5)
67.4% (246)
4.7% (17)
27.9% (102)
Legally Unregulated (N = 6)
TOTAL (N = 365)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 21
Table 34
Enrollment as Percentage of Capacity by Provider Type
Minimum
0.17
Maximum
6.18
Average3
0.93
Head Start (N = 49)
0.79
1.72
0.99
Preschools (N = 54)
0.55
2.50
0.97
Group Homes (N = 58)
0
1.42
0.81
Family Homes (N = 249)
0
2.17
0.79
Legally Unregulated (N = 51)
0
4.00
1.12
Child Care Centers (N = 158)
3
“Minimum” refers to the lowest percent of enrollment capacity reported by a site, and “maximum” refers to the
highest percentage of enrollment capacity reported by a site.
Provider Survey Tables
Page 22
Table 35
Capacity, Enrollment, Average Attendance, Children with Disabilities, and Subsidized Children by Provider Type
Total Capacity
Full-time
Enrollment
Average
Attendance
# Children with
Disabilities
# Children with
Subsidies
Child Care
Centers
73
62.06
53.81
5.63
18.74
Maximum
Enrollment of
Children with
Subsidies
52.95
Head Start
70
73.96
65.25
16.79
66.24
66.67
Preschools
76
73.00
59.61
8.79
15.29
31.22
Group Homes
12
9.79
10.94
3.24
5.98
12.10
Family Homes
6
4.72
5.26
1.20
1.34
4.89
Legally
Unregulated
3
3.35
3.75
1.26
0.92
3.98
AVERAGE
35
31.10
55.29/6.06
8.31/1.58
12.56
23.71
Provider Survey Tables
Page 24
Table 36
Range (Minimum, Maximum) and Average Number of Children in Care by Provider Type
Child Care Centers (N = 161)
Range
Minimum Maximum
8
329
Average
62.06
Head Start (N = 49)
15
597
73.96
Preschools (N = 55)
16
200
73.00
Group Homes (N = 66)
0
17
9.79
Family Homes (N = 249)
0
13
4.72
Legally Unregulated (N = 51)
0
12
3.35
TOTAL (N = 631)
31.10
Table 37
Provider Type and Percentage of Sites that Serve Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers
Child Care Centers (N = 163)
Serve Infants
78.5% (128)
Serve Toddlers
89.0% (145)
Serve Preschoolers
98.2% (160)
Head Start (N = 50)
14.0% (7)
14.0% (7)
100% (50)
Preschools (N = 56)
57.1% (32)
67.9% (38)
100% (56)
Group Homes (N = 66)
72.7% (48)
92.4% (61)
100% (66)
Family Homes (N = 249)
84.7% (211)
96.0% (239)
98.4% (245)
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
58.5% (31)
71.7% (38)
84.9% (45)
TOTAL (N = 637)
71.7% (457)
82.9% (528)
97.6% (622)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 25
Table 38
Provider Type and Total Number of Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers Served
Child Care Centers
Number of
Infants
11.8% (1178)
Number of
Toddlers
27.4% (2741)
Number of
Preschoolers
60.8% (6091)
Head Start
1.2% (45)
2.6% (93)
96.2%(3506)
Preschools
8.3% (334)
19.2% (773)
72.6% (2928)
Group Homes
13.3% (86)
31.0% (200)
55.7% (360)
Family Homes
18.8% (221)
35.3% (415)
45.9% (539)
Legally Unregulated
29.3% (55)
26.6% (50)
44.1% (83)
TOTAL
9.7% (1919)
21.7% (4272)
68.6% (13,507)
Table 39
Average Percent (Number) of Children Served of Various Racial/Ethnic Background in
Different Types of Provider Settings
Average
Percent
White
76.2%
(9208)
Average
Percent
Black
14.2%
(1717)
Average
Percent
Asian
1.9%
(234)
Average
Percent
Latino
4.9%
(593)
Average
Percent
Other
2.7% (325)
29.5%
(1095)
7.1%
(320)
21.4%
(186)
19.1%
(317)
1.0%
(39)
3.1%
(142)
1.7%
(15)
1.5%
(25)
7.3%
(272)
2.5%
(111)
1.3% (11)
3.3% (121)
2.7% (120)
Family Homes
(N = 1,656)
58.9%
(2188)
84.7%
(3835)
74.1%
(645)
73.3 %
(1214)
3.9% (64)
2.2% (36)
Legally Unregulated
(N = 248)
79.0%
(196)
10.9%
(27)
1.6% (4)
1.2% (3)
7.3% (18)
OVERALL AVERAGE
(N = 23,094)
74.9%
(17,286)
15.9%
(3662)
2.0%
(459)
4.6%
(1054)
2.7% (633)
Child Care Centers
(N = 12,077)
Head Start (N = 3,715)
Preschools (N = 4,528)
Group Homes (N = 870)
1.5% (13)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 26
Table 40
Percentage (Number) Sites and Number of Subsidized Children Served
No Children
1–5
Children
6 or More
Children
28.9% (46)
62.3% (99)
Avg. #
Children with
Subsides
18.74
86.0% (43)
66.24
Child Care Centers (N = 159)
8.8% (14)
Head Start (N = 50)
14.0% (7)
Preschools (N = 56)
30.4% (17)
16.1% (9)
53.6% (30)
15.29
Group Homes (N = 66)
21.2% (14)
33.3% (22)
45.5% (30)
5.98
Family Homes (N = 247)
55.9% (138)
37.7% (93)
6.5% (16)
1.34
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
62.3% (33)
37.7% (20)
TOTAL (N = 631)
35.3% (223)
30.1% (190)
0%
0%
0.92
34.5% (218)
12.56
Table 41
Quality Category and Number of Subsidized Children Served
No Children
Low Quality (N = 285)
49.1% (140)
1–5
Children
32.3% (92)
6 or More Children
Medium Quality (N = 239)
25.5% (61)
33.5% (80)
41.0% (98)
High Quality (N = 107)
20.6% (22)
16.8% (18)
62.6% (67)
TOTAL (N = 631)
35.3% (223)
30.1% (190)
34.5% (218)
Mean Quality Index
.4192 (211)
.5515 (191)
.4851 (169)
18.6% (53)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 27
Table 42
Quality Category and Number of Subsidized Children Served in Child Care Centers
Type of
Provider
Child Care
Centers
(N = 159)
Quality Category
Low Quality (N = 34)
Medium Quality (N = 103)
High Quality (N = 22)
No
Children
2.9% (1)
10.7% (11)
9.1% (2)
1–5
Children
17.6% (6)
33.0% (34)
27.3% (6)
6 or More
Children
79.4% (27)
56.3% (58)
63.6% (14)
Head Start
(N = 50)
Medium Quality (N = 8)
High Quality (N = 42)
25.0% (2)
11.9% (5)
0%
0%
75.0% (6)
88.1% (37)
Preschools
(N = 56)
Low Quality (N = 9)
Medium Quality (N = 31)
High Quality (N = 16)
22.2% (2)
25.8% (8)
43.8% (7)
22.2% (2)
19.4% (6)
6.3% (1)
55.6% (5)
54.8% (17)
50.0% (8)
Group Homes
(N = 66)
Low Quality (N = 26)
Medium Quality (N = 27)
High Quality (N = 13)
42.3% (11)
11.1% (3)
0%
26.9% (7)
37.0% (10)
38.5 (5)
30.8% (8)
51.9% (14)
61.5% (8)
Family Homes
(N = 247)
Low Quality (N = 171)
Medium Quality (N = 64)
High Quality (N = 12)
56.1% (96)
54.7% (35)
58.3% (7)
36.3% (62)
40.6% (26)
41.7% (5)
7.6% (13)
4.7% (3)
0%
Legally
Unregulated
(N = 53)
Low Quality (N = 45)
Medium Quality (N = 6)
High Quality (N = 2)
66.7% (30)
33.3% (2)
50.0% (1)
33.3% (15)
66.7% (4)
50.0% (1)
0%
0%
0%
Provider Survey Tables
Page 28
Table 43
Provider Type by Income of Families Served
Low
Income4
Middle
High
(51% or more struggling)
(6 – 50% struggling)
(5% or less struggling)
Child Care Centers (N = 156)
37.2% (58)
47.4% (74)
15.4% (24)
Head Start (N = 50)
98.0% (49)
2.0% (1)
0%
Preschools (N = 51)
19.6% (10)
51.0% (26)
29.4% (15)
Group Homes (N = 65)
46.2% (30)
38.5% (25)
15.4% (10)
Family Homes (N = 243)
32.1% (78)
38.7% (94)
29.2% (71)
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
39.6% (21)
18.9% (10)
41.5% (22)
TOTAL (N = 618)
39.8% (246)
37.2% (230)
23.0% (142)
4
Operational definition of “Income” - percentage of families served that are perceived as struggling to make
ends meet.
Provider Survey Tables
Page 29
Table 44
Type of Provider and Type of County in Which Located Serving Families of Differing
Income Levels
Child Care
Centers
(N=156)
Preschools
(N=51)
Group Homes
(N=65)
Family Homes
(N=243)
Legally
Unregulated
(N=53)
Income
Category
Low-income
(N=58)
Middle-income
(N=74)
High-income
(N=24)
Low-income
(N=10)
Middle-income
(N=26)
High-income
(N=15)
Low-income
(N=30)
Middle-income
(N=25)
High-income
(N=10)
Low-income
(N=78)
Middle-income
(N=94)
High-income
(N=71)
Low-income
(N=21)
Middle-income
(N=10)
High-income
(N=22)
Type of County in Which Located
Metropolitan
Small City
Rural
53.4% (31)
32.8% (19)
13.8% (8)
50.0% (37)
40.5% (30)
9.5% (7)
66.7% (16)
33.3% (8)
0
40.0% (4)
50.0% (5)
10.0% (1)
57.7% (15)
34.6% (9)
7.7% (2)
73.3% (11)
26.7% (4)
0
50.0% (15)
33.3% (10)
16.7% (5)
32.0% (8)
52.0% (13)
16.0% (4)
30.0% (26)
70.0% (7)
0
30.8% (24)
48.7% (38)
20.5% (16)
30.9% (29)
46.8% (44)
22.3% (21)
38.0% (27)
43.7% (31)
18.3% (13)
28.6% (6)
42.9% (9)
28.6% (6)
40.0% (4)
50.0% (5)
10.0% (1)
13.6% (3)
50.0% (11)
36.4% (8 )
Provider Survey Tables
Page 30
Table 45
Profit Status in Centers and Preschools by Income of Families Served
Profit Status
Income
Middle
Low
Child Care
Centers
Preschools
High
(51% or more struggling)
(6 – 50% struggling)
(5% or less struggling)
For Profit (N = 72)
36.1% (26)
51.4% (37)
12.5% (9)
Non-profit (N = 84)
38.1% (32)
44.0% (37)
17.9% (15)
TOTAL (N = 156)
37.2% (58)
47.4% (74)
15.4% (24)
For Profit (N = 20)
20.0% (4)
60.0% (12)
20.0% (4)
Non-profit (N = 31)
19.4% (6)
45.2% (14)
35.5% (11)
TOTAL(N = 51)
19.6% (10)
51.0% (26)
29.4% (15)
Table 46
Religious Affiliation in Centers and Preschools by Income of Families Served
Low
Income
Middle
High
(51% or more
struggling)
(6 – 50%
struggling)
(5% or less
struggling)
Yes, Managed by Religious Organization
(N = 31)
25.8% (8)
61.3% (19)
12.9% (4)
Not Managed by Religious Organization
(N = 124)
40.3% (50)
44.4% (55)
15.3% (19)
TOTAL (N = 155)
37.4% (58)
47.7% (74)
14.8% (23)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 31
Table 47
Accreditation Status in Centers by Income of Families Served
Accreditation Status
Child Care
Centers
Preschools
Low
Income
Middle
High
(51% or more struggling)
(6 – 50% struggling)
(5% or less struggling)
Accredited (N = 25)
36.0% (9)
32.0% (8)
32.0% (8)
Working Toward
Accreditation
(N = 44)
Not Accredited
(N = 87)
TOTAL (N = 156)
Accredited (N = 9)
40.9% (18)
50.0% (22)
9.1% (4)
35.6% (31)
50.6% (44)
13.8% (12)
37.2% (58)
33.3% (3)
47.4% (74)
44.4% (4)
15.4% (24)
22.2% (2)
Working Toward
Accreditation
(N = 10)
Not Accredited
(N = 32)
TOTAL (N = 51)
30.0% (3)
50.0% (5)
20.0% (2)
12.5% (4)
53.1% (17)
34.4% (11)
19.6% (10)
51.0% (26)
29.4% (15)
Table 48
Percent of Providers serving preschoolers that Use Written Guides to Plan Activities for
Preschoolers
Child Care Centers (N = 160)
Percentage That Use a Written Guide
95.0% (152)
Head Start (N = 49)
98.0% (48)
Preschools (N = 56)
94.6% (53
Group Homes (N = 64)
90.6% (58)
Family Homes (N = 210)
61.0% (128)
Legally Unregulated (N = 39)
48.7% (19)
TOTAL (N = 578)
79.2% (458)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 32
Table 49
Percent of Providers Serving Preschoolers That Teach School Readiness Skills to Preschoolers
Separate from parents
Colors and shapes
Hop, skip, and move to music
Play cooperatively
Letters
Prewriting
Count to ten
Cooperate with teacher
Follow directions
Work independently
Read words
Recognize feelings
Appreciate culture
Child Care
Centers
86.3%
100%
100%
99.4%
100%
100%
100%
99.4%
99.4%
98.8%
76.9%
97.5%
93.7%
Head Start Preschools
91.8%
100%
100%
100%
100%
98.0%
95.9%
100%
100%
100%
75.5%
100%
100%
92.7%
100%
98.2%
100%
98.2%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
75.0%
100%
98.2%
Family
Homes
89.1%
100%
98.4%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
79.7%
100%
87.3%
Group
Homes
72.9%
98.1%
94.8%
99.5%
94.8%
92.0%
98.1%
98.6%
99.1%
97.6%
76.0%
95.8%
77.8%
Legally
Unregulated
47.4%
97.4%
89.7%
97.4%
89.7%
76.9%
94.9%
97.4%
94.9%
92.3%
51.3%
94.9%
56.4%
TOTAL
80.2%
99.1%
97.1%
99.5%
97.2%
95.3%
98.6%
99.1%
99.1%
98.3%
71.6%
97.4%
85.6%
Provider Survey Tables
Page 34
Table 50
Percentage of Providers Serving Preschoolers that Use Developmental Assessments
Child Care Centers (N = 160)
Percentage that Use Developmental Assessments
78.1% (125)
Head Start (N = 49)
100%
Preschools (N = 56)
83.9% (47)
Group Homes (N = 64)
59.4% (38)
Family Homes (N = 210)
33.8% (71)
Legally Unregulated (N = 39)
15.4% (6)
TOTAL (N = 578)
58.1% (336)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 35
Table 51
Percentage of Providers Serving Preschoolers That Engage in Best Practices Transition Activities for Preschoolers
Communicate with public schools
Talk with teachers
Inform schools of children with
special needs
Participate in joint training
Coordinate kindergarten
registration
Hold conferences with schools
Take children to visit schools
Inform parents about kindergarten
readiness and expectations
Pass on records of children
Child Care
Centers
65.6%
55.0%
43.1%
Head Start Preschools
93.9%
91.8%
93.9%
72.7%
50.9%
56.4%
Family
Homes
54.7%
45.3%
28.6%
Group
Homes
24.5%
17.5%
10.5%
Legally
Unregulated
30.8%
20.5%
5.1%
TOTAL
21.9%
36.5%
71.4%
69.4%
23.6%
45.5%
25.0%
12.5%
9.5%
9.0%
5.3%
5.1%
21.0%
25.3%
14.4%
27.5%
63.8%
79.6%
93.9%
91.8%
21.8%
12.7%
70.9%
11.1%
15.6%
53.1%
4.7%
11.8%
24.1%
10.3%
10.3%
18.4%
16.4%
23.5%
48.1%
28.1%
87.8%
52.7%
17.2%
9.0%
0
25.4%
50.1%
40.6%
32.7%
Table 52
Percentage of Providers That Promote Parent Involvement at Their Sites
Ask parents to donate snacks
Ask parents to volunteer
Ask parents to attend meetings
Regularly discuss children’s
progress with parents
Suggest activities for the home
Provide or connect parents with
parent education opportunities
Child Care
Centers
55.2%
65.0%
70.6%
98.2%
69.9%
71.2%
Head Start Preschools
22.0%
84.0%
98.0%
100%
67.9%
67.9%
73.2%
100%
Family
Homes
37.9%
53.0%
45.5%
98.5%
98.0%
98.0%
80.4%
73.2%
71.2%
71.2%
Group
Homes
28.3%
28.9%
26.1%
95.6%
Legally
Unregulated
32.1%
22.6%
23.1%
96.2%
TOTAL
50.2%
47.2%
49.1%
32.1%
63.7%
60.8%
39.5%
47.9%
49.0%
97.3%
Provider Survey Tables
Page 36
Table 53
Percentage of Center-based Providers Serving Children with Various Types of Disabilities
Cognitive Delays
Percentage of Children Served with:
Social and
Physical
Emotional
Impairments
Delays
33.1% (297)
8.6% (77)
Language
Delays
Child Care
Centers
24.1% (216)
34.2% (306)
Head Start
28.9% (229)
16.0% (127)
8.8% (70)
46.2% (366)
Preschools
29.1% (143)
27.6% (136)
14.4% (71)
28.9% (142)
TOTAL AVG
27.0% (588)
25.7% (560)
10.0% (218)
37.3% (814)
Table 54
Percentage of Home-based Providers Serving Children with Various Types of Disabilities
Group Homes
18.7% (40)
Percentage of Children Served with:
Social and
Physical
Language
Emotional
Impairments
Delays
Delays
23.4% (50)
7.0% (15)
32.2% (69)
Family
Homes
17.2% (52)
27.8% (84)
12.3% (37)
30.8% (93)
11.9% (36)
Legally
Unregulated
19.4% (13)
17.9% (12)
6.0% (4)
34.3% (23)
22.4% (15)
TOTAL AVG
18.0% (105)
25.0% (146)
9.6% (56)
31.7% (185)
15.6% (583)
Cognitive
Delays
Learning
Disabilities
18.7% (40)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 37
Table 55
Percentage of Providers That Requested Assistance to Deal with Difficult Behaviors
Language/speech delays
Aggressive behavior
Cognitive/mental delays
Tantrums/biting
Physical impairments
Withdrawn behavior
Clinging/separation difficulty
Wetting/soiling
Child Care
Centers
84.0%
71.6%
73.5%
55.6%
43.2%
28.4%
17.3%
15.4%
Head Start
Preschools
Family Homes
97.9%
91.7%
93.8%
81.3%
79.2%
64.6%
56.3%
45.8%
78.6%
66.1%
76.8%
48.2%
48.2%
30.7
23.2%
12.5%
56.1%
47.0%
37.9%
33.3%
21.2%
27.3%
18.2%
15.2%
Group
Homes
29.3%
32.1%
22.9%
35.3%
12.4%
13.7%
12.0%
14.9%
Legally
Unregulated
26.4%
22.6%
17.0%
24.5%
13.2%
18.9%
17.0%
9.4%
TOTAL
55.4%
50.5%
47.0%
44.0%
29.5%
24.6%
18.8%
16.7%
Provider Survey Tables
Page 38
Table 56
Percentage of Providers That Indicated Services Received to Work with Difficult Children
Were Helpful
Services Were Helpful
93.6% (88)
Child Care Centers
Head Start
100% (42)
Preschools
100% (27)
Group Homes
85.7% (18)
Family Homes
95.5% (42)
Legally Unregulated
TOTAL
100% (5)
95.3% (222)
Table 57
Sites That Had Excluded or Threatened to Exclude Aggressive Children in Last Two Years
Yes, Threatened or
Excluded Aggressive
Children
70.6% (115)
No, Did Not Threaten or
Exclude Aggressive
Children
29.4% (48)
Head Start (N = 47)
34.0% (16)
66.0% (31)
Preschools (N = 55)
70.9% (39)
29.1% (16)
Group Homes (N = 66)
36.4% (24)
63.6% (42)
Family Homes (N = 247)
31.6% (78)
68.4% (169)
Legally Unregulated (N = 51)
13.7% (7)
86.3% (44)
44.4% (279)
55.6% (350)
Child Care Centers (N = 163)
TOTAL
Provider Survey Tables
Page 39
Table 58
Provider Type by Quality Category
Child Care Centers (N = 163)
Low
20.9% (34)
Quality Category
Middle
65.6% (107)
High
13.5% (22)
Head Start (N = 50)
0%
16.0% (8)
84.0% (42)
Preschools (N = 56)
16.1% (9)
55.4% (31)
28.6% (16)
Group Homes (N = 66)
39.4% (26)
40.9% (27)
19.7% (13)
Family Homes (N = 249)
68.7% (171)
26.1% (65)
5.2% (13)
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
84.9% (45)
11.3% (6)
17.0% (2)
TOTAL (N = 637)
44.7% (285)
38.3% (244)
17.0% (108)
Table 59
Mean Quality Index Scores in Head Start, Centers and Preschools, and Home-based
Providers
Head Start
Mean Quality Index
.8144
Child Care Centers and Preschools
.5869
Home-based Providers
.4190
AVERAGE OVER ALL PROVIDERS
.5077
Provider Survey Tables
Page 40
Table 60
Quality Category by Metro Code
Low
Metro Code
Metropolitan County
(N=262)
Small City County
(N=266)
Rural County
(N=109)
TOTAL (N = 637)
Quality Category
Medium
High
30.9% (81)
46.9% (103)
22.1% (58)
54.1% (144)
33.5% (89)
12.4% (33)
55.0% (60)
29.4% (32)
15.6% (17)
44.7% (285)
38.3% (244)
17.0% (108)
Table 61
Differences between Providers in Overall Quality Index and Director Credentials*
Head Start
Quality
Index
.8144
Director
Education
.89
Director
Training
.96
Director
Career
.98
Preschools
.6325
.96
.39
.96
Child Care Centers
.5718
.84
.44
.89
Group Homes
.5701
.19
.48
.95
Family Homes
.4158
.10
.36
.83
Legally Unregulated
.3248
.15
.32
.62
*Decimals give percent sites passing each index.
Provider Survey Tables
Page 41
Table 62
Differences between Types of Centers in Quality of Staff and Structural Elements
Staff
Education
Staff Special
Preparation
Staff InService
Training
Director
Supervision
Staff
Turnover
Group
Size
Child:Staff
Ratio
Head Start
.58
.62
.96
.02
.74
.54
.90
Preschools
.69
.53
.22
.25
.82
.32
.70
Child Care
Centers
.29
.19
.21
.27
.74
.46
.73
Table 63
Differences between Providers in Quality of Program Elements
Planned
Curriculum
Teach
Skills
Assess
Children
Accreditation
Parent
Involvement
School
Transition
Head Start
.98
.98
1.00
1.00*
.98
.92
Preschools
.95
1.00
.84
.16
.80
.52
Child Care Centers
.95
.99
.79
.16
.74
.46
Group Homes
.91
1.00
.59
.13
.63
.27
Family Homes
.61
.93
.34
.08
.40
.12
Legally Unregulated
.49
.79
.15
.05
.28
.05
*Because all Head Start centers undergo monitoring for compliance to standards, they were
deemed “accredited” by Head Start.
Provider Survey Tables
Page 42
Table 64
Income of Families Served by Quality Category for All Sites
Low-income
(N = 246)
Middle-income
(N = 230)
High-income
(N = 142)
TOTAL (N = 618)
High
27.6% (68)
Quality Category
Medium
32.9% (81)
Low
39.4% (97)
10.4% (24)
45.7% (105)
43.9% (101)
9.9% (14)
34.5% (49)
55.6% (79)
17.2% (106)
38.0% (235)
44.8% (277)
Table 65
Income of Families Served by Quality Category Excluding Head Start Sites
Low (N =197)
Low
49.2% (97)
Quality Category
Medium
37.1% (73)
High
13.7% (27)
Middle (N =229)
44.1% (101)
45.9% (105)
10.0% (23)
High (N =142)
55.6% (79)
34.5% (49)
9.9% (14)
TOTAL (N =568)
48.8% (277)
40.0% (227)
11.3% (64)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 43
Table 66
Type of Provider and Quality Category of Sites Serving Families of Differing Income Levels
Child Care
Centers
Preschools
Group Homes
Family Homes
Legally
Unregulated
Income of
Families Served
Low-income
(N=58)
Middle-income
(N=74)
High-income
(N=24)
Low-income
(N=10)
Middle-income
(N=26)
High-income
(N=15)
Low-income
(N=30)
Middle-income
(N=25)
High-income
(N=10)
Low-income
(N=78)
Middle-income
(N=94)
High-income
(N=71)
Low-income
(N=21)
Middle-income
(N=10)
High-income
(N=22)
Low
22.4% (13)
Quality Category
Medium
56.9% (33)
High
20.7% (12)
24.3% (18)
66.2% (49)
9.5% (7)
0
91.7% (22)
8.3% (2)
30.0% (3)
30.0% (3)
40.0% (4)
15.4% (4)
61.5% (16)
23.1% (6)
13.3% (2)
53.3% (8)
33.3% (5)
33.3% (10)
46.7% (14)
20.0% (6)
40.0% (10)
40.0% (10)
20.0% (2)
50.0% (5)
30.0% (3)
20.0% (2)
70.5% (55)
24.4% (19)
5.1% (4)
62.8% (59)
31.9% (30)
5.3% (5)
74.6% (53)
19.7% (14)
5.6% (4)
76.2% (16)
19.0% (4)
4.8% (1)
100%
0
0
86.4% (19)
9.1% (2)
4.5% (1)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 44
Table 67
All Providers Except Head Start and Their Individual Quality Index Component Scores Based on the Income of Families Served
Income
1
Child
Low
0.83
Care
Middle 0.84
Centers
High
0.92
Mean
0.85
Preschools Low
0.90
Middle 1.00
High
0.93
Mean
0.96
Group
Low
0.23
Homes*
Middle 0.20
High
0
Mean
0.18
Low
0.03
Family
Homes*
Middle 0.13
High
0.14
Mean
0.10
Legally
Low
0.24
Unreg.*
Middle
0
High
0.18
Mean
0.17
2
0.52
0.34
0.50
0.43
0.50
0.31
0.47
0.39
0.57
0.32
0.60
0.48
0.47
0.37
0.30
0.38
0.40
0.10
0.29
0.29
3
0.86
0.88
1.00
0.89
1.00
0.92
1.00
0.96
0.97
0.87
1.00
0.94
0.80
0.84
0.75
0.80
0.67
0.70
0.55
0.62
4
0.44
0.20
0.13
0.28
0.40
0.24
0.20
0.26
5
0.19
0.23
0.63
0.28
0.40
0.69
0.79
0.66
6
0.21
0.14
0.29
0.19
0.30
0.46
0.86
0.54
7
0.30
0.16
0.21
0.22
0.20
0.23
0.21
0.22
8
0.62
0.75
0.96
0.74
0.60
0.88
0.80
0.80
9
0.96
0.95
0.96
0.95
1.00
0.92
0.93
0.94
0.93
0.96
0.67
0.90
0.64
0.64
0.56
0.61
0.44
0.89
0.29
0.49
10
0.98
1.00
1.00
0.99
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.93
0.94
0.92
0.93
0.94
0.78
0.64
0.79
11
0.75
0.80
0.87
0.79
0.90
0.85
0.87
0.86
0.60
0.67
0.44
0.60
0.37
0.37
0.31
0.35
0.19
0.11
0.14
0.15
12
0.16
0.11
0.33
0.16
0.30
0.15
0.13
0.18
0.13
0.16
0.20
0.15
0.06
0.12
0.04
0.08
0
0
0.09
0.04
13
0.71
0.74
0.87
0.75
0.80
0.77
0.87
0.80
0.67
0.64
0.50
0.63
0.38
0.41
0.35
0.39
0.38
0.30
0.23
0.30
14
0.53
0.43
0.39
0.46
0.60
0.58
0.47
0.55
0.27
0.29
0.22
0.27
0.15
0.14
0.08
0.13
0.13
0
0
0.05
15
0.52
0.50
0.29
0.47
0.50
0.23
0.33
0.31
* Home-based providers serving 3-5-year-olds only use factors 1 – 3 and 9 – 14 to compute their Structural Quality Index Scores.
16
0.81
0.72
0.63
0.74
0.70
0.58
0.87
0.69
Provider Survey Tables
Page 46
Table 68
Percentage of Income-Level Centers and Preschools Rated as Low, Medium, and High
Quality
Income of
Families Served
Low-income
Middle-income
High-income
TOTAL
Mean Quality
Index Score
.5915
.5651
.6391
Quality Category (n = 207)
Low
Medium
High
23.5% (16)
52.9% (36)
23.5% (16)
22.0% (22)
65.0% (65)
13.0% (13)
5.1% (2)
76.9% (30)
17.9% (7)
19.3% (40)
63.3% (131)
17.4% (36)
Table 69
Percentage of Quality Centers and Preschools and Type of Counties in Which They Are
Found
Metropolitan County
(N=119)
Small City County
(N=80)
Rural County
(N=20)
TOTAL
(N=219)
Low
15.1% (18)
Quality Category
Medium
63.9% (76)
High
21.0% (25)
26.3% (21)
62.5% (50)
11.3% (9)
20.0% (4)
60.0% (12)
20.0% (4)
19.6% (43)
63.0% (138)
17.4% (38)
Table 70
Percentage of Quality Home-based Providers and Type of Counties in Which They Are
Found
Metropolitan County
(N=122)
Small City County
(N=170)
Rural County
(N=76)
TOTAL
(N=368)
Low
51.6% (63)
Quality Category
Medium
36.1% (44)
High
12.3% (15)
72.4% (103)
20.6% (35)
7.1% (12)
73.7% (56)
25.0% (19)
1.3% (1)
65.8% (242)
26.6% (98)
7.6% (218)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 47
Table 71
Profit Status by Quality Category in Child Care Centers and Preschools
Child Care
Centers
(N = 163)
Preschools
(N = 56)
For profit (N = 73)
Non-profit (N = 90)
Low
31.5% (23)
12.2% (11)
Quality Category
Medium
61.6% (45)
68.9% (62)
High
6.8% (5)
18.9% (17
For profit (N = 23)
Non-profit (N = 33)
17.4% (4)
15.2% (5)
73.9% (17)
42.4% (14)
8.7% (2)
42.4% (14)
Table 72
Percentages of Providers of Low, Medium, and High Quality Based on Accreditation Status
Child Care
Centers
Preschools
Quality Category
Medium
65.4% (17)
Accreditation Status
Accredited (N=26)
Low
3.8% (1)
Working Toward
Accreditation (N=45)
Not Accredited
(N=92)
13.3% (6)
71.1% (32)
15.6% (7)
29.3% (27)
63.0% (58)
7.6% (7)
0
11.1% (1)
88.9% (8)
8.3% (1)
66.7% (8)
25.0% (3)
22.9% (8)
62.9% (22)
14.3% (5)
Accredited (N=9)
Working Toward
Accreditation (N=12)
Not Accredited
(N=35)
High
30.8% (8)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 48
Table 73
Percentage of Sites that Indicated Staff Training Needs in Particular Areas by Provider Type
Health and safety practices
Education and care of birth to 34month-olds
Education and care of 3 – 5-year-olds
Education and care of children with
disabilities
Working with families
Early number skills
Early literacy skills (reading, writing)
Early language skills
Helping children get along with others
Behavior management (discipline)
Measuring children’s progress
Classroom management
TOTAL
Child Care
Centers
49.0
61.1
Head Start
Preschools
Family
Homes
35.1
37.0
Legally
Unregulated
30.4
28.3
TOTAL
43.4
41.5
Group
Homes
31.1
32.8
29.2
31.3
66.9
73.9
81.3
83.3
56.6
64.2
44.3
59.0
42.7
66.4
37.0
60.9
53.5
68.4
70.1
38.2
64.3
59.9
74.5
86.0
65.6
73.2
65.3%
79.2
64.6
85.4
81.3
64.6
87.5
79.2
68.8
69.6%
67.9
30.2
41.5
43.4
69.8
88.7
56.6
54.7
54.9%
45.9
31.1
47.5
49.2
45.9
55.7
49.2
47.5
44.9%
52.1
31.8
43.1
41.7
62.1
70.1
51.2
39.8
47.8%
39.1
23.9
30.4
37.0
52.2
52.2
56.5
39.1
40.6%
59.0
35.4
51.7
50.5
63.9
74.7
58.2
53.5
54.1%
Table 74
Percent Owners of Home-Based Providers Who Had Training in Running a Home-Based Business
Group Homes (N = 66)
Family Homes (N = 249)
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
TOTAL (N = 368)
Yes, Had Received Training in Running a Homebased Business
74.2% (49)
74.7% (186)
49.1% (26)
70.9% (261)
38.4
42.4
Provider Survey Tables
Page 49
Table 75
Percentage of Sites that Administered Medication and Had Received Training to Administer
Medication
Percentage of Sites that
Administered Medication
Child Care Centers
93.3% (152)
Percentage of Sites that Received
Training to Administer
Medication
60.5% (92)
Head Start
92.0% (46)
100%
Preschools
73.2% (41)
80.5% (33)
Group Homes
83.3% (55)
60.0% (33)
Family Homes
78.7% (196)
58.2% (114)
Legally Unregulated
71.7% (38)
47.4% (18)
TOTAL
82.9% (528)
63.6% (335)
Table 76
Training Issues – Training Too Elementary
Always an Issue
13.5% (22)
Sometimes an Issue
60.7% (99)
Never an Issue
25.8% (42)
Head Start
2.0% (1)
69.4% (34)
28.6% (14)
Preschools
14.3% (8)
58.9% (33)
26.8% (15)
Group Homes
7.6% (5)
56.1% (37)
36.4% (24)
Family Homes
8.3% (20)
45.0% (109)
46.7% (113)
Legally Unregulated
10.9% (5)
34.8% (16)
54.3% (25)
TOTAL
9.8% (61)
52.7% (328)
37.5% (233)
Child Care Centers
Provider Survey Tables
Page 50
Table 77
Training Issues – No Funding for Substitutes
Always an Issue
40.7% (66)
Sometimes an Issue
28.4% (46)
Never an Issue
30.9% (50)
Head Start
32.0% (16)
24.0% (12)
44.0% (22)
Preschools
30.4% (17)
30.4% (17)
39.3% (22)
Group Homes
27.4% (17)
22.6% (14)
50.0% (31)
Family Homes
28.8% (67)
19.7% (46)
51.5% (120)
Legally Unregulated
20.9% (9)
23.3% (10)
55.8% (24)
31.7% (192)
23.9% (145)
44.4% (269)
Child Care Centers
TOTAL
Table 78
Training Issues – Cannot Afford Training
Always an Issue
17.9% (29)
Sometimes an Issue
46.3% (75)
Never an Issue
35.8% (58)
Head Start
20.0% (10)
48.0% (24)
32.0% (16)
Preschools
12.5% (7)
50.0% (28)
37.5% (21)
Group Homes
10.6% (7)
28.8% (19)
60.6% (40)
Family Homes
12.7% (31)
35.2% (86)
52.0% (127)
Legally Unregulated
24.5% (12)
30.6% (15)
44.9% (22)
TOTAL
15.3% (96)
39.4% (247)
45.3% (284)
Child Care Centers
Provider Survey Tables
Page 51
Table 79
Staff Average Turnover Rate in Center-based Providers by Quality Category and Income of
Families Served
Quality of Sites
Low quality
Average Turnover
Rate
31.5% (39)
Predominant Income
of Families Served
Low-income
Average Turnover
Rate
21.3% (111)
Medium quality
18.0% (140)
Middle-income
18.7% (97)
High quality
13.8% (79)
High-income
11.5% (38)
AVERAGE
18.8% (258)
AVERAGE
18.8% (246)
Table 80
Percentage of Providers Indicating Challenges in Hiring Staff Due to a Lack of Qualified
People
Child Care Centers
Head Start
Preschools
Group Homes
Family Homes
Legally Unregulated
TOTAL
Percent Indicating the Degree of Challenge Associated with
Hiring Staff Due to Lack of Qualified People
Not at all a
2
Neutral
4
A big
challenge
challenge
6.2% (10)
3.7% (6)
18.6%
21.7%
49.7%
(30)
(35)
(80)
18.0% (9)
26.0%
14.0% (7)
14.0%
78.0%
(13)
(7)
(14)
5.5% (3)
7.3% (4) 16.4% (9)
34.5%
36.4%
(19)
(20)
32.1% (18)
0
10.7% (6)
14.3%
42.9%
(8)
(24)
32.4% (11)
8.8% (3) 17.6% (6) 8.8% (3)
32.4%
(11)
60.0% (3)
0
0
20.0% 20.0% (1)
(1)
15.0% (54)
7.2%
16.1%
20.2%
41.6%
(26)
(58)
(73)
(150)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 52
Table 81
Percentage of Providers Indicating Challenges in Hiring Staff Due to a Low Pay
Child Care Centers
Head Start
Preschools
Group Homes
Family Homes
Legally Unregulated
TOTAL
Percent Indicating the Degree of Challenge Associated with
Hiring Staff Due to Low Pay
Not at all a
2
Neutral
4
A big
challenge
challenge
4.3% (7)
4.3% (7) 9.8% (16)
15.3%
66.3%
(25)
(108)
8.0% (4)
12.0%
34.0%
20.0%
26.0%
(6)
(17)
(10)
(13)
3.6% (2)
5.5% (3)
21.8%
18.2%
50.9%
(12)
(10)
(28)
17.5% (10)
5.3% (3) 15.8% (9)
17.5%
43.9%
(10)
(25)
21.2% (7)
6.1% (2) 21.2% (7) 6.1% (2)
45.5%
(15)
33.3% (2)
0
33.3% (2)
0
33.3% (2)
8.8% (32)
5.8%
(21)
17.3%
(63)
15.7%
(57)
52.5%
(191)
Table 82
Percentage of Providers Indicating Challenges in Hiring Staff Due to a Inadequate Benefits
Child Care Centers
Head Start
Preschools
Group Homes
Family Homes
Legally Unregulated
TOTAL
Percent Indicating the Degree of Challenge Associated with
Hiring Staff Due to Inadequate Benefits
Not at all a
2
Neutral
4
A big
challenge
challenge
16.6% (27)
16.6%
12.9%
12.3%
41.7%
(27)
(21)
(20)
(68)
34.0% (17)
48.0%
12.0% (6) 4.0% (2) 2.0% (1)
(24)
10.9% (6)
16.4%
25.5%
16.4%
30.9%
(9)
(14)
(9)
(17)
19.3% (11)
1.8% (1) 10.5% (6)
15.8%
52.6%
(9)
(30)
24.2% (8)
3.0% (1) 9.1% (3)
0
63.6%
(21)
16.7% (1)
0
50.0% (3)
16.7% 16.7% (1)
(1)
19.2% (70)
17.0%
14.6%
11.3%
37.9%
(62)
(53)
(41)
(138)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 53
Table 83
Income of Families Served and the Percent of Primary Classroom Staff with Particular
Educational Backgrounds for Center-Based Providers
Less than
High School
Diploma
2.08%
High School
Diploma or
GED
41.69%
Certificate or
Associate’s
Degree
30.26%
Bachelor’s
Degree
24.70%
Master’s
Degree or
Higher
1.28%
Middle Income
0.31%
56.53%
13.32%
24.81%
5.04%
High Income
0.19%
30.17%
17.46%
43.52%
8.66%
Low Income
Table 84
Income of Families Served and the Percent of Primary Classroom Staff with Particular
Educational Backgrounds for Home-Based Providers
Low Income
Middle Income
High Income
Less
than
8th
Grade
2.22%
Less than
High
School
Diploma
5.00%
High
School
Diploma or
GED
72.59%
Certificate or
Associate’s
Degree
Bachelor’s
Degree
Master’s
Degree or
Higher
11.26%
8.93%
0%
0%
2.99%
68.25%
14.70%
12.69%
1.37%
6.67%
8.33%
66.25%
11.25%
6.25%
1.25%
Table 85
Average Annual Salaries of Directors, Primary Classroom Staff (PCS), and Aides in the First
and Fifth Years of Employment in Center-based Providers by Location of Site
Metropolitan
Director
Salary in
1st Year
$27,526
Director
Salary in
5th year
$33,260
PCS
Salary in
1st Year
$18,937
PCS
Salary in
5th Year
$23,277
Aide
Salary in
1st Year
$14,699
Aide
Salary in
5th Year
$17,837
Small City
$22,992
$27,336
$16,175
$19,266
$13,847
$16,420
Rural
$21,626
$24,349
$14,443
$17,235
$12,339
$13,377
AVERAGE
$25,299
$30,141
$17,402
$21,083
$14,127
$16,842
Provider Survey Tables
Page 54
Table 86
Average Annual Salaries of Home-Based Owners and Their Assistants by Income of
Families Served
Average Salary of Owners
$7,620
Average Salary of Assistants
$12,976
Middle-income
$12,005
$13,154
High-income
$11,826
$14,877
AVERAGE
$10,336
$13,297
Low-income
Table 87
Quality Category and the Percent of Directors with Particular Educational Backgrounds for
Center-Based Providers
Less than
High School
Diploma
1.19%
High School
Diploma or
GED
6.43%
Certificate or
Associate’s
Degree
28.73%
Bachelor’s
Degree
57.70%
Master’s
Degree or
Higher
5.95%
Medium Quality
0%
7.08%
16.09%
61.62%
15.21%
High Quality
0%
2.38%
6.51%
59.87%
31.24%
Low Quality
Table 88
Quality Category and the Percent of Primary Classroom Staff with Particular Educational
Backgrounds for Center-Based Providers
Less than
High School
Diploma
2.08%
High School
Diploma or
GED
72.13%
Certificate or
Associate’s
Degree
15.76%
Bachelor’s
Degree
10.03%
Master’s
Degree or
Higher
0%
Medium Quality
0.85%
53.10%
16.73%
26.45%
2.86%
High Quality
0.94%
17.44%
32.30%
42.08%
7.23%
Low Quality
Provider Survey Tables
Page 55
Table 89
Quality Category and the Percent of Assistants with Particular Educational Backgrounds for
Home-Based Providers
Less
than 8th
Grade
Low Quality
2.96%
Less than
High
School
Diploma
4.70%
Medium Quality
2.27%
6.06%
68.56%
13.60%
8.18%
1.33%
0%
3.13%
60.83%
17.92%
16.88%
1.25%
High Quality
High
School
Diploma or
GED
73.85%
Certificate or
Associate’s
Degree
Bachelor’s
Degree
Master’s
Degree or
Higher
9.33%
9.15%
0%
Table 90
Average Annual Salaries of Directors, Primary Classroom Staff (PCS), and Aides in the First
and Fifth Years of Employment in Center-based Providers by Quality Category of Site
Low Quality
Director
Salary in
1st Year
$20,752
Director
Salary in
5th year
$25,665
PCS
Salary in
1st Year
$15,378
PCS
Salary in
5th Year
$18,960
Aide
Salary in
1st Year
$14,665
Aide
Salary in
5th Year
$16,797
Medium Quality
$23,388
$27,486
$17,062
$20,665
$14,517
$17,351
High Quality
$31,705
$37,762
$19,173
$22,757
$13,209
$15,960
TOTAL AVG
$25,299
$30,141
$17,402
$21,083
$14,127
$16,842
Table 91
Average Annual Salaries of Home-Based Owners and Their Assistants by Quality Category
Average Salary of Owners
$9,778
Average Salary of Assistants
$11,175
Medium Quality
$11,394
$14,596
High Quality
$11,135
$14,953
AVERAGE
$10,334
$13,371
Low Quality
Provider Survey Tables
Page 56
Table 92
Quartiles of the Annual Salaries of Home-based Owners by Quality
Low Quality (n = 185)
Quartiles for Annual Salaries of Home-based Owners
Lowest
2
3
Highest
24.9% (46) 28.1% (52) 24.9% (46) 22.2% (41)
Medium Quality (n = 82)
20.7% (17)
23.2% (19)
29.3% (24)
26.8% (22)
High Quality (n = 20)
45.0% (9)
10.0% (2)
5.0% (1)
40.0% (8)
TOTAL (n = 287)
25.1% (72)
25.4% (73)
24.7% (71)
24.7% (71)
Table 93
Provider Type and Average Hourly Full Fees Potentially Charged Parents
Child Care Centers
Average Hourly
Full Fees for Infants
$2.93 (N = 121)
Average Hourly Full
Fees for Toddlers
$2.69 (N = 140)
Average Hourly Full
Fees for Preschoolers
$2.36 (N = 154)
Preschools
$3.14 (N=30)
$2.90 (N=34)
$2.41 (N=51)
Group Homes
$2.24 (N=41)
$2.14 (N=51)
$2.09 (N=55)
Family Homes
$2.22 (N=164)
$2.10 (N=183)
$2.07 (N=191)
Legally Unregulated
$2.23 (N=23)
$1.95 (N=25)
$1.88 (N=32)
Table 94
Income and Average Hourly Full Fees Potentially Charged Parents
Child Care
Centers and
Preschools
Home-based
Providers
Income of
Families
Low-income
Middle-income
High-income
Average
Average Hourly Full Fees
Infants
Toddlers
Preschoolers
$2.77 (N = 50) $2.59 (N = 55) $2.23 (N = 62)
$2.95 (N = 73) $2.65 (N = 81) $2.40 (N = 95)
$3.50 (N = 23) $3.22 (N = 30) $2.60 (N = 37)
$2.97 (N = 146) $2.73 (N = 166) $2.38 (N = 194)
Low-income
Middle-income
High-income
Average
$2.16 (N = 89) $2.08 (N = 101) $2.01 (N = 103)
$2.19 (N = 77) $2.00 (N = 89) $1.96 (N = 99)
$2.33 (N = 57) $2.23 (N = 63) $2.22 (N = 70)
$2.21 (N = 223) $2.09 (N = 253) $2.04 (N = 272)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 57
Table 95
Quality and Average Hourly Full Fees Potentially Charged Parents
Quality Category
Child Care
Centers and
Preschools
Low Quality
Medium Quality
High Quality
Average
Average Hourly Full Fees
Infants
Toddlers
Preschoolers
$2.91 (N = 38) $2.55 (N = 40) $2.22 (N = 40)
$2.98 (N = 97) $2.77 (N = 110) $2.41 (N = 130)
$3.08 (N = 16) $2.85 (N = 24) $2.40 (N = 35)
$2.97 (N = 151) $2.73 (N = 174) $2.37 (N = 205)
Home-based
Providers
Low Quality
Medium Quality
High Quality
Average
$2.17 (N = 148) $2.01 (N = 168) $1.99 (N = 180)
$2.31 (N = 64) $2.25 (N = 75) $2.18 (N = 80)
$2.39 (N = 16) $2.17 (N = 16) $2.09 (N = 18)
$2.22 (N = 228) $2.09 (N = 259) $2.05 (N = 278)
Table 96
Metro Code and Average Hourly Full Fees Potentially Charged Parents
Type of County
Child Care
Centers and
Preschools
Metropolitan
Small City
Rural
Average
Average Hourly Full Fees
Infants
Toddlers
Preschoolers
$3.24 (N = 77) $3.00 (N = 95) $2.56 (N = 111)
$2.72 (N = 62) $2.42 (N = 66) $2.20 (N = 77)
$2.51 (N = 12) $2.32 (N = 13) $1.97 (N = 17)
$2.97 (N = 151) $2.73 (N = 174) $2.37 (N = 205)
Home-based
Providers
Metropolitan
Small City
Rural
Average
$2.68 (N = 72) $2.52 (N = 83) $2.44 (N = 89)
$2.01 (N = 104) $1.91 (N = 122) $1.89 (N = 132)
$2.01 (N = 52) $1.83 (N = 54) $1.83 (N = 57)
$2.22 (N = 228) $2.09 (N = 259) $2.05 (N = 278)
Table 97
Profit Status and Average Hourly Fees Full Potentially Charged Parents for Infants in Child
Care Centers and Preschools
For Profit
Non-Profit
Average
Average Hourly Full Fees
Infants
Toddlers
Preschoolers
$3.02 (N = 84)
$2.75 (N = 86)
$2.44 (N = 93)
$2.91 (N = 67)
$2.72 (N = 88)
$2.32 (N = 112)
$2.97 (N = 151)
$2.73 (N = 174)
$2.37 (N = 205)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 58
Table 98
Religious Affiliation and Full Fees Potentially Charged Parents in Child Care Centers and
Preschools
Managed by Religious
Organization
Not Managed by NonReligious Organization
Average
Average Hourly Full Fees
Infants
Toddlers
Preschoolers
$2.83 (N = 24)
$2.67 (N = 31)
$2.18 (N = 39)
$2.98 (N = 126)
$2.73 (N = 142)
$2.42 (N = 166)
$2.96 (N = 150)
$2.72 (N = 173)
$2.37 (N = 205)
Table 99
Accreditation Status and Full Fees Potentially Charged Parents in Child Care Centers and
Preschools and the Mean Quality Index
Infants
$3.35 (N = 24)
Toddlers
$3.01 (N = 30)
Preschoolers
$2.52 (N = 34)
Mean
Quality
Index
.71
Working Toward
Accreditation
$2.82 (N = 43)
$2.68 (N = 48)
$2.32 (N = 54)
.59
Not Accredited
$2.94 (N = 84)
$2.67 (N = 96)
$2.36 (N = 117)
.55
Average
$2.97 (N = 151)
$2.73 (N = 174)
$2.37 (N = 205)
Average Hourly Full Fees
Accreditation
Status
Accredited
Table 100
Accreditation Status and Annual Operating Costs per Child for Child Care Centers and
Preschools
Accreditation Status
Accredited (N=28)
Working toward Accreditation (N=43)
Not Accredited (N=81)
AVERAGE (N = 152)
Annual Operating Costs per Child
$5708
$5855
$5228
$5494
Provider Survey Tables
Page 59
Table 101
Offer of Direct Financial Assistance to Families by Provider Type
Child Care Centers (N = 157)
Offer Financial Help
38.2% (60)
Preschools (N = 53)
35.8% (19)
Group Homes (N = 56)
19.6% (11)
Family Homes (N = 198)
16.2% (32)
Legally Unregulated (N = 39)
10.3% (4)
TOTAL (N = 503)
25.0% (126)
Table 102
Income of Families Served by Offer of Direct Financial Assistance to Families and Provider
Type
Provider Type
Child Care Centers
(N = 150)
Preschools (N = 49)
Group Homes (N =
55)
Income of Families
Served
Low-income
Middle-income
High-income
Low-income
Middle-income
High-income
Low-income
Middle-income
High-income
Family Homes (N = Low-income
193)
Middle-income
High-income
Legally Unregulated Low-income
(N = 39)
Middle-income
High-income
Offer Financial
Help
41.8% (23)
36.6% (26)
37.5% (9)
33.3% (3)
44.0% (11)
33.3% (5)
18.5% (5)
21.1% (4)
22.2% (2)
22.7% (15)
17.1% (113)
7.8% (4)
5.9% (1)
12.5% (1)
14.3% (2)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 60
Table 103
Types of Offers of Direct Financial Assistance to Families by Provider Type
Child Care Centers (N = 59)
Sliding Fee
50.8% (30)
Scholarships, etc.
49.2% (29)
Preschools (N = 19)
42.1% (8)
57.9% (11)
Group Homes (N = 10)
30.0% (3)
70.0% (7)
Family Homes (N = 30)
33.3% (10)
66.7% (20)
0
100% (2)
42.5% (51)
57.5% (69)
Legally Unregulated (N = 2)
TOTAL (N = 120)
Table 104
Offer of Direct Financial Assistance to Families by Quality Category
Low Quality (N = 231)
Offer Financial Help
15.6% (29)
Medium Quality (N = 218)
30.7% (67)
High Quality (N = 54)
55.6% (30)
TOTAL (N = 503)
25.0% (126)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 61
Table 105
Provision of Subsidy Information to Parents by Provider Type
Child Care Centers (N = 162)
Provide Subsidy
Information
88.3% (143)
Head Start (N = 50)
94.0% (47)
Preschools (N = 56)
60.7% (34)
Group Homes (N = 66)
93.9% (62)
Family Homes (N = 248)
75.0% (186)
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
49.1% (26)
TOTAL (N = 635)
78.4% (498)
Table 106
Provision of Subsidy Information to Parents by Income of Families and Provider Type
Provider Type
Child Care Centers (N = 155)
Head Start (N=50)
Preschools (N = 51)
Group Homes (N = 65)
Family Homes (N = 242)
Legally Unregulated (N = 53)
Income of
Families Served
Low-income
Middle-income
High-income
Low-income
Middle-income
Low-income
Middle-income
High-income
Low-income
Middle-income
High-income
Low-income
Middle-income
High-income
Low-income
Middle-income
High-income
Offer Information
about Subsidies
93.0% (53)
94.6% (70)
62.5% (15)
93.9% (46)
100% (1)
100% (10)
61.5% (16)
33.3% (5)
93.3% (28)
92.0% (23)
100% (10)
88.5% (69)
73.1% (68)
60.6% (43)
66.7% (14)
50.0% (5)
31.8% (7)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 62
Table 107
Perceptions of Difficulty Making Ends Meet by Provider Type
Child Care Centers (N = 159)
Difficulty Making Ends Meet
Very
Somewhat
Not at all
35.8% (57)
44.7% (71)
19.5% (31)
Head Start (N = 50)
10.0% (5)
56.0% (28)
34.0% (17)
Preschools (N = 55)
25.5% (14)
49.1% (27)
25.5% (14)
Group Homes (N = 65)
20.0% (13)
41.5% (27)
38.5% (25)
Family Homes (N = 248)
10.5% (26)
45.6% (113)
44.0% (109)
Legally Unregulated (N = 50)
12.0% (6)
28.0% (14)
60.0% (30)
19.3% (121)
44.7% (280)
36.0% (226)
TOTAL (N = 627)
Table 108
Perceptions of Difficulty Making Ends Meet by Income of Participants
Low-income (N = 242)
Difficulty Making Ends Meet
Very
Somewhat
Not at all
26.0% (63) 48.3% (117) 25.6% (62)
Middle-income (N = 227)
16.7% (38)
46.3% (105)
37.0% (84)
High-income (N = 139)
11.5% (16)
33.8% (47)
54.7% (76)
TOTAL (N = 608)
19.2% (117) 44.2% (269) 36.5% (222)
Provider Survey Tables
Page 63
Table 109
Perceptions of Difficulty Making Ends Meet by Quality and
Low Quality (N = 282)
Difficulty Making Ends Meet
Very
Somewhat
Not at all
TOTAL
31.4% (38) 44.3% (124) 53.1% (120) 45.0% (282)
Medium Quality (N = 238)
51.2% (62) 36.1% (101)
33.2% (75)
38.0% (238)
High Quality (N = 107)
17.4% (21)
19.6% (55)
13.7% (31)
17.1% (107)
.5475
.5297
.4605
Mean of Quality Index (N = 627)