Last month the Department of Children and Families (DCF) released the first part of a two-part multi-year study of the YoungStar quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) for child care. Here is a link to the Executive Summary. The study was done by Katherine Magnuson, PhD who is at UW-Madison. Her conclusion is that yes, “star rating level does differentiate among programs of varying observed quality”, and yes, “the rating points that serve as the basis for the star level categorization also predicted a program’s observed classroom quality.”
In other words, the criteria used for YoungStar are a valid measure to differentiate quality across child care programs. The next part of the study is due out in 2016. It will look at an analysis of early learning and school readiness outcomes. The question to be answered is, “Does higher quality translate into better outcomes for children in those programs?”
Here is a link to the first full report.