ERIC Number: ED613542
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Apr
Pages: 19
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
State and Territory Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Investments in Early Care and Education Quality. OPRE Report 2021-63
Lin, Van-Kim; Maxwell, Kelly
Administration for Children & Families
The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 and the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Final Rule approved in 2016 outlined major policy changes in four areas: (1) health and safety; (2) consumer education; (3) equal access to high-quality care for children in families with low-incomes; and (4) quality improvement and support for the workforce. The CCDBG Act of 2014 and the Final Rule required lead agencies to fund at least one of ten activities aimed at improving the quality of child care services (referred to as "quality activities"). The CCDBG Act of 2014 also required states and territories to report how they invest in quality activities as well as how they measure progress to improve quality. In CCDF Plans, states and territories prospectively report plans for investing in each of these quality activities for the next three-year period ("planned investments"). The plans only distinguish between investments that are covered by CCDF and non-CCDF funding. The Quality Progress Reports (QPR) is an annual report in which lead agencies provide information about how they used funding and measured progress for each of the quality activities to increase access to high-quality child care. In the QPR, states and territories retrospectively report whether they used any of three funding sources in the past fiscal year (i.e., CCDF quality set-aside funds, non-CCDF funds, or some of the increased CCDF funds from the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018) to support each of the quality activities ("reported investments"). States and territories also describe how they are measuring progress in each of the ten quality activities in the QPR. The QPRs act as status reports and are not used by OCC for determining compliance with the Final Rule. Data from CCDF Plans and QPRs offer a glimpse into the degree to which planned investments match later reported investments and how states and territories prioritized investing in various quality activities. This report will summarize findings from analyses conducted in November 2019, highlight gaps in the available information on quality investments, and offer implications for future research. This report aims to answer the following questions: (1) What were states' and territories' planned and reported investments in quality activities?; and (2) How did states and territories report measuring progress to improve quality?
Descriptors: Child Care, Early Childhood Education, Educational Quality, Federal Aid, Grants, Block Grants, Investment, Improvement, Statewide Planning, Program Evaluation
Administration for Children & Families. US Department of Health and Human Services, 370 L'Enfant Promenade SW, Washington, DC 20447. Web site: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/
Publication Type: Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Administration for Children and Families (DHHS), Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE); MEF Associates; Child Trends; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (DHHS)
Identifiers - Laws, Policies, & Programs: Child Care and Development Block Grants
Grant or Contract Numbers: HHSP233201500077I