Quality Rating Systems — A Grassroots View

In one of the most popular recent articles in Exchange magazine, "Quality Rating Systems — The Experience of Center Directors," Dana Friedman observed, "There’s a policy locomotive chugging through the states in the name of 'quality rating systems' (QRS). The 13 states that have QRS in place and the other 29 studying it believe this effort can improve quality, help the poorest children to get the highest quality care, educate consumers, and potentially create a system out of what is a cacophony of funding streams, regulations, and learning standards. As a director of a local effort to improve quality and the co-chair of New York State’s Work Group on QRS, I thought the experiences of center directors participating in their state’s QRS could be illuminating — and indeed they were. A dozen diverse center directors were interviewed from three states with different approaches to their quality rating systems: Colorado, where most financial incentives vary by locality; Pennsylvania, which offers the most generous grants to enter the system and acquire more stars; and Tennessee, which has the strongest relationship to licensing among those interviewed. Follow-up interviews were conducted with state officials and other experts on QRS."

The results of Dana's interviews reveal directors' reactions to the difficulty and value of working with quality rating systems as well as their recommendations to states just developing such programs. This article in its entirety can be found here.

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