Child care quality rating and improvement systems are designed to increase families’ access to high-quality child care. In this brief, we examine how child care facilities’ participation in Capital Quality—DC’s Quality Rating and Improvement System—has changed over the first five years of implementation.

Why This Matters

When DC child care facilities participate in Capital Quality, they receive training and resources that allow them to improve the quality of care they provide. Greater participation in Capital Quality is the first step to quality improvement across DC child care.

What We Found

Our analysis of DC child care licensing data and Capital Quality participation data revealed the following:

• Both the number and share of licensed child care facilities participating in Capital Quality increased from 2019 to 2024.
• Participation increased across facility types, including among facilities that were not required to participate in Capital Quality.
• Multiple factors contributed to changes in the overall participation rates, including individual facility decisions and market shifts.
• Facilities participating in Capital Quality at the start of implementation were less likely to have closed after five years.
• Facilities that opened after implementation began were less likely to engage with Capital Quality.

How We Did It

DC’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) engaged the Urban Institute to conduct a comprehensive review of Capital Quality. We analyzed administrative records of Capital Quality participation and observations, conducted interviews and focus groups with stakeholders, and developed recommendations for systems improvement. For this brief, we performed descriptive analyses of annual licensing data and Capital Quality participation data from 2019 to 2024, obtained through a data sharing agreement with OSSE.