Under contract from the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL), throughout 2023 an Urban Institute team gathered perspectives to inform DECAL’s comprehensive review of its quality rating and improvement system called Quality Rated. In this report, we describe what we learned about strengths and areas for improvement for Quality Rated from the more than 900 child care center-based leaders, more than 300 child care home-based leaders, more than 100 Georgia parents who need or use child care for their children from birth through age 13, and others who shared their perspectives with us through surveys, focus groups, and Data Walks. The report also describes how we did the work, provides detailed survey data, and makes six forward-looking recommendations for strengthening a future Quality Rated system. 

Summary of Some Key Findings

• Most participating child care programs think the Quality Rated system is fair and that most dimensions of quality are measured well.
• Most nonparticipating child care programs have heard of Quality Rated and think they would be eligible to participate.
• Quality Rated gives some parents peace of mind when they leave their child in child care.
• Many people from each stakeholder group agreed that a fundamental needed improvement is figuring out how to better balance the goals of the system between rating the level of quality and helping all programs improve their quality.
• Nearly all the stakeholders agree that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. While many want to see more options and tailoring, others express concern that the system will be too complex and may become less fair as it strives to become more so.
• Parents of children with disabilities and other identified needs and providers serving them both identified the need for providers to have more support in serving these children.
• Parents want more information about what the ratings mean and think that a 5-star rating (like they often see for hotels and restaurants) would be more intuitive than the current system where 3 stars is the highest rating.
• Parents and child care providers would like to see more education about the system that is readily available, easy to access, and more easily understood.

Key Recommendations

• Verify system goals and shape the system to meet them.
• Simplify the system but tailor it to match many strengths and diverse needs.
• Reframe the system to reflect and support experiences.
• Consider how and how often to verify the experiences.
• Provide more education, more continuously, about the system.
• Consider what feedback is for (and should be included in) Quality Rated and where to strengthen links with other programs or systems.

Where to Find Related Products

We developed several products to share what we learned. On our web page, “Partnering with the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning to Strengthen Georgia’s Early Care and Learning System,” you can find them all, in addition to other products where we have collaborated with Georgia DECAL to better understand the needs, perspectives, and experiences of families, child care and early learning operators and educators, and other stakeholders.