The Effects of Accountability Incentives in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

In an effort to enhance the quality of early childhood education (ECE) at scale, nearly all U.S. states have recently adopted Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). These accountability systems give providers and parents information about program quality and create both reputational and financial incentives for program improvement. However, we know little about whether these accountability reforms operate as theorized. This study provides the first empirical evidence on this question using data from North Carolina, a state with a mature QRIS. Using a regression discontinuity design, we examine how assignment to a lower quality rating influenced subsequent outcomes of ECE programs. We find that programs responded to a lower quality rating with comparative performance gains, including improvement on a multi‐faceted measure of classroom quality. Programs assigned to a lower star rating also experienced enrollment declines, which is consistent with the hypothesis that parents responded to information about program quality by selectively enrolling away from programs with lower ratings. These effects were concentrated among programs that faced higher levels of competition from nearby providers.

Adult outcomes of sustained high‐quality early child care and education: Do they vary by family income?

“…In addition, we were not able to examine timing of ECE (e.g., infant & toddler vs. preschool) or type of care (e.g., grandparent care, family daycare, center care) while Start and public prekindergarten programs that have quality performance standards (Friedman-Krauss et al, 2021). Quality of care also might be higher on average for children from middleclass families due to more stringent regulations and quality improvement efforts like the Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS; Bassok et al, 2019). The implication here is that the modern-day counterfactual children are more likely to have access to some kind of preschool programming (versus no programming) and higher quality programs.…”

Financial Literacy For Preschool Children In A Digital Society

“…The emphasis is made rather on the upbringing in a child of such personal qualities as responsibility, prudence, willpower, needed for a modern person to make a successful economic decision, than on the formation of knowledge in the field of modern economics. The pedagogic worker plays the most important role in bringing innovations in the field of economic culture development in children (Bassok et al, 2019). In order to develop the pedagogical support for cultural practices among older preschoolers in the field of economics, it is advisable to study the effectiveness of the approbation of the new Program developed by joint efforts of pedagogical workers, psychologists and economists, and fully meeting the peculiarities of the subculture of modern preschoolers.…”

Child Care and Child Care Policy: Existing Policies, Their Effects, and Reforms

“…It presumed that QRISs would incentivize lower-rated child care providers to improve the quality of their services in response to parental use of higher-rated providers. Using data for North Carolina, Bassok, Dee, and Latham (2019) find that lower-quality providers do experience declines in enrollment after the implementation of that state's QRIS and that these declines were larger in markets with greater concentrations of other providers.…”