Georgia parents will soon be able to look for a state rating on childcare centers, based on everything from the food they serve to the training their workers receive.
Participation in the new Quality Rating System announced Friday will be voluntary. But eligible centers -- including mom-and-pop home daycares, Head Start centers, public and private pre-kindergartens and before- and after-school programs -- will have financial incentives to go through the rating process and be labeled as good, very good or excellent.
Plans call for bonuses of up to $500 a year for each employee at top-rated centers.
“This has the potential to improve quality in early care and education in a way that no other initiative has,” said Bobby Cagle, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning. “It will increase parent understanding of quality, and, in turn, cause a demand for higher quality.”
Georgia’s childcare rating system, to be in place early next year, has been in the works for six or seven years. It’s being rolled out a week before Georgia submits its application for a second federal Race to the Top grant, worth a potential $70 million and aimed at early childhood initiatives.
Grant applications are scored, in part, on whether the state has a quality rating system. Without one, Georgia was considered a darkhorse contender for the grant, given that it will be competing against some of the 25 states that already have systems.
Last year, Georgia won a four-year, $400 million Race to the Top grant aimed at K-12 education reforms.
If the state receives the $70 million, some of the money will be spent on incentives for participating childcare centers, Cagle said. Otherwise, private foundations will provide money, he said.
Basic health and safety issues are dealt with in a center’s state license review. For the rating program, centers will be rated in five broad categories: qualifications and training of the director and teachers; teacher-to-child ratio; and child health, nutrition and physical activity. Centers can boost their ratings by submitting portfolios of the work they do that’s above and beyond, Cagle said.
Only those that meet the basic licensing criteria and have no major violations pending will be rated.
Cagle said he hopes to have a few hundred childcare operators on board next year and displaying their quality rating symbol in windows or on banners outside. The ratings will be posted on the Internet starting in 2013, he said.
Parents and advocates say they welcome the rating sysem. Child care providers also call it a good idea, but say they are somewhat skeptical given the state track record on previous programs designed to raise quality.
Collen Tull, a work-from-home mother from Smyrna, said any additional information or rating should help parents.
“I don’t know that it would be the only thing I’d use to decide where to put my kids,” said Tull. “I think you have to go with your gut. You have to make visits.”
Eboni Martez, a Pennsylvania native and working mother from South Fulton with one child and one on the way, said Georgia has always been considered “quite loose” in its childcare standards.
“Since I am currently expecting, I wholeheartedly welcome the rating system to be in place,” Martez said.
Pat Willis, executive director of the advocacy group Voices for Georgia’s Children, said she likes that the rating system includes incentives for providers to improve the quality of care.
“And it’s an investment in our very young children that they deserve,” she said.
A study, commissioned by the state and conducted in 2009 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found that at least 75 precent of all home day cares and at least one third of all private pre-schools classes (exclusive of Georgia pre-k) were considered of low quality. A recent investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that eight children died and hundreds of others were injured at daycare centers in the state in the last five years.
Elaine Draeger, president of Sheltering Arms Early Education & Family Centers, called the rating system “a great next step” to better quality. But she said participation will be critical.
“The more centers and homes that participate, the more confidence parents will have in the rating system,” she said. “Past efforts to recognize quality programs in the state have not had widespread provider participation . . . “
Cagle said about $3.3 million will be spent each of the first three years on incentives for providers, including higher subsidy grants for top-rated providers. Private foundations are expected to fund the incentives beyond the three years, he said.
If the state does not receive Race to the Top money, the rating system will be launched without bonuses, and using existing state resources, Cagle said. Participating centers will be visited and rated by a trained expert, he said.
That visit will be in addition to the two licensing inspections each center receives annually, Cagle said.
In North Carolina, a five-star, voluntary rating system that's been in place for a decade has improved the quality of child care, said Lorie Pugh, assistant section chief for regulatory services at the state's Division of Child Development and Early Education. About 75 percent of the state's childcare centers and 50 percent of its home day cares have three-to- five-star ratings, Pugh said.
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