2011 Signature Report

A situation analysis of the current issues facing the child care industry in Colorado

AN ANALYSIS OF COLORADOS LICENSED CHILD CARE SYSTEM

Table of Contents:

Overview........................................................... page 2

ChildCareDefined....................................... page3

Quality.............................................................. page 4

Availability....................................................... page 6

Affordability..................................................... page 9

KeyFindingsandCriticalQuestions............. page13

Conclusion........................................................ page 15

Acknowledgements.......................................... page 16

Endnotes.......................................................... page 16

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Qualistar Colorado

QualistarColoradoisastatewidenon-profitdedicatedtoadvancingqualityearly childhood education across Colorado. We believe that all children de-serve a high qualityearlychildhoodeducationexperience.

Qualistar works to improve early childhood education by helpingfamiliesfindchildcarethroughafreereferralservice,ratingthequalityofchildcareprograms,providingcollegescholarships forchildcare teachers,managing grants to improve child care facilities and strengtheningfederal,stateandlocalpolicythroughtheuseofdataandinformation.

About This Report

Qualistars Signature Report provides a situation analysis of the currentissues facing the child care industry in Colorado.

This inaugural Signature Report focuses on what we view to be the most pressing issues that impede our states ability to build and maintain an accessible,affordablesystemofhigh qualitycareforColoradoschildren.Thereport examines trends and gaps in child care supply and demand, inregulationsandexpectations,andinbudgetingandfinancing.

Ratherthanprovidinganswersandrecommendations,thisreportisintendedto provide policy makers, stakeholders and others with key findings thatwe hope will start a dialogue and a call to action for improvements within our states child care delivery system. For information about how to get involved,visithttp //www.qualistar.org/early learning research data.html.

Overview

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We know that a great number of Colorado chil-dren are cared for in unlicensed settings such as in the home of a grandparent or a neighbor.This report primarily refers to licensedcare for a child or a group of children.Child care is a broad term that includesprograms that generally serve childrenunder the age of 13 outside of their homes.Sometimes these programs are referred to as Day care Preschool Early childhood education Early care and education Before and after school care Early learning Nursery school

Licensed child care includes providers andprograms that have gone through the necess-ary steps to become licensed by the State of Colorado. Licensing ensures that the facility is complying with basic health and safety standards,andthatitmeetscertainrequire-ments for staff training and background

checks.Inaddition,licensingregulationsout-line the staff-to-child ratios required in eachtype of child care setting and the total number of children that can be cared for at one time.

Types of Licensed Child Care:

Child Care Centers and Preschools Care is provided in a setting similar to school where there may be many classrooms and children are usually grouped by age. Child care centers and preschools are regulated by the Colorado Department of Human Services, Division ofChildCare.Preschoolsarespecificallylicensedto serve children for only part of the day.

Family Child Care Homes Care is pro-vided in a home that has been licensed and is regulated by the Division of Child Care.

School Age Child Care Care is provided for childrenage5andupbeforeandafterschool,onholidays and during the summer. It is offeredby many kinds of programs. Some programs serve only school age children and some also serve younger children.

Child Care Defined

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Research clearly shows that the human brain develops more rapidly between birth andage5thanduringanyothersubsequentperiod.i Studies over the last 50 years tell us that when children have high quality earlychildhood experiences, they are better pre-paredforstartingschool,lesslikelytorepeatagrade,andmorelikelytograduatefromhighschool. And the long term impacts of these high-qualityearlyexperiencesonourcommu-nities are remarkable crime rates are reduced over time; employment increases; and public health care and welfare expenses decrease.ii

In Colorado, as in many states, child carerules and regulations are standards that fo-cus on the basic health and safety of children and must be consistently met by licensed child care programs. These standards are established and monitored by Child Care Li-censing through the Colorado Department of Human Services, Division of Child Care.

Qualistar Colorado believes that high qualitychild care needs to go beyond those basic stan-dards. Evidence of high qualityearlylearningexperiences canbe found inmanyaspectsofa child care program. In addition to effective healthandsafetypractices,someoftheothercriticalareasthatcontributetothequalityofcare provided to children and families include Age appropriate learning materials and activities Positive interactions between teachers and children Smallgroupsizeswithanadequate numberofqualifiedstaffworking with each group Strong family involvement Ongoing training and education of the program staff

The significant difference between what achild care program has to do to legally operateand what it should do to encourage childrens optimal development and school readiness isnot widely recognized. Many parents assumethatifafacilityislicensed,itishighquality.That assumption may or may not be true. What is certainly true is that the child care delivery system can be continuously improved as new science and data emerge to identifythetypesofenvironmentsandexperi-ences that benefit young children the most.

Quality

Colorados child care center program

requirements and oversight currently

rank 43rd in the nation.iii

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Many states have implemented a Quality RatingandImprovementSystem,asystemicapproachtoassess,communicateandimprovethe level of quality in child care programs.

Partly as a result of the well known Cost,Quality, and Child Outcomes in Child CareCenters study in 1995 that revealed that most child care centers in Colorado were of poor ormediocre quality,iv the Qualistar RatingTMwas developed to assess the quality of childcare programs in our state.

Numerous and varied quality improvementinitiatives have also been implemented at the state and local levels, and most child

care programs have more supportive resources available to them now than they had in years past. Simultaneously, Colo-rado is increasing its minimum standardsthrough revisions to the child care licensing rules and regulations.

Yet this multi pronged approach is not in-creasingthelevelofchildcarequalitytothedegree or at the pace that it seemingly should.

Changing needs and other compounding factors hamper the progress and sustainabil-ity of improvements in the child care delivery system. The remainder of this report details some of those challenges.

Quality, Continued

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Care for young children has fundamentallychanged in recent decades. Increasingly,families rely on child care outside of the home. Approximately63percent of children regularly spend time in the care of someone other than their parent or guardian.v

Usingthatestimate,thereare over half a mil-lion children in Colorado who are likely in somesortofchildcarearrangement.Andyet,there is licensed care available for less than half that number.

Source Qualistar Colorado and its network of Child Care Resource and Referral partners.

We know that the supply and demand of licensed care varies throughout the state,and that balance can be volatile at the local level. While there is saturation of child care in some communities, many othershave severe shortages. The opening or clos-ing of just a few facilities within one area can completely change the balance. If there is toomuch care in one area, some facilitiesmay not be able to maintain the enrollment

Availability

Table 1 Colorado Child Care Facilities

Chart 1 Child Care Capacity Compared to Colorados Child Population

Source Child care capacity numbers from Qualistar Colorado and its network of Child Care Resource and Referral partners. Population numbers from Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Colorado Health Information Dataset Birth Statistics. 2010. Available from http //www.cdphe.state.co.us/cohid/birthmenu.html.

Charts and tables marked with the Qualistar logo consist of information derived from our own research and data.

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Six out of 1o children are regularly

cared for by someone other than

their parent or guardian.

needed to make their businesses succeed. Con-versely,ifthereisnotenoughcare,familiesmaynot be able to go to work or may have to settle forcarethatdoesnotmeettheirexpectations.

Chart 1 Child Care Capacity Compared to Colorados Child Population

History: Child Care SupplyThe child care landscape is always evolving. Fifty years ago, as mothers began enteringthe workforce in greater numbers than ever before,achildcareboomoccurred.Inpartic-ular, familychildcarehomeswereabundantbecause many parents felt more comfortable leavingtheiryoungchildreninasmall,home-like environment with one dedicated caregiver that would care for no more than eight chil-drenatatime,ratherthanina largecenterthat might have served one hundred or more children. The focus then was on slots and a safe place for children while their parents were at work.

Over the decades, however, there has beenan increasing emphasis placed on the impor-tanceof early learningandeducation,whichhas contributed to a trend toward fewer home-based programs and more center based programs where some parents feel there is a sharper focus on early education. So while the overall capacity of licensed child care continues

to rise as our states child population rises,the proportion of care being provided with-in each type of child care facility is shifting.

Availability, Continued

Chart 2 Colorados Child Care Facilities 1999-2011

Source Qualistar Colorado and its network of Child Care Resource and Referral partners.

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More and more families that do not need child care in order to go to work are nevertheless usingchildcare,hopingtopreparetheirchil-dren for later school success by promoting their early skills and knowledge. A U.S. Cen-sus study from 2005 shows that 29 percent of preschoolers with non employed mothers were in at least one child care arrangement on a regularbasis.Thatfigurewas89percentforpreschoolers with employed mothers.vi

Focus on Infant CareWhile there has been increasing acknowl-edgement of the learning that happens in the year or two before kindergarten, scientificresearch indicates that we should also be placing greater emphasis on the importanceof the development that happens even earlier in life. In fact, a childs experiencesin the first few years of life are critical tohealthy brain development. That early brain development is rapid Positron emission tomography (PET) scans suggest that the brain of a one-year old more closely resembles an adults brain than a newborns.vii

Infant care, particularly high quality infantcare, is expensive to provide. It requires thehighest staff to childratio,thesmallestgroupsize,themostsquare footageperchild,specificequipment and furnishings, and, ideally,specially trained caregivers. Due to the add-ed costs,many child care programs find theexpense of providing infant care prohibitive.

Statewide,thereisroom in our licensed child care programs for only 19 percent of the states babies and young toddlers.Inmanycounties,capacity is even lower.

In one out of every four Colorado counties,licensed care is unavailable for 90 percent or more of the babies born there each year.

Availability, Continued

Only 4o percent of Colorado child

care centers serve infants under

the age of one.

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Average Annual Full-Time Price For... Tuition and fees at a public four- year Colorado college or university: $6,o79.

Infant care in a licensed family child care home in Fort Morgan: $6,392.

Infant care in a licensed child care center in Denver: $13,756.

Infant care in a licensed child care center in Aspen/ Glenwood: $16,396.

Many new parents are shocked by the cost of child care,whichoftenconsumes25percentor more of a households income. And yet,becausechildcareprogramsaresmall,service-orientedbusinesseswithfluctuatingincomesand significant operating costs, their profitmargins are very thin and caregivers earn less on average than workers in most industries.

The child care market simply does not func-tion like most market economies. Most child care programs choose not to charge the full cost of quality child care becausefew families can afford it. And those who really cant afford it are often those who need it themost, both in order tomaintainemployment and because research shows that children from lower socioeconomic families can make more developmental gains than other children in high quality child careviii.

In Colorado, in state college tuition at a public four year institution costs consid-erably less than licensed child care. The differenceisexacerbatedbythefactthatthehigher costs of child care are paid by young families who have not yet reached their full earning potential, which they are morelikely to have done by the time they have to finance their childs college education.

Affordability

Chart 3 Average Price for Full-Time, Licensed, Weekly Child Care

Source Qualistar Colorado and its network of Child Care Resource and Referral partners.

In Colorado, in-state college tuition

at a public four-year institution

costs considerably less than licensed

child care.

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Affordability, Continued

Charts 4, 5 and 6 Families Using Child Care: Monthly Budget Scenarios

Source: Child care costs come from Qualistar Colorado and its networkofChildCareResourceandReferralpartners.Thehousingfiguresaregeneralestimatesforthegivenarea,usingwww.trulia.comasareference.

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Child care prices vary according to types of care, location within the state and ages ofchildren. Care in urban settings tends to be more expensive than similar care in ruralareas, center based care costs more than familychildcare,andchildcarepricesdropas children age. Nevertheless, child carecomprisesa significantpart of virtuallyanyfamilysbudget.Charts4,5,and6totherightare three realistic family budget scenarios.

Despite the high price families pay for child care,manyprogramsstruggletostayafloat.Child care prices have risen only very slightlyduring the current economic downturn. In fact, some child care programs have hadto drop their rates in order to maintain theirenrollment,asmanyfamiliesarefind-ing alternatives to paying for licensed care.

Thefactorsthattendtoproducehigherqual-ity care are also those that incur additional costs. Hiring and retaining educated staff withspecializedknowledge in thefield, lim-iting group sizes and the number of children peradult intheclassroom,andmaintainingan environment that fosters childrens early learning all come with hefty price tags.

Family 3 is comprised of two working par-ents and their three children, two of which are in before- and after-school care, and one of which is in preschool. The parents combined annual income is $38,ooo, and they own their home in La Junta.

Child Care $947

Housing $65o

All other family needs $1,569

Family 2 is a single mom with a child in preschool living in Fort Collins. She earns $32,ooo a year and rents an apartment.

Child Care $876

Housing $1,ooo

All other family needs $79o

Family 1 includes two working parents with one infant and one toddler in a child care center. They have a combined annual income of $1oo,ooo and they own a home in Denver.

Child Care $2,143

Housing $1,6oo

All other family needs $4,59o

Charts 4, 5 and 6 Families Using Child Care: Monthly Budget Scenarios

Colorados Child Care Workforce

The industry of child care is an economic necessity. The participation of thousands of Colorado parents in the labor force depends on child care. Yet the size of the child care workforce itself is considerable as well. Qualistar estimates that approximate-ly 33,000 people are employed in licensed child care facilities in Colorado. This databased figure is much higher than figuresprovided by traditional industry data sup-pliers such as the Bureau of Labor and the U.S.Census,primarilybecauseofdifferencesin the terms and definitions used. Qualistarasserts that the number of child care workersinColorado is virtually equal to thenumberof accountants and auditors.

Sources Child care data from Qualistar Colorado and its network of Child Care Resource and Referral partners. Other wage data from UnitedStatesDepartmentofLabor,BureauofLaborStatistics.(2010).May 2010 State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates Colorado. Retrieved from http //www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_co.html.

In Colorado, approximately 33,ooo people are employed by licensed

child care facilities.

Affordability, Continued

Chart 7 Number of Colorado Employees in Workforce, by Occupation

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Child care workers earn considerably less than workers in most industries. While the payrangesbygeography,typeofchildcarefa-cilityandpositionwithinthefield,theincomefrom working in child care is less on average than the income in other industries that re-quire similar levels of training, education orexperience.

Affordability, Continued

Typical Child Care Professional

Female Has been in the field 1o years Is seeking an Associates degree at a Colorado community college Teaches preschoolage children in a child care center Has a young child of her own Makes $12.11 an hour

Sources Child care data from Qualistar Colorado and its network of Child Care Resource and Referral partners. Other wage data from United States DepartmentofLabor,BureauofLaborStatistics.(2010).May 2010 State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates Colorado. Retrieved from http //www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_co.html.

The child care workforce is overwhelmingly comprisedofwomenand,increasingly,womenthat are pursuing college level education in the area of early childhood education. Ananalysisofapproximatelyonehundredrecentrecipients of Qualistars college scholarshipprogram tells us who todays typical child care professional is.

Chart 8 Hourly Wages in Colorado, by Occupation

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The interplay between child care quality, availability and affordability is complex.Our analysis of existing information about Colorados child care delivery system revealsmeaningfulchallenges,needsandtrends,andalsoleadstofurtherquestionsthatareworthyof collaborative investigation.

Key Findings:

More high qualitylicensedchildcareisneeded.Whilehow muchisneededisunknown, it is clear that the greatest need is for infant and toddler care.

Wedo not knowwheremany young children arewhile their parentswork, as the estimated numbers of children needing care by someone other than their parent or guardian far outweigh the supply of licensed care.

Increasingly,familiesareusingformalchildcareandpreschooltohelppreparetheir youngchildrenforlatersuccessinschool,ratherthanusingcarestrictlyoutofnecessity to go to work.

Child care workers earn less on average than workers in most other occupations that requiresimilarlevelsofeducationandspecializedtraining.

Childcarecostscompriseasignificantportionofafamilysbudget,andyetthecosts ofprovidinghigh-qualitycareexceedtheamountthatfamiliesarecharged.

ChildcarekeepsColoradoworking.Itisasignificantandnecessaryindustry,withas many as three times the number of employees as estimated by some outside sources.

Qualistar Colorados Key Findings and Critical Questions

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Critical Questions:

Howcanchildcarebusinessmodelsbestrengthenedtoresultingreaterefficiencies, qualityandaffordability?

Howcancompensationinthefieldbeimprovedsothatwecanensurehighlyeffective teachersatatimewhenchildrensdevelopmentissocrucial?

Howcanchildcareprogramsbeexpectedtoimproveandsustainqualitywhenthe incometheyearnthroughparentfeesisinsufficienttodoso?

What does the child care delivery system need to look like to enable families to choose carebasedonquality?

Whatcanandshouldbedonetoensurethesafetyandschoolreadinessofallchildren, whetherornottheyareinlicensedchildcare?

Howshouldwemeasuretherelationshipbetweenchildcarequalityandchildoutcomes?

How well is the current child care system serving the children of Colorado and how do we know?

Qualistar Colorados Key Findings and Critical Questions

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Qualistar Colorado is dedicated to advanc-ing quality early childhood education acrossColorado. Through further analysis of issues suchasthoseexploredinthisreport,weaimto encourage an ongoing dialogue among decisionmakersaboutnextstepsforstrength-ening the child care delivery system in our state. Qualistars partnership with a statewidenetwork of Child Care Resource and Referralagencies allows for the collection and main-tenance of a wealth of data on the quality,availability and affordability of child care. But our information comprises only a small part of the larger early childhood education picture.

Qualistars goal is to further efforts to improve the effectiveness of the child care delivery system.

We encourage families to gain the knowl-edge they need to be effective advocates for their children.

We empower child care programs and early childhood education professionals to actively and intentionally participate in the evolution of the system of which they are the foundation. We welcome the establishment and le-veraging of strategic partnerships to support improvements in the system.

We work toward the creation and support ofpoliciesthatbuildonthefindingsabouttheimportance of childrens earliest years.

We invite other early childhood entities to further collaborate in collecting and analyzing dataandotherevidence, interpretingresultsandsharingfindingstoimprovecareforyoungchildren.

There is a role for everyone. Call and ask us how you can play your part.

Conclusion

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ThankyoutothesekeypartnerswhoshareourcommitmenttoqualitychildcareinColoradoandwho

contributed local child care data to this report.

Qualistar Colorados network of Child Care Resource and Referral partners

2 1 1 Child Care Options Mile High United Way Bright Futures for Early Childhood and Families Child Care Connections Child Care Innovations at Red Rocks Community College ChildrenFirst,PuebloCommunityCollege ChildrensServices,UnitedWayofWeldCounty CityofBoulderChildren,YouthandFamilies Denver Early Childhood Council Early Childhood Council of Larimer County Early Childhood Council of the San Luis Valley Early Childhood Network Early Childhood Options Family Development Center Child Care Network Morgan County Family Center Rural Communities Resource Center SouthwestOfficeofResourceandReferral Western Colorado 211/ Hilltop Community Resources

iHealy,J.M.Your childs growing mind.BroadwayBooks,NewYork,2004. iiHawkins,J.DandWeis,J.G.Thesocialdevelopmentmodel Anintegratedapproachtodelinquencyprevention. JournalofPrimaryPrevention,6,1985.Pages7397. iiiNational Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (NACCRRA). We Can Do Better 2011 Update NACCRRAs Ranking of State Child Care Center Standards and Oversight.Arlington,VA,2011. http //www.naccrra.org/publications/naccrra publications/we can do better 2011.php. ivCost,Quality&ChildOutcomesStudyTeam.Cost,Quality,andChildOutcomesinChildCareCenters,PublicReport,2nded.Denver EconomicsDepartment,UniversityofColoradoatDenver,1995. vLaughlin,Lynda.WhosMindingtheKids?ChildCareArrangements Spring 2005 and Summer 2006. Current Population Reports,U.S.CensusBureau,Washington,DC,2005.Pages70-121. viIbid. viiChugani,HarryT.Fine TuningtheBabyBrain.TheDANAFoundation,2004.www.dana.org/news. viiiAckerman,D.andBarnett,S.Costs,Benefits,andLong Term Effects of Early Care and Education Programs Recommendations and Cautions for Community Developers. JournaloftheCommunityDevelopmentSociety,Vol.37,No.2,2006.

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

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3607MartinLutherKingBlvd.Denver,CO80205-4976

303.339.6800info@qualistar.orgwww.qualistar.org