State Policy

This is NACCRRA’s fourth year of ranking state child care standards and oversight affecting young children. As indicated by this report, states do not have regulations in place that protect children in small family child care homes. Only four states received 70 percent or higher of the basic requirements needed to ensure that children are in care that safeguards their health and safety and promotes development and learning. Four out of five states license child care that meets fewer than half of the most basic standards to promote child safety and healthy development.

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State Budget Cuts: America’s Kids Pay the Price

The report provides an illustrative list of budget cuts in 2009 affecting children. Through December 2009, 42 states cut children's programs, including public health programs, higher education programs, programs for children with disabilities, and K-12 and early education programs such as child care.

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We CAN Do Better: 2009 Update examined state child care center licensing regulations and the oversight of those regulations. NACCRRA scored and ranked states, the District of Columbia and the Department of Defense on 10 state child care center regulation benchmarks and 5 benchmarks for oversight of child care center licensing regulations.

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This 2009 report compares state licensing regulations for center-based child care and early learning programs with standards for state-funded prekindergarten initiatives. As a basis for comparison, it uses the quality standards checklist developed by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER). The comparison also includes information about Head Start program standards and Department of Defense (DoD) regulations for military child care.

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This report presents data on child care prices collected from a nationwide survey of State Child Care Resource and Referral Networks and local Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies.

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