Description:
Over 11 million children under age 5 spend an average of 36 hours a week in non-parental care settings. Almost two-thirds of these children are in center-based care.
State child care licensing regulations govern the health, safety and learning opportunities for these children. Oversight of licensing regulations determines how well the regulations are applied. Weak regulations allow children to be in child care settings that may not be safe, healthy or developmentally appropriate. Relatively strong regulations but weak oversight renders the regulations meaningless since compliance is unknown.
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 (DoD) on 10 regulation and 5 oversight benchmarks. The average score for states was 83 out of 150 points�the equivalent of an F. No state earned an A. Only DoD earned a B, and one state (District of Columbia) earned a C. Thirty-three states earned a failing grade. Once again, DoD ranked first for both regulations and oversight. No other state is on the top 10 list for both elements.