THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF PUBLICLY-FUNDED CENTER-BASED CHILD CARE: 1990 AND 2012.

Georgetown University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This project will rely on two nationally representative surveys of the supply and characteristics of child care in the U.S., and of the children and families who could use child care: The Profiles of Child Care Settings study, conducted in 1990 (immediately prior to passage of the CCDBG) and the National Survey of Early Care and Education, conducted in 2012. The aim is to portray how the center-based child care options available to families have changed over this 22-year period, where centers receiving public funds fit on this changing landscape, and whether and how the characteristics of these centers and the children and families they serve have changed over this period of substantial change in the nation's subsidy policies. The specific research topics this project will address focus on changes in the supply and features of child care centers receiving and not receiving public funds, the characteristics and mix of children (including children with special needs and dual language learners) and families served by these centers, and the workforce they employ. Fundamental questions will be addressed regarding what it now means to be a center that receives public funds given the increasing complexity of funding streams and center types, about the features of publicly-funded centers that serve differing subgroups of children as they may have changed over time, and about widening or narrowing disparities in the features, workforce, and mix of children in centers that receive and do not receive public funds. Across all questions, how the findings vary depending on three different conceptualizations of publicly-funded child care dictated, in part, by the characterizations of center-based care in the two surveys: all centers that receive government funds, centers other than Head Start-funded programs (and, if possible, state pre-k programs) that receive public funds, and, in the 2012 survey, centers that serve children funded with Child Care and Development Fund subsidies will be considered. Findings will inform federal and state efforts to ensure that the center-based child care programs that serve low-income children and families are moving in the direction of improved access, higher quality, and reduced disparities between programs receiving and not receiving public funds with regard to their teaching workforce and characteristics of enrolled children.