Accurately Measuring Families’ Access to Affordable, Quality Early Care and Education

Families with young children need access to affordable, high-quality childcare options in their community. Yet, according to education researcher Daphna Bassok, accurately measuring child care access—which is a critical first step towards improving it—is remarkably challenging.  

“Most states just lack the data needed and their definition of access is too narrow,” said Bassok, professor of education and public policy at EdPolicyWorks, a research center based at the UVA School of Education and Human Development and the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. “Our typical measures of access fail to take into consideration whether sites are affordable, whether they actually have slots open, or whether they provide care that is high quality.”

This fall, in partnership with the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) and the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation (VECF), Bassok and her team were awarded $1.2 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for a new project that will fill this gap.

With this funding, Bassok and her team will use statewide data to more accurately and comprehensively measure Virginia families’ access to high-quality childcare. This study is possible due to the Virginia Quality Birth to Five (VQB5) initiative which aims to measure quality in all publicly funded early childhood programs in the state through over 30,000 observations and LinkB5—a first of its kind early childhood data system that houses the related data.

Starting in 2023, Virginia became one of very few states that collects classroom observations, as well as enrollment, staffing, and quality information from all of its publicly funded childcare through VQB5. LinkB5 houses the data collected from the more than 3,000 sites and 11,000 classrooms every year, allowing for a more accurate and complete look at childcare access than previously possible.

“It’s exciting the LinkB5 data can shine a spotlight on such an important issue facing families, and ultimately, be used by leaders to support access to high-quality, affordable early care and education,” said Jessica Whittaker, research associate professor at the UVA School of Education, who leads the LinkB5 project.

Most prior research has looked at the maximum number of children that could be served across all licensed sites. The current project, however, will account for things like whether sites accept financial assistance through the state’s subsidy program and actually have openings for infants, toddlers, or preschoolers.

“We want to know if parents can actually send their children to the childcare site near their house,” Bassok said. “If there are 15 childcare sites by a family’s home, but they are all full for the specific age of their child or too expensive, then the fact that there are 15 buildings nearby is meaningless.”  

They will also examine whether families have access to childcare that is high quality.

“Just like parents need affordable care options that are actually available, they should be able to send their children to sites that provide stable, safe, and nurturing early learning experiences,” Bassok said.

Her team will look at multiple measures of quality across childcare sites, including ratings of teacher-child interactions, teacher turnover, and health and safety.

“We are especially interested to track how staffing instability is causing a major access problem right now, as we have already found about two thirds of childcare sites in Virginia are turning families away because they can't find and keep teachers,” Bassok said.

The team will be looking at childcare statewide and within specific communities, like lower-income or rural areas of the state, to better understand access for children who are often furthest from opportunity. They will also track changes in accessibility over time.

This project will provide policymakers and educators with a much clearer understanding of the scope of needs across the state. Bassok and her team will get thoughts and feedback from a variety of stakeholders, including state, regional, and local early education leaders, so their research can be presented in ways that are actionable.

“We are excited about the ways in which this grant will strengthen our longstanding research-policy partnership, ultimately supporting Virginia to use research to design and implement innovative solutions for Virginia families so they can choose quality and affordable early childhood options that help prepare their children for school,” said Jenna Conway, the deputy superintendent of early childhood care and education at VDOE.

This grant is the third partnership grant Bassok and her colleagues have been awarded from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. It builds on these previous projects, as it uses information from the LinkB5 statewide data system.