The state is working to create a voluntary quality rating system for preschools that would give parents more information about what they’re getting for their child care dollars.
Officials are in the midst of a large-scale pilot project to figure out how a rating system would work. Nineteen child care programs statewide are part of the pilot, which was originally set to wrap up in summer 2013 but will likely be extended through late 2013 or early 2014 to collect more data.
At least 30 states have launched rating systems for preschools as part of a national movement to bring more accountability to early childhood programs.
Kathy Ochikubo, child care program specialist at the Department of Human Services, said the aim of a quality rating system is improvement. Child care programs will be able to see what areas they excel in and what they should work on.
She said child care programs are required to meet basic standards for health and safety under their state licenses. But the rating system would highlight how programs are doing in meeting the "next level" of program and education standards.
Grace Fong, interim director of the University of Hawaii Center on the Family and principal investigator of the ongoing rating system pilot, said the system would give parents valuable information about child care programs.
"The intent is to promote quality improvement," she said.
The preschool rating pilot, whose price tag for fiscal year 2012 is $560,876, is part of a broader state push to increase access to quality early-education programs to more children.
Hawaii is one of 11 states with no state-funded preschool program. Advocates say that’s a problem because studies have shown that children who get quality early childhood care are more likely to do well in school and succeed later on.
Earlier this year the state created a state Office of Early Learning, whose major goal is phasing in a statewide preschool network and ensuring the children who would have been served by junior kindergarten will continue to be served after 2014.
Junior kindergarten, which was created in 2006, is for children born too late in the year to qualify for kindergarten.
The program will be eliminated beginning with the 2014-15 school year, when students will have to be at least 5 years old on July 31 to enter kindergarten. Some 6,000 students annually attend junior kindergarten, the Department of Education says.
Terry Lock, who heads the Office of Early Learning, said the cost of the quality rating system when fully implemented is still not clear. It would require staffing, including people who could monitor programs and provide support and coaching.
She said the program will likely require state support.
Deborah Zysman, executive director of Good Beginnings Alliance, an advocacy organization, said the proposed quality rating system could help parents make more informed decisions about which preschool program is right for their child.
"At the bare minimum," she said, "we want safety and wellness for our kids. The next step is looking at quality."
