Quality. The simple, unassuming, one-word qualifier at the heart of so many conversations about early care and education. National organizations and state agencies define it, providers strive for it, and families want it. 

But ask ten of the most established experts in the field what it means, and you’ll get ten different answers. A “high-quality” child care center in my backyard might be an average one in yours. To muddy the water even more, the existing body of research is conflicted on whether there is even a measurable correlation between quality and child outcomes. What gives? 

In this multi-part series, we’re taking a closer look at how quality is measured today, what lessons we have learned from nearly thirty years of Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS), and which way the winds are blowing based on recent trends at the state and national levels. 

This month, we turn our attention to teacher quality, a cornerstone of every QRIS model, and one that comes with a surprising amount of questions and debate around how it’s measured and prioritized. 

Background: How is Quality Measured?

Most QRIS models feature a blend of “structural” quality indicators and “process” quality indicators. Structural indicators are objective measures related to a program’s staffing, compliance, and physical environment. Process indicators are more those that measure the quality of interaction between educators, children, and families. 

Common structural indicators include: 

• Staff-to-child ratios
• Class and classroom size
• Teacher credentials and training
• Licensing compliance
• Facility size and standards

Licensing regulations often overlap with baseline structural indicators, which is one of the reasons why some states automatically enroll providers in their QRIS program upon receiving a license (more on that in a future article). 

Common process indicators include: 

• Positive teacher-child interactions
• Engaging, age-appropriate curriculum and activities
• Family engagement and communications
• Social-emotional climate
• Inclusive practices

Process indicators are more subjective and harder to measure than structural indicators. They are scored based on on-site observations, often using an industry standard assessment tool like the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), which offers both an Infant-Toddler tool and a Pre-K-3rd tool. An example of the domains and dimensions measured by the Infant-Toddler assessment can be seen below:

Workforce Development and Professional Qualifications

There’s a reason this category comes first in our analysis. Aside from socioeconomic status and similar environmental factors, teacher quality has consistently proven to be the single most important school-based variable influencing student achievement, and nothing else comes close. 

There is ongoing debate around how to effectively measure teacher quality. Some states place a heavier emphasis on credentials and experience, while others prioritize classroom observations. In general, states bucket their early childhood workforce into five categories: 

• No post-secondary credentials
• Child Development Associate (CDA), similar national credential, or state-issued certification
• Associate’s degrees
• Bachelor’s degrees
• Master’s degrees or higher

The threshold for who can fill which roles in an early childhood setting varies. The bar is generally lower for child care professionals—where some states still have no requirements—than it is for preschool, especially state-funded preschool, for which lead teachers in at least 27 states must have at least a bachelor’s degree. That requirement often shifts based on whether programs are in a public school setting or not.  

Note that workforce requirements for licensing and those for QRIS programs are different. One of the defining characteristics of most QRIS models is the push for continuing education through career lattices, workforce registries, and increasing thresholds for teachers and directors to qualify for higher ratings. 

Financial incentives for continuing education outside of QRIS also exist in the form of wage supplement programs like Illinois’ Great START program, which offers supplementary payments ranging from $150 every six months to $1,950 depending on educational attainment and experience, and minimum pay scales like that featured in the DC Pay Equity Fund, where required salaries for participating providers ranged from $48,736 (CDA or equivalent) to $71,010 (bachelor’s or higher). 

Are We Sure We're Doing This Right?

Going back to the original point of teacher quality as the best indicator of student outcomes, we have to ask ourselves whether educational attainment and professional qualifications are a legitimate stand-in for “quality” as it relates to our ECE workforce. The existing body of research, perhaps surprisingly to many, actually indicates that it does not. 

In one of the largest meta-analyses on the subject to date, Teachers’ Education, Classroom Quality, and Young Children’s Academic Skills: Results From Seven Studies of Preschool Programs, Early, Maxwell, Burchinal, et. al. (2008) found no statistically significant associations between teacher education and classroom quality or academic achievement in preschool. More recent studies have only served to reinforce those findings. 

A quick analysis of Louisiana’s Early Childhood Performance Profiles from 2025 shows the same thing: A weak-to-moderate relationship between bachelor’s degree attainment and CLASS performance scores, with no significant correlations at any other level, including master’s and beyond. 

The uncomfortable truth is that it’s simply easier, less expensive, and more politically palatable to emphasize credentials over process measures for teacher quality benchmarks. As a result, that’s what most states have chosen to prioritize. 

What Does Work? 

1) Standardize the Floor

Given that the only educational gap that has consistently been proven to affect quality is the one between teachers with some postsecondary experience versus those without, it seems prudent for us to require some kind of educational “floor” for the early childhood workforce. So the question becomes, what is that floor? 

I recently spoke with Linda Smith, currently the senior director of policy at the Buffet Early Childhood Institute, about this issue. She played an integral role in standing up the highly regarded United States military child care program, starting with a small Air Force base in Arizona that would serve as the inspiration for the evolution of the entire DOD system. She cited the CDA training program she helped set up through a local college as “transformative,” and talked about how she was able to mirror that model with overwhelming success at scale. 

Andrew Davis, COO of The Council for Professional Recognition (the organization that administers the CDA), makes a strong case: 

“In a field that struggles to articulate standards to itself…the CDA is a tried and true agreement for what an entry-level  early childhood educator needs to demonstrate to be able to do that job at a basic, foundational level.” 

Read (and watch): Faces of ECE - The Council for Professional Recognition

You won’t find too many arguments from those who are doing the work. The case for the CDA as a universal entry point from both a licensing and quality perspective is strong. If we can agree on that, we can turn our attention to the question of how do we build career pathways and encourage professional growth for a workforce that has long yearned to be treated as professionals. 

2) Focus on Continuous Improvement

While educational attainment is a poor indicator of teacher quality, hands-on, observational professional development strategies like coaching programs, feedback loops, and guided reflection have shown promise for teachers at all levels. 

In a 2024 report from the Learning Policy Institute, researchers examined five established early childhood coaching systems to identify different methodologies and best practices for this sector where professional development has too often been an afterthought. Their recommendations included specialized coaching for site leaders, with the goal of empowering them to subsequently provide better direction for their teachers; aligning coaching with QRIS criteria, standards, and assessment tools; and providing dedicated funding and time to make coaching more accessible to all programs.

Alabama, home to the nationally renowned First Class Pre-K program, has set the standard for integrated coaching and instructional supports in state-funded preschool, investing 8% of its preschool budget into these workforce development efforts. In Washington, the state’s Early Achievers QRIS program includes embedded coaching delivered by highly qualified trainers from Child Care Aware of Washington. 

At BridgeCare, we’ve been fortunate to have a front-row seat to Alabama’s work in this area, including their commitment to comprehensive data collection and analysis associated with coaching effectiveness. The state is able to make informed policy and funding decisions thanks to transparent, accessible data on how their educators are being coached, how their sites are being assessed, and how their interventions are supporting continuous quality improvement. It’s a strong, proven blueprint for how states can maximize funding through an effective and sustainable coaching infrastructure.

3) Decide What to Measure

Louisiana and Virginia have split from the norm to center their quality ratings entirely around process. In both cases, the states conduct annual observations  using the CLASS and review curriculum for quality and evidence base. 

Virginia delivers assessment results to sites in a timely (10 days after observation) manner and supplements the report with an extensive guide to understanding and using the feedback to improve instruction. Louisiana also empowers sites with actionable tips for understanding their Performance Profiles and improving classroom quality, curriculum quality, and teacher preparation.

In a climate where states almost always opt for the less risky path of iterating on things that others have done before, these two states were willing to go out on a limb. The results have been staggering.  The data coming out of Louisiana in particular, which was the first to adopt the process-only approach, should be a flashing neon sign encouraging all states to reconsider their approach to measuring teacher quality. 

Not only has research shown a substantial increase in proficiency across the entire ECE sector in a very short timeframe, those gains have also been accompanied by the most rapid post-pandemic student achievement turnaround in the entire country. The cohort of kids that were in child care and preschool programs during this shift in QRIS ideology are now in elementary school achieving the highest national reading and math rankings in state history. The decision to go all-in on process in ECE ten years ago certainly isn’t the only contributing factor to that growth, but the timing is hard to ignore.

Just One Aspect of a Much Larger Conversation

Teacher quality matters. There is no debate about that. And yes, early care and education professionals are teachers, regardless of which ages they serve. 

By setting consistent guidelines around entry level credentials, structured opportunities for continuous improvement, and more effective ways of measuring teacher performance, states can better direct investments in a way that ensures QRIS programs are actually moving the needle on child outcomes. 

Of course, these strategies need to be accompanied by thoughtful planning and monitoring to ensure they are equally accessible to all provider types and all communities, lest they exacerbate longstanding system inequities and widen achievement gaps. We’ll be touching on those themes extensively in the months to come as we continue our exploration of the past, present, and future of QRIS. Enter your email below to stay up to date on this conversation and many like it with the Child Care Matters Newsletter!