Assessing the Implementation
and Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education
No
material or nonsubstantive change to a currently approved
collection
No
Regular
03/01/2021
Requested
Previously Approved
11/30/2022
11/30/2022
2,435
2,435
1,619
1,619
0
0
The goal of the Implementation and
Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education (ECE-ICHQ) study is
to create a technically sound, feasible, and useful instrument that
will provide consistent and systematic measures of the
implementation and costs of quality to help fill the knowledge gap
about the cost of providing and improving quality in early care and
education (ECE). The approved information collection is for a field
test to validate the tools created under earlier information
collections (same OMB number) In October 2019, the study team began
preparing for a field test of the new measures and launched the
field test for three weeks in March 2020 until it needed to cease
due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning in March 2021, the study
will conduct a feasibility study under the current approval to
learn how our instruments and measures of implementation and cost
are able to capture the service changes that are occurring across
the child care industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study
team consulted with external experts and OPRE gathered input from
ACF program offices to guide next steps. We are planning to return
to select centers from data collection conducted in 2018 (under the
first approval of this control number) to understand (1) how
centers’ implementation of activities that support quality have
changed since the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) how centers’ costs of
operation have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic; and (3) whether
and how the implementation and cost measures we developed reflect
changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We consider this a
feasibility test for the field test. The information from this work
will help us prepare the field test of the measures and, in the
short-term, guide supports that could help the child care industry
recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
US Code:
42 USC 9858m(a)(5) Name of Law: Sec 658O(a)(5) of Child Care
and Development Block Grant Act, as amended by Pub. L. No.
113-186
This request is for additional
information collection under OMB #0970-0499 to validate the
measures created under earlier collections. Previously approved
information collection is complete.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.