Standards
The Quality Stars NY standards were developed using information from New York State regulations for child care and prekindergarten, New York City regulations, Head Start Program Performance Standards, assessment tools such as the Program Administration Scale (PAS) and the Environment Rating Scales (ERS), accreditations standards of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC), National Afterschool Association (NAA) among other standards. Center-based and family-based programs are different; thus there are a set of standards for center-based programs and a set for family-based programs.
Regardless of program setting, Quality Stars NY has five rating levels and four categories of standards. The four standards categories are: Learning Environment; Family Engagement; Qualifications and Experience; and Leadership and Management.
Each category section begins with a statement of rationale describing briefly the strength of the evidence for the relationship of that category to program quality and to child outcomes. We are deeply indebted to our colleagues in Indiana for these rationale statements. They are paraphrased from the excellent report called Paths to QUALITY—A Child Care Quality Rating System for Indiana: What is its Scientific Basis? by James Elicker, Carolyn Clawson Langill, Karen Ruprecht and Kyong-Ah Kwon from the Center for Families and Department of Child Development & Family Studies at Purdue University. Their excellent report is available at http://www.cfs.purdue.edu/cff/documents/project_reports/07_paths_to_quality.pdf.
***PLEASE NOTE***Quality Stars NY is not yet a reality in New York State. We hope to conduct a field test that will provide valuable information on the criteria that must be in place before a Quality Rating and Improvement System can be implemented. |
Click here for the Quality Stars NY Standards for Center-based Programs.
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Click here for the Quality Stars
NY Standards for Family-based Programs.
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here to take the Quality Stars NY Feedback Survey for Family-based Programs.
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may opt-in to our mailing list at the end of the survey.
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR PROGRAMS IN NEW YORK CITY:
These standards will be revised to align with the NYC Early Care and Education
Standards and Performance Measurement System. The NYC ECE S&PMS is being
field-tested and the preliminary results were received by the City at the end
of June. As soon as the City decides on the features of the final NYC ECE S&PMS,
we will revise these standards to align. The goal of Quality Stars NY is to
build upon and extend existing program standards, not duplicate them.
Please also note that because a significant number of NYS Head Start programs are in NYC and thus are part of the NYC ECE S&PMS, the revisions to Quality Stars NY that will align it with the NYC ECE S&PMS may also affect how Quality Stars NY will work for Head Start programs across the state.