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In spring 2020, in response to the COVID-19 (for coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, many early care and education centers, including Head Start centers, closed their physical buildings and changed their operations to virtual. Because of health and safety restrictions, OPRE was unable to directly assess children's skills in spring 2020 for the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES 2019). However, teachers did complete reports about individual children in their classrooms, as has been done in prior rounds of FACES. This report explores whether teacher reports of children's approaches to learning and literacy skills offer a reliable, valid, and nonbiased way to measure aspects of children's early learning skills as a proxy for the skills measured in the direct child assessment. Overall, teacher-reported approaches to learning and literacy skills have strong measurement properties among Head Start children. Therefore, these teacher reports could be used as outcome measures in analyses using FACES data when the direct child assessment is not available, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Head Start is a national program that helps young children from families with low incomes get ready to succeed in school. It does this by working to promote their early learning and health and their families' well-being. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) provides national information about Head Start programs and participants. Mathematica and its partners--Educational Testing Service and Juárez and Associates--conducted the study under contract to the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Data from the study respond to current policy questions and support programs and practitioners working with Head Start families. This report includes information on the FACES 2019 study design, and presents key findings from the study's spring 2020 data collection. The purpose of this report is to (1) provide information about the FACES 2019 study, including the background, design, methodology, assessments, and analytic methods; and (2) report detailed descriptive statistics (averages, response ranges, and percentages) and related standard errors (the estimate of the standard deviation of each statistic) in a series of tables. [For "Descriptive Data on Head Start Children and Families from FACES 2019: Fall 2019 Data Tables and Study Design," see ED613786.]

Head Start is a national program that helps young children from families with low income get ready to succeed in school. It does this by working to promote their early learning and health and their families' well-being. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) provides national information about Head Start programs and participants. This report includes information on the FACES 2019 study design, and presents key findings from the study's spring 2020 data collection. The purpose of this report is to (1) provide information about the FACES 2019 study, including the background, design, methodology (including the impact of COVID-19 on data collection), assessments, and analytic methods; and (2) report detailed descriptive statistics (averages, response ranges, and percentages) and related standard errors (the estimate of the standard deviation of each statistic; see accompanying technical appendix for standard errors) in a series of tables. In total, 165 programs, 318 centers, and 590 classrooms participated in the study in spring 2020. The tables provide information from separate surveys of program directors, center directors, and teachers.

This research brief uses nationally representative data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES 2019) to understand why Head Start families choose their child's Head Start program, what their experiences are like in their program, and if they plan to return next year. The findings offer a glimpse of program characteristics that parents value and report as positive that Head Start programs can continue to emphasize to better serve children and families who participate.

Head Start is an essential part of the programs and funding streams that provide early care and education (ECE) services to young children in the U.S. Head Start focuses on supporting children and families with low incomes, but also contributes to the broader effort to expand access to high quality ECE for all young children. Programs and initiatives at the federal and state levels include incentives to expand access to high quality care to all children. The number and range of programs and initiatives, however, and the expectations that come with them, make the ECE service landscape a complicated one for providers to navigate. In addition to the Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS), Head Start programs or centers can be subject to other state regulations or program standards. This brief provides information from spring 2020, from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2019 about how Head Start programs interact with other systems that support ECE. The findings can help policymakers and others who are working to strengthen alignment, coordination, and collaboration across the ECE system to better serve children and families.

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) and the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AIAN FACES) are separate studies done successively over time. One goal for these studies is to provide a national picture of children's readiness for school. In this research brief, the authors use data from the most recent round of FACES and AIAN FACES in fall 2019 to evaluate the performance of direct assessments of children that were used to provide that national picture. The authors conducted similar analyses using FACES 2014 and AIAN FACES 2015 data (Malone et al. 2018) and are replicating the previous analyses because the current FACES studies have new direct assessments--one added to measure executive function and three reflecting the latest editions of those direct assessments. The current analysis focuses on these new direct assessments to understand whether they are a fair estimate of children's skills and knowledge in the domains being measured. Specifically, the authors answer two key research questions: (1) How valid is the Minnesota Executive Function Scale App (MEFS App™) as an assessment of executive function for Head Start preschool children? and (2) Do the latest editions of the cognitive assessments used in AIAN FACES 2019 show any systematic item bias against AIAN preschool children compared with White, non-Hispanic children in FACES 2019?

Since 1997, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) has been a major source of information on the Head Start program and the preschool children ages 3 to 5 who attend the program. As part of its management of Head Start, the federal government divides Head Start programs into 12 regions. Regions XI and XII are not based on geography; instead, Head Start defines the regions by the populations they serve. Region XI serves children and families in programs operated by federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. In 2015, a new study--the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AIAN FACES 2015)--focused on the children and families in Region XI. AIAN FACES 2019 is the second round of this national study in Region XI Head Start. Mathematica and its partner, Educational Testing Service, conducted the study for the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The tables in this report describe the children enrolled in Region XI Head Start programs in fall 2019 who were still enrolled in spring 2020; their families' backgrounds and home environments; and the characteristics of their classrooms, centers, and programs. In addition, the report provides information on the AIAN FACES 2019 study methodology, sample, and analytic methods. The study design is the same one used for AIAN FACES 2015. The purpose of this report is to: (1) provide information about the AIAN FACES study, including the background, design, methodology (including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on data collection), and analytic methods; and (2) report detailed descriptive statistics (averages, response ranges, and percentages) in a series of tables containing information on children, their families, their classrooms, and their programs. Specific topics examined include: (1) Children's characteristics, families' backgrounds, and home environment; (2) Children's social-emotional skills; (3) Children's physical health and disability status; (4) Children's classroom, center, and program cultural and language environment; (5) Children's classroom and teacher characteristics; (6) Children's center and program characteristics; and (7) Children's center and program response to COVID-19. [For the Fall 2019 report, see ED617157.]

This research brief draws upon the fall 2019 data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2019. FACES provides information at the national level about Head Start programs, centers, and classrooms as well as the children and families that Head Start serves. Head Start is a national program that helps young children from families with low incomes get ready to succeed in school. It does this by working to promote early learning, health, and family well-being. Head Start connects families with medical, dental, and mental health services to ensure that their children are receiving the services they need to develop well. Head Start not only involves parents in their children's learning and development but also supports parents' own goals, such as stable housing, continuing education, and financial security (Administration for Children and Families 2020). Head Start operates by providing grants to local public and private, nonprofit and for-profit agencies that deliver comprehensive child development services to economically disadvantaged children and their families.

Since 1997, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) has been a major source of information on the Head Start program and the preschool children ages 3 to 5 who attend the program. As part of its management of Head Start, the federal government divides Head Start programs into 12 regions. Regions XI and XII are not based on geography; instead, Head Start defines the regions by the populations they serve. Region XI serves children and families in programs operated by federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. In 2015, a new study--the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AIAN FACES 2015)--focused on the children and families in Region XI. AIAN FACES 2019 is the second round of this national study in Region XI Head Start. Mathematica and its partner, Educational Testing Service, conducted the study for the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The tables in this report describe the children enrolled in Region XI Head Start programs in fall 2019, their family backgrounds and home environments. In addition, the report provides information on the AIAN FACES 2019 study methodology, sample, and analytic methods. The study design is the same as the design for AIAN FACES 2015. The purpose of this report is to: (1) provide information about the AIAN FACES study, including the background, design, methodology, assessments, and analytic methods; and (2) report detailed descriptive statistics (averages, response ranges, and percentages) in a series of tables on children and their families. Specific topics examined include: (1) Children's characteristics, family background, and home environment; (2) Children's cognitive skills; (3) Children's social-emotional skills; and (4) Children's physical health and disability status. [For the Fall 2015-Spring 2016 report, see ED617161.]

Head Start is a national program that helps young children from families with low income get ready to succeed in school. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is the premier source of national information about Head Start programs and participants. For more than two decades, FACES has been advancing the knowledge base about what matters in providing quality early care and education (ECE). Mathematica and its partners--Educational Testing Service and Juárez and Associates--conducted the study under contract to the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Data from the study respond to current policy questions and support programs and practitioners working with Head Start families. This report includes key information on the FACES 2019 study design. The tables in this report describe the children enrolled in Head Start programs in fall 2019 and their family backgrounds and home environments. The purpose of this report is to (1) provide information about the FACES study, including the background, design, methodology, assessments, and analytic methods; and (2) report detailed descriptive statistics (averages, response ranges, and percentages) and related standard errors (the estimate of the standard deviation of each statistic) in a series of tables on children and their families.

Leadership is widely recognized as an essential driver of organizational performance and improvement, but little is known about who participates in leadership in early care and education (ECE) center-based settings and its role in improving quality and outcomes for staff and children. Additionally, information on how to define key constructs associated with leadership and the activities that demonstrate leadership is lacking. The goals of the Early Care and Education Leadership Study (ExCELS) project are to: (1) fill the definitional and measurement gaps to understand what leadership looks like as defined by who participates in leadership in center-based ECE settings and the ways in which leaders can improve quality experiences for children in ECE settings, (2) develop a short-form measure of ECE leadership, and (3) identify actionable leadership quality improvement (QI) initiatives and methods of evaluating them. The purpose of this literature review is to understand what is known about what leadership looks like within center-based ECE settings and how it functions to improve center quality and, in turn, children's experiences and outcomes. The authors look to the literature to understand what evidence exists about the features, practices, and outcomes of ECE leadership so we can build a theory of change that will guide the rest of the work of ExCELS. [This report was prepared by University of Massachusetts Boston, Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation.]

Research has found that children who attend Head Start for more than one year tend to score higher on cognitive skills at the end of pre-K or at kindergarten entry than children who attend for one year or less (Lee 2011; Wen et al. 2012b; Xue et al. 2016). Although attending Head Start for more years is linked with higher cognitive scores, children's gains across the years may not be comparable (Yoshikawa et al. 2013). In nationally representative data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey 2014-2018 (FACES 2014), the authors found that, on average, first-year children showed larger gains in language and cognitive scores from fall to spring of the program year than second-year children (Kopack Klein et al. 2018). In this brief, the authors use data across one year of Head Start (from fall 2014 to spring 2015) from FACES 2014 to expand this finding and explore possible explanations for why second-year children made smaller gains in language and cognitive scores than first-year children during the Head Start program year (see methods in the box at the end of the brief). They explore whether differences between first- and second-year children's gains across the program year can be explained by differences in child and family characteristics, including age; fall language and cognitive scores; part-day enrollment; classroom quality; or teacher experience and education.

COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization and a public health emergency by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in March 2020 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2020). In the following months, families in the U.S. experienced financial hardships such as job and income loss, increasing food insecurity, and loss of child care (Gassman-Pines et al. 2020; Patrick et al. 2020). Historically, pandemics and diseases have had higher prevalence and impact in American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities (Kakol et al. 2020). Children and families in AIAN communities have also been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as well. Region XI Head Start programs are operated by federally recognized AIAN tribes and deliver comprehensive children's development services to economically disadvantaged children and families. Even while physically closed, Head Start programs and centers may have offered children and families valuable support during the COVID-19 pandemic. This brief focuses on how Region XI Head Start children's centers responded early in the COVID-19 pandemic to support children and families in Region XI. In the brief, the authors use information reported by center directors in June and July 2020 to describe how children's centers adjusted their communications and services with families during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. They first describe the strategies that children's centers used to communicate with families. They then examine the needs that families reported to center staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, and explore whether children's centers provided supports that correspond with those needs, on average. The brief concludes with a discussion how the services and referrals that children's centers provided to children and families changed during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. [The brief is cowritten with the AIAN FACES 2019 Workgroup.]

This research brief describes the professional development (PD) experiences of Head Start staff (program directors, center directors, teachers, and other staff), using nationally representative data from the spring 2017 round of the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey 2014-2018 (FACES 2014). First we describe the landscape of PD for a variety of staff in Head Start. Next, we describe two specific types of PD that support classroom quality improvements: (1) coaching; and (2) assessment and curriculum support. We also examine whether selected PD supports vary by program agency type, program size, teacher experience, and teacher education.

Using data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES 2014), this research brief describes the family background and developmental progress of Head Start children as they complete a program year (from Fall 2014 to Spring 2015). This brief highlights descriptive information from the FACES 2014-2015 Data Tables and Study Design report (Aikens et al. 2017a). Other FACES 2014 products describe characteristics of Head Start children at the beginning of the program year (Aikens et al. 2017c; Tarullo et al. 2017). This research brief addresses the following research questions: (1) What are the demographic characteristics of children and families who are completing a program year? (2) What are the cognitive and social skills of Head Start children as they complete a program year? How do these compare to their skills at the beginning of the program year? (3) What is the physical health status of children as they complete a program year? How does this compare to their status at the beginning of the program year? (4) Do children's cognitive and social skills and health status at the end of the program year vary by their program exposure and age? Does children's progress in their skills or health status vary across the program year? and (5) What are the cognitive and social skills and health status of dual language learners (DLLs) as they complete a program year? How do these compare to their skills or health status at the beginning of the program year?

To date, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) has been a major source of descriptive information on Head Start and preschool children ages 3 to 5 years old who attend the program. There are 12 regions for federal management of Head Start. FACES gathers data on Head Start programs, staff, children, and families from Regions I through X, which are the 10 geographically based Head Start regions nationwide. Regions XI and XII are not geographically based and instead are defined by the populations served. In 2015, a new study--the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AI/AN FACES 2015)--focused on Region XI, which comprises programs operated by federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. AI/AN FACES 2015 is the first national study of Region XI AI/AN Head Start children and their families, classrooms, and programs. This set of tables presents data on the demographic backgrounds and developmental outcomes of children enrolled in Region XI AI/AN Head Start programs during the 2015-16 Head Start year. The tables also detail aspects of their home environment and family life. Data on children's classrooms, teachers, centers, and programs, including aspects of classroom quality and practice, teacher and director characteristics, and characteristics of the center and program environments, provide context for children's experiences. Information on the AI/AN FACES 2015 study methodology and collaborative design process, sample, and measures are also provided. The study is conducted by Mathematica Policy Research and its partner--Educational Testing Service--under contract to the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The purpose of this report is two-fold: (1) to provide information about the AI/AN FACES 2015 study, including the background, design, methodology, measures, and analytic methods; and (2) to report detailed descriptive statistics in a series of tables on children, their families, and their classrooms, centers, and programs. The data provide descriptive information from parent surveys, direct child assessments, teacher child reports, teacher surveys, classroom observations, and center and program director surveys.

Head Start is a national program that aims to promote school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social, and other services to enrolled children and families. The program places special emphasis on helping preschoolers develop the reading, language, social-emotional, mathematics, and science skills they need to be successful in school. It also seeks to engage parents in their children's learning and to promote their progress toward their own educational goals (Administration for Children and Families [ACF] 2017). It also offers supports related to children's home or Native language and culture based on community needs and priorities. The Head Start program aims to achieve these goals by providing comprehensive child development services to economically disadvantaged children and families through grants to local public and private nonprofit and for profit agencies. To date, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) has been a major source of descriptive information on Head Start and preschool children ages 3 to 5 years old who attend the program, with the most recent round in 2014. In 2015, a new study--the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AI/AN FACES 2015)--focused on Region XI, which are programs operated by federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. AI/AN FACES 2015 is the first national study of Region XI AI/AN Head Start children and their families, classrooms, and programs. The study presents a new opportunity to explore the psychometric performance of commonly used measures of preschoolers' cognitive and social-emotional development. This technical report describes the performance of cognitive and social-emotional measures of preschoolers' development for AI/AN children, using recent data from AI/AN FACES 2015 and FACES 2014. The purpose of this technical report is to present findings from analyses of how preschool cognitive and social-emotional measures performed in AI/AN FACES 2015. The authors examined the internal consistency of measures when administered to AI/AN children, reviewed descriptive statistics as context of difference in mean ability across groups in the AI/AN FACES 2015 and FACES 2014 samples, conducted analyses of differential item functioning (DIF) within cognitive measures to compare the performance of AI/AN children and White children (including data from FACES 2014), and examined the strength of bivariate correlations between measures of similar constructs and different constructs to assess evidence of concurrent and discriminant validity. The findings, therefore, provide initial evidence on the reliability and validity of the measures for AI/AN preschoolers.

Using data from the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AI/AN FACES 2015), this brief describes the developmental progress of Region XI Head Start children as they complete a program year. AI/AN FACES 2015 is the first national study of Region XI Head Start children, families, and programs. Since 1997, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) has been a regular source of nationally representative data on Head Start programs, centers, classrooms, children, and families. Until the 2015-2016 program year, however, FACES had not been conducted in Region XI AI/AN Head Start programs. This was due in part to the time and resources required to engage in the intensive community-based planning and implementation process needed to successfully carry out the study in partnership with Region XI Head Start programs and communities. Head Start programs, researchers, and federal staff all identified the lack of data on Region XI Head Start children and their programs as a critical information gap. The brief provides the first national picture of Region XI children over the course of a Head Start program year and addresses the following research questions: (1) What are the knowledge, skills, and physical health of Region XI Head Start children in the spring of the program year?; and (2) How do these compare to the fall of the program year? [Co-written with the AI/AN FACES 2015 Workgroup.]

This research brief draws upon data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2014. FACES provides information at the national level about Head Start programs, centers, and classrooms, and about the children and families that Head Start serves. This brief is part of a series of reporting products describing data from the 2014-2015 round of FACES 2014. The brief provides a nationally representative description of dual language learner (DLL) children in Head Start, their families, and their homes at the beginning of the program year. This brief highlights information from the Fall 2014 Data Tables and Study Design report. The authors address the following research questions: (1) What are the characteristics of DLL children in Head Start?; (2) What are the demographic characteristics of families of DLL children in Head Start? How do the characteristics of families of DLL children compare to those of non-DLL children?; and (3) What are the characteristics of the home environments of DLL children in Head Start? How do the characteristics of home environments of DLL children compare to those of non-DLL children? For FACES 2014, researchers selected a sample of Head Start programs from the 2012-2013 Head Start Program Information Report, with two centers per program and two classrooms per center. Within each classroom, researchers randomly selected 12 children for the study. In total, 60 programs, 119 centers, 247 classrooms, and 2,462 children participated in fall 2014. Findings reveal that Spanish is the most prevalent primary home language for DLL children. Despite primarily hearing a language other than English inside the home, about half of DLLs pass a language screener at the start of the Head Start year and are able to be assessed in English. DLL children's families have a range of challenges and strengths, some of which differ from those of non-DLL children. DLLs are typically born in the United States to parents who are from other countries and who are less educated than parents of non-DLL children. DLL children's home environments reflect a range of resources and needs. Three-quarters of DLLs live in families at or below the federal poverty threshold; more than half have parents who report at least one financial strain (especially related to medical care); and about one-third have parents who report food insecurity.

This research brief provides a national portrait of the characteristics, development, and well-being of children and families at the beginning of the Head Start program year, using recent data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES 2014). This brief highlights descriptive information from the Fall 2014 Data Tables and Study Design report (Aikens et al. 2017c). The authors address the following research questions: (1) What are the characteristics of children and families in Head Start?; (2) How are families doing at the beginning of the Head Start year?; and (3) How are children doing at the beginning of the Head Start year? How does this vary by Head Start exposure (that is, newly entering children compared with those returning for a second year), the age of newly enrolled children, and race/ethnicity? To address the first question, the authors explore the characteristics of children and families participating in Head Start, such as the age of the children, children's racial/ethnic background, home language, and household structure. They examine child and family characteristics to provide a national portrait of the participants the Head Start program serves. Indicators of family well-being during the fall of the Head Start program year are examined to address the second question. To address the third question, the authors describe children's cognitive skills (language, literacy, and mathematics), body mass index (BMI), social skills, problem behaviors, and executive function at the beginning of the program year.

This report describes preliminary work in support of an early childhood needs assessment for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children prenatal to age five. The report presents the process and findings from implementing Design One--describing the population of AI/AN children and families and their participation in early childhood services based on "existing data sources"--with a set of national survey and Administration for Children and Families (ACF) administrative data sources. Implementation of Design One followed three steps: (1) a review of six data sources to identify data elements addressing the key indicators; (2) a review of published information from the four of those data sources for which published information was available; and (3) secondary analysis of two of the data sources. Findings from the report include: (1) The selected data sources have the potential to address AI/AN Early Childhood Needs key indicators of policy and programmatic interest--with data items available on 62 of 87 key indicators across all 9 research questions; (2) Little information, however, has been published to date--17 of the 62 key indicators potentially available were found in published information (covering 7 research questions); (3) New analysis focusing on the key indicators can expand the extent of information known--analysis of the American Community Survey and Head Start Program Information Report addressed 43 key indicators from 8 of the 9 research questions; and (4) Use of existing data can present challenges in goodness of fit in how well existing data (collected for a different purpose and across different times) align to the key indicators and intent of the research question.

Providing high quality, culturally appropriate early childhood services across the prenatal to age 5 continuum is a critical policy and programmatic issue in the United States, notably among the American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) population. To best support AI/AN children and families, better data will help document their needs for early childhood services, the services currently available to address these needs, and how local communities identify needs for services. These data are prerequisites for conducting an accurate national assessment of the unmet need for early childhood services in tribal communities. This report sets the framework for such a needs assessment and outlines three design options that, if conducted, would support the implementation of an AI/AN early childhood needs assessment. The report begins with a description of the framework underlying each design topic: the population of interest and the definition of early childhood needs, services, and indicators, followed by details on each of the three design topics. Each chapter addresses the key research questions for the design topic, the population of interest, measurement topics to consider when addressing the research questions, and data sources, including primary data collection or existing data sources available for secondary analysis. The report concludes with a summary of each design topic and future considerations.

Quality measurement serves as a foundation for child care Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). Understanding the variation that exists in quality measurement, the different contexts in which states make decisions, and the factors that play into their decisions can help administrators identify where their state may fall along the spectrum in practice (or the direction in which they should steer), and can help researchers design approaches that take these differences into account. Such information can also aid in identifying opportunities for moving toward some common practice and research goals. The quality components included in a QRIS define a state's framework for measuring quality and signal to providers and parents the practices that should be included in high-quality early child care and education programs. There are commonalities in the quality categories that are included across QRIS (Tout et al. 2010), demonstrating that many states and communities are using a similar foundation upon which to build their rating systems. However, the manner in which states and localities combine and aggregate these quality categories to develop QRIS ratings has many nuances, producing rating systems with important variations that can impede direct cross-QRIS comparisons and research approaches. Recognizing the need for information on the quality measurement practices in QRIS, this in-depth study of select QRIS was launched as part of the Child Care Quality Rating Systems (QRS) Assessment project, funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) within the Administration for Children and Families. Approaches used by states and communities to measure quality through the QRIS were examined by focusing on three research questions: (1) What is the variation in how select QRIS define and measure quality, and what accounts for the variation in their approaches?; (2) What are the specific processes used by select QRIS to measure each component of the quality rating and determine the overall rating level?; and (3) What is the availability of consistent and reliable data on quality ratings within select QRIS and how are the data currently being used? To answer these questions, five QRIS were selected for the in-depth study: Miami-Dade County, Florida; Illinois; Indiana; Pennsylvania; and Tennessee. A summary of key characteristics of the five QRIS is presented. Licensing and NAEYC Accreditation Requirements for Center-Based Programs are appended.