2021 Cost of Quality Price Modeling Report
The 2021 Texas Quality Child Care Cost of Modeling Report explores the costs of providing quality child care in Texas.
Researchers at the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing conducted the report in collaboration with the Ray Marshall Center. Each year, the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) contracts the survey as part of an annual project.
The study measures and models prices charged for quality care among Texas Rising Star and other nationally accredited providers. In addition, this study explores the relative contributions to costs of individual structural components of quality. Researchers made comparisons between nationally accredited and non-accredited centers, and between Texas Rising Star certified and non-certified centers.
The empirical approach of this study differs from some of the child care cost literature. This study attempts to measure the costs of providing care based on extensive modeling of the prices charged. Researchers surveyed selected samples of home– and center–based child care facilities to capture important quality factors and pricing information. Additionally, researchers assembled data from publicly available sources to develop statistical models of the price of quality child care. As a result, these models allow the marginal price of providing quality care to be estimated. This estimation uses a combination of factors specific to individual facilities, as measured by the survey. In addition, factors specific to the local markets in which they operate are used, as measured by the public data and varying geographically.