Description:
Parent Aware is Minnesota's Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) for early care and education. It existed as a pilot program from 2007 - 2011 and entered a statewide expansion phase in January, 2012. The purpose of Parent Aware is to promote children's optimal development and school readiness through a two-pronged strategy that (1) provides information about early care and education program quality to parents and (2) supports quality improvement of early care and education programs. Parent Aware is distinct among QRIS nationally because of its explicit focus on supporting parents in their selection of early care and education arrangements for their young children; indeed, Parent Aware is the only QRIS that includes the term "parent" in its name. Since its inception, evaluation has informed the planning, design, and implementation of Parent Aware. As Parent Aware shifts from a pilot to statewide expansion, evaluation will again play a role in tracking implementation successes and challenges, assessing the validity of the redesigned Parent Aware rating tool, understanding the effectiveness of quality improvement supports for programs and marketing tools for parents, and documenting the role of Parent Aware in supporting the overall objectives of Minnesota's early care and education system. The Parent Aware evaluation will also contribute critical information to reports on Minnesota's federal Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grant awarded in December 2011. The purpose of this report is to provide a descriptive portrait of Parent Aware in the first year of statewide expansion. It focuses primarily on features of implementation and serves as a baseline for subsequent evaluation reports to be produced over the next four years. (author abstract)
Resource Type:
Reports & Papers
Publisher(s):
Country:
United States
State(s)/Territories/Tribal Nation(s):
Minnesota