Gail L. Zellman

Presents an overview of Phase I (2001-2004) of Qatar's bold K-12 education reform initiative, Education for a New Era, based on RAND's experiences in this ambitious, multi-participant effort. RAND examined Qatar's existing education system, recommended options for building a world-class system, and supported implementation of the chosen option, which is based on internationally benchmarked curriculum standards and parental choice of schools.

In July 2012, the City of Santa Monica Human Services Division and the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District contracted with the RAND Corporation to conduct an assessment of child care programs in Santa Monica. The project sought to assess how well Santa Monica s early and school-age care programs meet the needs of families. Recommendations for improvement focused on advancing access, quality, service delivery, and financial sustainability."

To assess progress made in the first years of Qatar's implementation of its K-12 education reform, RAND analyzed data from school-level observations, national surveys, and national student assessments. Findings reveal that the new, Independent schools had implemented many elements of the reform, that students in these schools were performing better than students in Ministry of Education schools, and that much work was still needed to enable students to meet the new, higher standards.

Child-care quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) are designed to make child-care quality transparent to child-care parents, providers, and policymakers and to help providers improve their quality. This monograph discusses the development and implementation of QRISs in Oklahoma, Colorado, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, highlighting lessons that the states learned and recommendations for QRIS development and refinement. It discusses the development and implementation of child-care quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) in Oklahoma, Colorado, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, offering recommendations for QRIS development and refinement.

The evidence presented in this paper raises concerns that the current U. S. Department of Defense (DoD) system of in-kind subsidies for child care is not meeting DoD recruitment, readiness, and retention goals or service member needs in an optimal way. The authors explore how civilian employers approach the issue of child care benefits for employees and suggest how child care resources might be more effectively directed to support DoD goals. In support of recruitment, readiness, and retention goals, this paper suggests that the U. S. Department of Defense may wish to expand its child care benefits to cover more military families and a broader set of child care needs.

Describes and analyzes the results of a 2004 survey on the child care needs and choices of military families. It defines outcomes of potential interest to DoD (reported child-care usage, unmet child-care need, and unmet child-care preference), details the distribution of these outcomes among military families, and analyzes the relationships between these outcomes and military readiness and retention.

The first comprehensive analysis of child-care costs across the military services The military child-care system, the largest system of employer-sponsored child care in the country, has received high marks for providing quality, accessible care for children of military employees. In an effort to control expenses, the Department of Defense (DoD) has considered a number of different approaches to delivering this care. This book presents estimates of the cost of providing care in DoD-operated Child Development Centers (CDCs), Family Child Care (FCC) homes, and centers operated by outside providers under contract to the DoD. The authors conclude that child care is a costly employee benefit and the costs are particular high for infants and toddlers. Their survey of CDCs revealed dramatic differences across installations in the cost of care per child, with significantly lower per-child costs in larger centers. FCC costs are considerably lower than those for CDC care because cost is not so closely tied to a child's age in FCC homes. Costs for contractor-operated centers fall within the range observed for DoD-run centers. There is no evidence that contractor-run centers are 10-percent cheaper to operate than DoD-run centers, the cost differential that is a DoD requirement for outsourcing.