Great Start to Quality – QRIS
About Great Start to Quality
Great Start to Quality helps parents find the best child care and preschool for their child and helps providers improve the care and education they give to children. Standards set by Great Start to Quality are used to rate childcare and preschool programs to ensure that Michigan’s youngest children have high-quality early learning experiences.
How does Great Start to Quality work?
Great Start to Quality uses more than 40 different criteria under five Quality Standards:
- Staff qualifications and experience
- Family and community engagement
- Administration and management
- Learning environment
- Curriculum and instruction
Child care and preschool programs licensed by the state of Michigan have the opportunity to move through five-star levels. All licensed programs are awarded one star. Programs wishing to move beyond the first level must complete an online survey. Each program is then visited by an expert who checks all of the items listed on the survey.
Star Ratings
| Program meets licensing requirements. | |
| Program meets licensing requirements and is participating in Great Start to Quality. | |
| Program demonstrates quality across some standards. | |
| Program demonstrates quality across several standards. | |
| Program demonstrates quality across almost all standards. Program demonstrates high quality. | |
| Program demonstrates highest quality. |
What is the difference between Great Start to Quality and licensing or registration?
All child care centers and group child care homes in Michigan must be licensed by the State Department of Human Services. Licensing ensures that all safety and basic levels of quality early learning and care standards have been met. Family child care homes providing care and education for up to six children unrelated to the provider are registered by the Department of Human Services Bureau of Children and Adult Licensing.
The standards set by Great Start to Quality go above and beyond the Michigan’s registration procedures or licensing requirements. For example, Great Start to Quality awards points for smaller provider-child ratios than required by state licensing rules and for higher education levels and professional development of staff.
Who runs Great Start to Quality?
Great Start to Quality was designed in Michigan by early childhood development experts from the state and local levels, including parents. The Michigan Department of Education’s Office of Great Start is the lead agency with funding provided by the federal Child Care Development Fund and the state.
The Early Childhood Investment Corporation, an independent and publicly-owned nonprofit coordinating Michigan’s efforts to build an efficient and effective early childhood development system, is directly responsible for the development and implementation of Great Start to Quality.
The Great Start to Quality Core Team includes members from the Michigan Department of Education’s Office of Great Start – Child Development and Care Program, Great Start Readiness Program, and Head Start Collaboration Office; Michigan Department of Human Services, Bureau of Children and Adult Licensing; Michigan Department of Community Health; Michigan Association for the Education of Young Children; the Early Childhood Investment Corporation; Michigan Head Start Association; Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators; the Child and Adult Care Food Program; Grand Rapids Community College; and Madonna University.