Introduction
The Building and Sustaining the Child Care and Early Education Workforce (BASE) project aims to increase knowledge and understanding of the factors that drive staff member turnover in the child care and early education (CCEE) workforce and to build evidence about current initiatives to recruit, advance, and retain a stable and qualified CCEE workforce. This brief presents design considerations for cost studies of CCEE workforce development strategies.
Purpose
This brief is intended for policymakers, program administrators, researchers, and other stakeholders involved in workforce development and education. It describes how to inventory the resources required to implement a workforce development strategy and estimate the associated costs using the ingredients method—a widely adopted, mixed-methods approach tailored to education settings. The purpose of the brief is to help users understand key methodological considerations involved in cost study design and ensure accurate cost estimates to support effective decision-making and avoid unintended consequences in both local and broader contexts.
Key Findings and Highlights
- Cost studies are valuable tools for understanding the feasibility, resource requirements, and potential savings of workforce development strategies in child care and early education (CCEE).
- The ingredients method offers a structured, widely accepted approach for estimating costs in education settings, enhancing comparability and clarity across studies.
- To minimize burdens on respondents and researchers, cost studies can be designed to focus on key resources, use standardized prices, and be integrated with other data collection efforts.
- Accurate and context-sensitive cost estimates are essential for informing decision-making in policy and practice.
- Flexible and adaptive data collection strategies, such as those used in the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program Teacher Salary Increase Pilot evaluation, demonstrate how cost studies can be effectively implemented even in resource-constrained environments.
Appendix
Appendix
Citation
Davis, Rebecca. 2025. “Estimating the Costs of Implementing Workforce Development Strategies in Child Care and Early Education: A Methodological Guide.” OPRE Report 2025-061. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Available at: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/project/building-and-sustaining-early-care-and-education-workforce-base
Related Documents
- Child Care and Early Education Workforce Recruitment and Retention: Insights from a Current Landscape of Strategies
- Understanding the Child Care and Early Education Workforce: The Need for More and Better Data
- An Annotated Bibliography of Select Literature on the Child Care and Early Education Workforce: A Supplement to the BASE Knowledge Review Series
Glossary
- CHILD CARE AND EARLY EDUCATION (CCEE):
- refers to programs and the workforce educating and caring for children from birth to age 13. This includes educators in centers and in home-based settings caring for infants, toddlers, and preschool- and school-aged children. CCEE refers to a larger age group than Early Care and Education (ECE), which consists of services for young children only (for example, Head Start and Early Head Start, public pre-K, and centers serving children from birth to age 5). ECE programs are included in the definition of CCEE.
- CCEE EDUCATORS and CCEE WORKFORCE:
- refer to current and prospective educators who are paid to care for children from birth to age 13 in center- and home-based settings. This includes educators in different positions and roles. For example, center administrators, directors, lead and assistant teachers, and home-based educators are included in this definition. This definition also includes both licensed and license-exempt center- and home-based settings. While the CCEE workforce also includes support staff members in centers, such as coaches, education coordinators, and behavioral specialists, these individuals are not the primary focus of this brief.
- CCEE SETTING:
- refers to the physical location (for example, a center, school, or home) where children receive care. Settings can include Head Start child care centers; community-based child care centers; licensed and license-exempt home-based child care settings that receive subsidies; and the home or location of relatives, neighbors, or other individuals who are paid to care for children.
- INGREDIENTS METHOD:
- A method for assessing the full societal costs of programs in education and social services. Coined by Hank Levin and colleagues, the ingredients method involves inventorying the resources that are used in implementing a program or intervention and applying standardized prices to those resources to estimate the economic value of the suite of inputs that contribute to the program.