Early Care and Education Consortium

Location: US National

Child care associations promote the education and well-being of children, families, and child care providers.

The Early Care and Education Consortium (ECEC) is a not for profit alliance member of America’s leading independent providers of high-quality, licensed early learning and child care programs. ECEC represents the collective voices of Capitol Hill as well as with the National Childhood Advocacy Groups. ECEC has 9000+ centers nationwide while working with over a million children and families coming from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.

ECEC supports various policies throughout the field. Supporting the workforce of both today and tomorrow is a main priority. The ECEC is able to provide assistance by offering affordable and timely access to programs of the highest quality for all families. The programs offered by ECEC ensure that children arrive at school “ready to learn” while incorporating resources to sustain the program. As the ECEC programs are of the highest quality in order to maximize both the health and safety, and overall well being of all children, they are operated by quality staff following international teaching practices. The programs are designed to engage children as well as parents and the community.

In order to continually offer such high quality programs. The ECEC is constantly working on quality improvement with measurable outcomes. The ECEC measures quality through State Licensing Standards that provide the foundational building blocks to child care excellence as well as program ratings based on tiered state Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). Lastly, to ensure children are ready for the next step in their educational journey, ECEC holds accountability for school readiness based on state Kindergarten Entry Assessments.

For more information visit the Early Care and Education Consortium website.