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Childery

Methodology

How Childery Rates Daycares

Updated May 2026.

About Childery Ratings

We believe that every family deserves access to high-quality information on their children's most important years. When you research a daycare on Childery, our ratings are built to answer the questions parents ask most often:

  • Does this daycare help my child learn academically, emotionally, and socially?
  • Will my child be safe here?
  • Who will be in the room with my child?

Each daycare gets one main star rating on a 1-5 scale that can be broken down into two components (Process and Structural), all anchored to state and national benchmarks.

  • Far Exceeds Benchmarks

    Above the national quality bar on both Process (excellent teacher-child interactions) and Structural (small teacher-to-child ratios, highly qualified teachers, comprehensive health and safety training, a clean inspection record, and an active license in good standing).

  • Exceeds Benchmarks

    Above the national quality bar on either Process (good teacher-child interactions) or Structural (good teacher-to-child ratios, qualified teachers, excellent health and safety training, a clean inspection record, and an active license in good standing).

  • Meets Benchmarks

    Meeting the national quality bar on both Process (adequate teacher-child interactions) and Structural (minimally acceptable teacher-to-child ratios, minimally acceptable qualified teachers, acceptable health and safety training, some issues in inspection records, and an active license in good standing).

  • Below Benchmarks

    Licensed and meeting state minimums on Process (inadequate teacher-child interactions) and Structural (below acceptable teacher-to-child ratios, below acceptable qualified teachers, below acceptable health and safety training, multiple issues in inspection records, and an active license in good standing).

  • Far Below Benchmarks

    Either at the regulatory floor on both Process (poor teacher-child interactions) and Structural (far below acceptable teacher-to-child ratios, far below acceptable qualified teachers, far below acceptable health and safety training, multiple issues in inspection records, or under active sanctions on the license).

Daycares that are closed, suspended, or denied a license are not shown.

How Are Childery Ratings Calculated?

Childery's Overall Rating combines two underlying ratings, Process and Structural, each capturing a different aspect of daycare quality. When both are present, the Overall Rating weights Process at 70% and Structural about 30%.

Research highlights that interactions between teacher and child (the Process side) predict kids' academic and social-emotional success later in life more reliably than the characteristics of the staff (the Structural side). To be clear, solid Structural factors are thought to be important foundations to solid Process factors.

Process Rating

Interactions Between Teacher and Child

The Process Rating consists of a state's Quality Rating and Improvement System (the official tier rating states publish for licensed centers), national accreditation (National Association for the Education of Young Children, National Accreditation Commission, National Early Childhood Program Accreditation, and National Association for Family Child Care), and federal classroom-observation scores.

Structural Rating

Teacher Quality Metrics and Safety Requirements

The Structural Rating uses inspection histories, complaints, license status, teacher credentials, and teacher training measured against the National Association for the Education of Young Children accreditation standards, the National Institute for Early Education Research quality benchmarks, and federal Head Start program standards.

How Childery Rates Daycares by State

Every state has its own quality rating system, regulatory baseline, and licensing portal. Each state methodology page shows the state-specific rating distribution, Process inputs (state QRIS, national accreditation programs, and federal Head Start CLASS scores), and Structural inputs (state regulatory baseline or provider-level licensing data).

Our Emphasis on Transparency and Fairness

Information about daycares should be reliable, free, and free of conflicts of interest. To live up to that, we commit to:

  • Audit every rating refresh for demographic fairness across measures of race, income, education, language, and household composition.

  • Publish the full scoring methodology and inputs so anyone can reproduce a rating or check our work.

  • Refuse all payment from rated daycares. That includes payment for placement, ratings, "claim your listing" features, ads, and sponsored content.

  • Publish the corrections we act on when a daycare or a parent flags an error in our data.

What Sets Childery Ratings Apart?

We produce daycare quality ratings that are backed by early-childhood research, anchored to national standards, audited for fairness, and impossible to buy.

Other daycare directories make money from the daycares they list, which gives those daycares a path to influence their ratings. At Childery, that path doesn't exist. No daycare can pay to appear higher in search, improve its rating, or claim its listing. Editorial scores cannot be purchased. The full fairness audit and the scoring methodology are public, so anyone can verify our work.

Frequently Asked Questions About Childery Ratings

How often are the ratings updated?
Yearly. The "Updated" date at the top of any page shows when the data was last refreshed.
How should I use these ratings to pick a daycare?
Treat the star rating as a starting filter, not a verdict. Use it to narrow your list to daycares worth visiting. Then visit, talk to staff, and trust what you see in the room. The ratings tell you what we measured. They don't tell you what your child's specific teacher is like, what curriculum the room uses, or whether the place feels right when you walk in.
Where does the data come from?
State licensing portals, federal Head Start program data, the BUILD Initiative's Quality Compendium, NAEYC's accreditation registry, the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (used only for the fairness audit, not the ratings themselves), and a few state-specific data sources. All inputs are public records.
Why might a daycare have only one of the two component ratings?
Process ratings draw from voluntary state quality programs, national accreditation, and federal Head Start classroom observation. Only about a third of US daycares have any of these signals; the rest are rated on Structural alone, and that Structural Rating becomes the Overall. Even when both components are present, looking at them separately can be more informative than looking at just the overall rating.
Why doesn't this daycare have a rating?
A daycare may not have a rating for one of three reasons: its license is closed, suspended, or denied; it is a license-exempt provider outside the state's regulatory system; or we don't have the data to compute a meaningful rating yet (most common in US territories and a small number of low-data states).
Does Childery accept money from daycares?
No. Daycares cannot pay for placement, ratings, claimed listings, ads, or sponsored content. We are funded by other means, and the editorial firewall around the ratings is structural rather than just a policy.

Need More Help?

For deeper detail on any single part of the methodology, see the sections below. To flag an error in our data or ask a question we haven't answered, contact us. Please also check your spam folder for our reply.