Daycares in Illinois

Illinois scores licensed daycares through ExceleRate Illinois, the state's quality rating program. ExceleRate scores providers on a 1 to 5 level scale across four domains: culture of improvement, administration, teaching and learning, and family and community engagement.

Illinois's minimum legal requirements for adult-to-child ratios meet the standards published by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the leading professional accreditation body for early-childhood programs and the most widely cited benchmark for high-quality care, and the state requires a higher staff credential than most. Illinois requires a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential at minimum for lead teachers in licensed centers, where most states require only a high school diploma; NAEYC's professional standard is a bachelor's degree. The state caps infant ratios at 1:4 (matching NAEYC), toddler ratios at 1:5 (stricter than NAEYC's 1:6), and preschool ratios at 1:10 (matching NAEYC). Where Illinois sits below NAEYC standards is on group sizes: infant groups can hold 12 (NAEYC: 8), toddler groups can hold 15 (NAEYC: 12), and preschool groups are capped at 20 (matching NAEYC). Pre-service training is not set in state rule, and required ongoing professional development is 15 hours per year, below NAEYC's recommended 25.

These minimum legal requirements apply to every licensed daycare in Illinois, regardless of its ExceleRate rating. They are one of the Structural inputs in every Childery rating shown above. The rating distribution above combines that Structural input with ExceleRate scores and other Process inputs to produce the Overall scores. For the full breakdown, see the Illinois methodology page.