Childcare Landscape Study - Flipbook - Page 21
Davidson County Child Care Landscape Study Results
8
and adopted its approach to healthcare costs and operating reserves for the greater Davidson
County child care cost estimation models for center-based and home-based child care.
Administration for Children and Families Provider Cost of Quality Calculator
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) maintains a general tool for calculating the
cost of running a child care business. This tool includes state-specific values for a variety of
expense categories. Similar to the P5FS tool, our cost model adopts ACF default values for
Tennessee for expense categories where concrete Davidson County estimates were unavailable.
Child Care Program Analytic Samples
We began by identifying the eligible population of child care programs in greater Davidson
County in Tennessee Child Care Licensing Data using the Web Provider List. Beginning
with the list of all programs in the eligible ZCTAs, we removed all programs that provided
drop-in only care (n=4), programs closed for the summer (n=19), programs outside of the
study’s geographic focus area (n=1), and center-based programs with a licensed capacity of
less than 12 (n=1). After-school-only programs are not included in this study. We also
excluded the four Metro Nashville Public School (MNPS) Early Learning Centers.
In total, 275 child care programs remained in the survey-eligible population, including 246
center-based programs and 29 home-based programs.
From the 275 programs that were in the survey population, 157 child care program directors
engaged with the survey, of which 130 (n=116 center-based programs and n=14 home-based
programs) consented to participate and provided sufficient information to be included in our
analyses, resulting in a 47 percent response rate.
Center-Based Child Care Analytic Sample
Child care centers are licensed early care and education programs that operate in
nonresidential settings and serve at least 13 children.13 Of the 275 programs in the surveyeligible population, 246 are center-based child care programs. In total, 116 (47%) centerbased programs participated in the survey and provided sufficient information to be included
in our analyses; we refer to these survey respondents as the center-based analytic sample.
Representativeness
Using Tennessee child care licensing data and ACS population data, we compared key
program and community characteristics between programs included in the analytic sample
(n=116) and the full population of eligible center-based programs (N=246). Across most
measurable characteristics, the survey sample is representative of the population, including
key program factors such as serving infants, certificate acceptance, and whether the program
is overseen by TDHS or TDOE (see Table 2).
The center-based analytic sample overrepresents centers licensed to serve between 101 and 150
children. The center-based analytic sample also overrepresents centers in the highest-income
ZCTAs, where the median annual household income in the ZCTA is more than $152,000, or
Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center 2025
www.pn3policy.org
