The past several posts to this blog have dealt with standards, rules/regulations, Caring for Our Children, and unlicensed child care.  This specific post presents some initial analyses of doing a validation study of regulations in three states using as the national comparison tool Stepping Stones to Caring for Our Children (Stepping Stones).  Stepping Stones is a risk assessment listing of standards taken from the larger Caring for Our Children book which focuses only on those standards that place children at greatest risk of morbidity and mortality.

In doing this validation study I assumed that there would be a high agreement between the 122 Stepping Stones standards and the respective regulations in the three states.  Oh, was I ever disappointed!!  There was 50% to 67% agreement between the Stepping Stones standards and the respective state regulations which means a gap of one-half to one-third.  Please keep in mind that these are standards that if they are not met place children in the greatest risk of mortality and morbidity.  Very sobering to say the least.