Excerpt from executive summary:

The Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes in Child Care Centers Study, begun in 1993, was designed in part to examine the influence of typical center-based child care on children's development during their preschool years and then subsequently as they moved into the formal elementary education system. We have now followed these children through the end of second grade, four years after our initial contact with them when they were nearing the end of their next-to-last year in child care. The overall findings can be summarized in a few broad statements about the influence of center-based child care in America on children:

- High quality child care is an important element in achieving the national goal of having all children ready for school.

- High quality child care continues to positively predict children's performance well into their school careers.

- Children who have traditionally been at risk of not doing well in school are affected more by the quality of child care experiences than other children.

- The quality of child care classroom practices was related to children's cognitive development, while the closeness of the child care teacher-child relationship influenced children's social development through the early school years.