Patent ID: 6916180

Claim:
A method of evaluating an educational program for children ages 0 to 5 years old, comprising the steps of: (a) developing criteria which address strengths and weaknesses of the educational program, wherein said criteria includes each of (a1) through (a3) following: (a1) an educational program staff to child classroom ratio; (a2) educational program staff education qualifications including (a2-1) through (a2-3) following: (a2-1) qualifications for staff educational degrees, (a2-2) a qualification for duration of paid experience in educating children, and (a2-3) qualifications for college course credits in child development; and (a3) at least a predetermined majority of parents, having a child in the educational program, responding with parental responses indicating each of the following (a3-1) through (a3-3): (a3-1) the educational program welcomes visits by the parents at substantially all times; (a3-2) receiving at least adequate information on their child's daily activities in the educational program; and (a3-3) receiving at least adequate information from the educational program on each of (a3-3-1) through (a3-3-3) following: (a3-3-1) learning goals for children in the educational program, (a3-3-2) teaching approaches for children in the educational program, (a3-3-3) how child behavior is managed in a classroom environment; (b) determining how the criteria relates to the educational program, and storing results from said determining step for use by an electronic computational device; (c) determining from said stored results, a numerical value for each of a plurality of different portions of the results; wherein said plurality of different portions of the results includes data for assigning such a numerical value to at least some of the following (c1) through (c5) following: (c1) a classroom environment for the educational program; (c2) accreditation by one or more of: (i) a state, local, or federal institution, and (ii) a non-governmental association that accredits a plurality of independently owned and operated child care facilities; (c3) involvement of parents having a child in the educational program; (c4) educational credentials of staff at the educational program; and (c5) ratios of educational program staff to children in the educational program; (d) using a computational device for combining said assigned numerical values for obtaining an overall rating for the educational program, wherein said overall rating designates a quality of child care; (e) assigning the overall rating to the educational program; (f) providing a communications network interface for accessing the overall rating of the educational program; and (g) transmitting the overall rating to a user accessing the network interface so that the overall rating can be presented to the user.