A comparison of the civil statutes and the welfare department standards which govern the licensing of provate child-care institutions

Data from the fifty states was compared to both the model licensing civil statutes and the model licensing standards. The objectives of this study were: (1) to determine and compare the compliance of the existing licensing civil statutes of all of the states in the United States with model licensing civil statute proposed by the experts in the field of child-care licensing; (2) to determine and compare the compliance of the Department of Public Welfare existing licensing standards of all of the states in the nation with the model licensing standards proposed b the experts in the field of child-care licensing; (3) to determine how the existing licensing civil statutes of all of the states in the United States comply wit the proposed licensing civil statute changes of Texas Attorney General John L. Hill; (4) to determine how the percentage of compliance of the Texas licensing civil statute and the Texas licensing standards, with their respective models, compares with the percentage of compliance of the licensing civil statutes and the licensing standards of the other states; and (5) to determine the coefficient of correlation between the percentage of compliance of the licensing civil statutes and the percentage of compliance of the licensing standards of the states. Methods The methods used in the study were: (1) the comparison of the existing licensing civil statutes of all of the states, found in the University of Houston Law Library, with the model licensing civil statute, found in Licensing of Child-Care Facilities by State Welfare Departments; (2) the comparison of the existing licensing standards of the states, which were obtained from the departments of public welfare of each state, with the model licensing standards, the Child Welfare League of America Standards for Services of Child Welfare Institutions; (3) the comparison of the existing licensing civil statutes with the proposed licensing civil statute changes, Report of John L. Hill, Attorney General of Texas, In re: Proposed Legislative Changes Affecting Child-Caring Institutions, and Suggested Changes in the Procedures of the State Department of Public Welfare under Present Law, Article 695c, Section 8 (a), T.R.C.S.; (4) reduce data to frequency distributions with the aid of the computer facilities at Sam Houston State University; (5) calculate the mean, median. And standard deviation for each of the three categories of data to facilitate comparison; (6) the comparison of the Texas licensing civil statute and the Texas licensing standards with the licensing civil statutes and licensing standards of the other states; and (7) calculate the coefficient of correlation between the percentage of compliance of the existing civil statutes of the states and the percentage of compliance of the existing licensing standards by substituting the data into the Pearson Product-Moment r formula. Findings 1. The mean percentage of compliance of the existing licensing civil statutes with the model licensing civil statutes was 50.26 percent. The median percentage of compliance was 51.26 percent. The standard deviation of the percentages of compliance was 12.84 2. The existing licensing civil statutes of Texas complied with 56.41 percent of the model licensing civil statutes. 3. The mean percentage of compliance of the existing licensing standards with the model licensing standards was 43.22. the median percentage of compliance was 45.43 percent. The standard deviation of the percentages of compliance was 14.39. 4. The existing licensing standards of Texas complied with 45.43 percent of the model licensing standards. 5. The mean percentage of compliance of the existing licensing civil statutes with the proposed licensing civil statute changes by Attorney General Hill was 14.76 precent. The median percentage of compliance was 13.33. The standard deviation of compliance was 8.54. 6. No significant correlation was found to exist between the percentage of compliance with the model licensing civil statutes and the percentage of compliance with the model licensing standards.