The Midwest Child Care Research Consortium conducted a study of child care quality and characteristics of the child care work force in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. The purposes of this work were to help states establish a baseline for tracking 1) quality over time, 2) initiatives related to training, 3) policy and/or regulation changes, and 4) other changes in the child care system that may occur. The measures look beyond Iowa child care licensing standards. Rather, using research-based measures of quality, they assess the extent to which quality indicators are present among the child care settings and in the work force. The current study included a telephone survey of 2022 randomly selected Midwestern child care providers (408 from Iowa), conducted during late spring and summer of 2001 by the Gallup Organization, and follow-up in-depth observations of 365 providers (74 from Iowa), conducted by four Midwestern state universities.