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There’s a new child care survey for Massachusetts parents.

So please ask the parents in your programs to fill it out. It should take less than five minutes.

“Help us to identify what is most important to you as a parent/guardian of 0-5 year old child(ren),” the survey says.  “We will use this information to guide expansion of child care supports.”

As we’ve blogged (here and here), gathering data from families is a crucial step in developing successful child care policies.

The survey is the result of a partnership between the Boston Public School’s Department of Early Childhood; the City of Boston’s Economic Mobility Lab — a team of social entrepreneurs who work in the Mayor’s Office of Policy to “advance the upward economic mobility of Bostonians;” and the Boston Opportunity Agenda, which is part of StriveTogether, “a national network of local communities striving to achieve racial equity and economic mobility.”

The survey asks parents to rank seven child care factors in order of importance. The factors are:

• Having a child care provider near my home

• Having a child care provider near my work

• Having access to affordable child care

• Having access to quality child care

• My children’s child care provider/teacher speaks my preferred language

• My children’s child care provider/teacher reflects my child’s race/ethnicity, and

• There is public transportation near me to easily get to my child(s) child care provider/school

The survey is part of an effort to improve educational outcomes by identifying early childhood “systems indicators.” On its website, StriveTogether describes systems indicators as “qualitative and quantitative measurements that reveal inequities in how resources, decision-making power, and opportunities are distributed to inform policies and practices within institutions, organizations, and programs that are interdependent and/or related.”

For example, educational indicators can include teacher qualifications, culturally responsive curricula, per pupil funding, and school climate.

The goal of the survey is to understand what systems indicators are most important to parents.

To learn more or to ask questions about the survey, please contact Pratima Patil, Senior Manager, Program and Policy at the Boston Opportunity Agenda at pratima.patil@boston.gov.