The Program Administration Scale (PAS) is a rating tool from the McCormick Institute that measures the leadership and administrative practices of center-based early childhood programs — 25 items in 9 subscales in the current 3rd edition, scored by assessors certified at 85% reliability.
The Business Administration Scale (BAS) is the scale named alongside it for family child care; our research verified the PAS's details but not the BAS's own contents, and this page marks that line where it matters.
Here is what both tools are and how directors prepare for an assessment.
What is the PAS?
The Program Administration Scale (PAS) is the McCormick Institute's instrument for rating the leadership and administrative practices of center-based early care and education programs.
The publisher describes its items as measuring "whole leadership functions" — the management work that surrounds a program's classrooms rather than the teaching that happens inside them.
For a director, that is the part of the job a classroom observation does not score: the records, policies, budgets and staffing decisions around the classrooms.
The current edition is the PAS, 3rd edition (PAS-3), which organizes 25 items into 9 subscales.
PAS-3 replaced earlier editions that used a 10-subscale structure, so a summary written against the older structure may not match the current item list.
The page our research read does not name the nine subscales, and we won't guess at them — the publisher's own materials are where the subscale list lives.
The people who score a PAS assessment are certified, and the certification is built around consistency: assessors must reach 85% reliability, and the certification lasts five years.
That consistency is the point of a reliability standard — a program's result should not hinge on who happens to visit.
It helps to place the PAS next to the tools directors already know.
CLASS, Teachstone's classroom-observation tool, scores three domains in its Pre-K–3rd edition: Emotional Support, Classroom Organization and Instructional Support.
Head Start's Designation Renewal System uses CLASS scores when it decides which grantees must recompete for funding.
The PAS points the lens the other way — at the leadership and administration around those classrooms.
Administration is also the through-line of the job itself: the childcare director overview maps the whole role, from supervision to budgets.
What does the BAS measure for family child care?
The Business Administration Scale (BAS) is the scale named alongside the PAS for family child care.
The PAS states its own setting — center-based early care and education programs — so a home-based program sits outside the instrument this page details.
The BAS's name points at the territory from the provider's side: the business administration of a family child care program, where the administrative load a center spreads across an office is carried by one provider.
Here is the boundary, plainly: our verified research covers the PAS — the 25 items, the 9 subscales, the assessor reliability standard.
It did not verify the BAS's own materials, so this page does not state the BAS's item count, subscales, edition or scoring, and it will not guess at them.
If you are preparing for a BAS assessment, work from the current edition's materials from the publisher rather than from secondhand summaries.
The center-versus-home distinction still decides your first preparation step.
The PAS's item list is written for center-based programs, so a home provider drilling those 25 items would be studying a list written for a different setting.
Confirm which instrument your program's assessment actually names before you prepare anything.
Which QRIS use them?
The honest answer first: we cannot give you a national roster.
State quality rating systems are built state by state, and our research verified no current multi-state list of the systems that use the PAS or the BAS.
One example did verify.
Arkansas's QRIS is Better Beginnings, and Better Beginnings' center levels use the Program Administration Scale (alongside the Environment Rating Scales).
That is one state's system, not a national pattern — but it shows the form the tool takes in practice: not an exam a director sits, but evidence a state folds into its own quality levels.
For what a QRIS is and how levels work, the QRIS guide covers the framework.
The reliable route to an answer for your program runs through your state, not through any national list: the operator that runs your state's QRIS publishes its criteria and can say whether PAS or BAS items count toward a rating.
Confirm the details with your state's QRIS operator
How do directors prepare?
Preparing for a PAS assessment is less like studying for an exam and more like getting ready for an audit of work you already do.
The items describe administrative practices, and administrative practices leave records — so preparation is mostly about running the practices deliberately and being able to show them.
Work from the current edition
Prepare from PAS-3 materials, not older summaries — the 3rd edition replaced editions with a 10-subscale structure, and an out-of-date item list wastes the whole exercise.Self-assess item by item
Read each item and rate your program honestly. Sort what you find into two piles: practices you run but don't document, and practices you could tighten.Assemble the paper trail
Pull the records behind each practice into one place — written policies, staff documentation, schedules, budget and purchasing records — so evidence is findable rather than reconstructed under deadline.Get a second set of eyes
Walk the self-assessment with an assistant director or a senior teacher. They will spot gaps the person who wrote the policies cannot see.Treat the results as a roadmap
Whatever the score, the low-scoring items are your operations and professional-development plan for the year. That is what the tool is for.
Used that way, the scale doubles as a self-audit for the administrative half of directing — worth working through even in a program that is never formally assessed.
Career information, not licensing or legal advice: quality assessments and QRIS criteria are administered by each state's own QRIS operator. Confirm how any tool is used in your state with that operator or your state's child care licensing agency.