Back-to-school shopping can mean many things: backpacks and notebooks for sure, but also the anxiety-producing process of choosing a school. When it comes to selecting a pre-school, some say a lack of standardized quality measurements makes this emotional task that much more daunting.

So the Boston-based advocacy group Strategies for Children is pushing for the state to develop standards to ensure the quality of education for 3- to 5-year-olds. Currently, centers that offer care to young children must be licensed, but licensing ensures a safe environment, not an educational one. Since 1985, the National Association for the Education of Young Children has accredited pre-schools, but accreditation isn’t required and the majority of Massachusetts pre-schools don’t have it. Advocates say there’s now no easy way for parents (or policy-makers) to determine whether children are learning in a pre-kindergarten program. “Right now, we have no information on the quality, so we can’t work with them to improve,” says Chad d’Entremont, research and policy director of Strategies for Children.

Some parents welcome the idea of more information. “There are dozens of emails on the Newton moms’ [electronic] bulletin board about this every week,” says Heather Baer of Newton, who recently switched her 3-year old son from a center in Cambridge to one closer to home. “The emails ask, ‘does anybody know anything about this pre-school?’ It would be good to have more of a standard.”

D’Entremont’s group advocates the use of a Quality Rating and Improvement System, which 18 states now have and which Massachusetts is exploring. The idea behind a QRIS is to define “quality” for both pre-schools and home-based day care centers. But d’Etremont is quick to say a QRIS won’t mean standardized testing for 2-year-olds. Instead, it would report on “quality indicators” like whether the providers have a bachelor’s degree, and whether the center has assessments in place for measuring children’s development.  

 Parents can now learn this information by asking at individual centers, but d’Entremont says QRIS is “a way to navigate the process for parents who don’t have the time, or in some cases, the ability” to know which questions to ask or call up dozens of providers. He also believes that creating a list of quality indicators can offer small centers — particularly family day care — a “roa -map” for improvement. 

But just as the beginning of MCAS sparked fears of regimentation, some parents balk at the idea of standardizing pre-schools. Sivan Nasoff, an accountant from Watertown with a 3-year-old daughter, says she isn’t sure the state can measure what matters to her. A single mother, she automatically ruled out programs that didn’t go from 9 to 5, and that left her with few choices in her neighborhood. “Then I went on feel — what it felt like to go into a childcare center and how nurturing the providers seemed to be,” she says.

 “I don’t think I’d have used a ratings system,” she adds. “ I’m a little suspicious of the state’s ability to rate schools.”