NYC’s Pre-K Creates Pay Gap for Teachers
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio has come through on his most prominent campaign promise, providing over 70,000 families access to early-childhood education. But there is a downside for longstanding programs, now forced to scramble for students and teachers.
“Right now, we’re in a war,” says Kim Medina, executive director of the union that represents 7,200 of the city’s Head Start workers and daycare employees. “I don’t know what other way to put it.”
The main problem is salary disparity. While a first-year pre-K teacher with a master’s degree earns $61,894 in a public-school classroom, an equally qualified teacher makes just $46,920 at a community-based organization.
Community-based organizations are private programs located in churches, community centers and private preschool sites. Typically, those catering to low-income families are fee-based and publicly funded through the city’s Administration for Children’s Services.
“We want the mayor to begin the process of equalizing” salaries, says G.L. Tyler, political action director of District Council 1707. He says universal pre-K has created “tiers of wages” in which different teachers earn different salaries for the same work.
And many teachers, drawn by higher pay, are leaving community-based programs for city preschools. The Day Care Council of New York reported that half of its agencies lost teachers to the city’s Department of Education during the first year of the Pre-K for All program.
Brooklyn Head Start teacher Beverly Peres, 52, says her program has already lost three assistant teachers since the start of the school year. “We cannot sustain this,” she said.
And community-based programs are competing for kids, too. Peres says that de Blasio’s initiatives have been “not so much of a roll out, but a roll over” in her district, and that her program’s enrollment is “down like never before.”
Bank Street Head Start Director Steven Antonelli, 65, says his program hasn’t enrolled enough 4-year-olds to maximize federal subsidies this year. Consequently, they’ve had to reduce the hours of their health, nutrition, and mental health consultants, and cut their yoga program.
So why are parents opting for the city’s Pre-K over community-based programs? One reason: It can mean “an entree into kindergarten” at a good public school, says Andrea Anthony, 63, executive director of the Day Care Council of New York. Plus, community-based programs charge fees, while universal pre-K is free.
Mary Cheng, 40, who serves as director of childhood development at the Chinese-American Planning Council, points to another culprit: The higher minimum wage has increased parents’ income, but has made some ineligible for certain subsidies. A single parent with one child, for example, pays $71 a week if the parent makes $13 an hour and works full time. If that parent makes $15 an hour, the fee goes up to $100 a week.
And city programs don’t always meet a family’s needs. When Cheng moved her own sons from Little Star of Broome Street to a pre-K classroom at P.S. 20 on Essex Street, she found the quality of care was “significantly worse.” At Little Star, her boys had been in school until 6 p.m., but at P.S. 20, they were done by 2:30. Cheng says those hours made a difference, and that her sons, now 10 and 7, fell behind academically.
Tyler says the city has been “aloof” on the pay-parity problem, and that survival of community-based centers “belongs to the will of the administration.” On June 20, hundreds of union members protested at City Hall, seeking equal pay.
The following week, Josh Wallack, deputy chancellor at the Department of Education, said the city had “made some strides” on pay disparity, but that the answer would “be worked out as part of the collective bargaining process.” And while the 2019 budget mentions the issue, it says that next year’s salaries will remain “as is, without additional pay parity measures.”
