New York City’s child care centers say it’s increasingly difficult to hire and retain workers because they make thousands of dollars less than their counterparts employed by the city’s public schools, who often work fewer hours.
The disparities are so stark that a teacher with a master’s degree working in a center-based community program can earn an average of about $14,000 less than an early childhood educator employed by the city’s Department of Education, according to a survey of center-based providers conducted by the nonprofit United Neighborhood Houses late last year.
But in ongoing contract negotiations with three local unions representing child care workers, publicly funded providers are urging city officials to fix the pay gap. They say the stakes are higher than ever as most New York City families can’t afford the cost of child care and are relying on exactly the type of programming that these centers generally provide: year-round services with longer hours for working parents.
The Department of Education offers 3-K and pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds while also contracting and funding nonprofit community providers that have subsidized programming for infants to 5-year-olds.
“If this is work that we say we value, if this is work that our government pays well in one part of the system, why isn’t it paying the same thing in another part?” said Nora Moran, director of policy and advocacy at United Neighborhood Houses. “It just doesn’t make much sense.”
New York City’s child care staffing crisis is only worsening as rent, food prices and the cost of living continue to rise, which providers say is forcing many families to leave the city altogether. Without more competitive pay, centers are struggling with high turnover rates amid a worker shortage and scrambling most mornings to find employees to keep classrooms open.
Pay disparities are “affecting those programs that working-class and low-income families need the most because the only programs that are extended-day, extended-year child care centers are the community-based programs,” said Gregory Brender, chief policy and innovation officer for the Day Care Council of New York, which is representing providers at the bargaining table.
“Families who do need a longer day of care are depending entirely on the community-based programs, where the teachers, directors and staff are paid the least,” he added.
The fight for better wages comes as Mayor Eric Adams has proposed cuts to the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs, though he recently restored some of the funding. Adams has repeatedly promised that any parent who wants a 3-K seat for their child will get one, but it’s unclear whether those spots will be located near where families live or work.
Officials at the city Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment. The unions representing child care workers at nonprofits or community organizations, including DC-37 Locals 95, 205 and 215, declined to comment on the ongoing contract talks.
Less pay, more work
A report last September by the New York City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus and the Day Care Council of New York found that educators working in community-based organizations earn 53% of what teachers with comparable experience make in public schools. Department of Education teachers are represented by the United Federation of Teachers, one of the city’s most politically powerful unions.
United Neighborhood Houses said that an entry-level teacher with a bachelor’s degree earns $64,700 a year at a public school but that teachers earn $51,000 a year on average if they work at one of the 21 settlement houses surveyed by the organization. The difference is greater for program directors: Those employed by the DOE earn $126,600 a year, while those at centers earn an average of $85,300 a year.
“We’re competing with our own funder for the same positions,” said Bridget O’Rourke, associate executive director for early childhood at University Settlement, a member of UNH. “That’s a tough pill to swallow.”
Most child care providers in UNH’s network said that the DOE is the agency that most commonly hires away their staff. O’Rourke said that even if providers could offer their workers slight salary bumps when they get job offers at charter schools or other public schools, they can’t compete with the shorter hours and summers off from school.
“It’s actually less pay for more work, and so it’s a really hard sell,” she said. “Why is someone going to accept less pay for more work?”
Silvana Vasconcelos, director of the early childhood center at the organization WHEDco, said that last year she lost four out of the six teachers she employed to run the Head Start program. She said most of her staff are women with families and they face hard choices given the low pay.
“I have staff who have children in public schools,” Vasconcelos said. “And whenever the school is closed, they have to come to work, and who will stay with the child?”
Providers say the city has made strides toward pay parity and in 2019 reached a deal with the DC-37 union to raise starting salaries for teachers to match those of DOE teachers. But the agreement left out compensation increases based on longevity and experience and didn’t include significant boosts for support staff, such as assistant teachers, custodians, administrative assistants and security guards.
According to the 2023 Day Care Council report, 52% of child care centers said that, on average, their teachers leave within five years. The report also found that over a 25-year career, a teacher will lose out on more than $700,000 in earning potential by staying at a community program.
“In order to make a sustainable career teaching, people who really have expertise in early childhood feel like they have to get out of the [community-based] system,” Brender of the Day Care Council said.
In April, more than 30 providers wrote Adams a letter asking him to support child care workers in his budget plan. They also asked for salary parity between teachers in community-based programs and public schools, a minimum salary of $25 an hour for support staff, longevity pay for longer-tenured teachers and a per diem rate for staff who work year-round, or longer days to compensate for their time — similar to how public school teachers receive stipends for working in the summer.
Moran from UNH said that without deeper changes, providers will continue to struggle, which will negatively affect the city’s families.
“Maybe they’ve had to close the classroom down or shift seats around or get creative, use temps or things like that in order to maintain their ratio and keep their doors open,” she said. “That’s confusing and destabilizing for kids. Everyone wants consistency in a classroom throughout the year.”
Karen Yi
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