Children at Little Stars Preschool and Family Childcare in Los Angeles dance at a drum circle with the school’s owner/director Darlene Morales, at top in the pink t-shirt. Meanwhile, providers who mainly contract through state-subsidized programs say the low reimbursement rates the state pays out don’t cover all kids who are eligible or truly account for the cost of caring for children. Providers who mostly rely on fees from families say boosting pay means raising those fees-which average about $16,500 a year for infant care in California-and further pricing out lower- and middle-class parents. Both have passed their houses of origin and are awaiting action in appropriations committees.īeyond that, however, child care and preschool providers across California say they’re placed in next-to-impossible positions when it comes to giving teachers raises. Connie Leyva, which have advanced through the Legislature with virtually no opposition, would basically create a single reimbursement rate for early childhood providers that better accounts for regional costs and pays out more per kid for programs that meet specific quality standards. The initiative’s supporters blame the disparity in part on the state’s system for reimbursing state-subsidized programs, which they say could be improved by two proposals working their way through the legislative pipeline.Īssembly Bill 125 by Democratic Assemblyman Kevin McCarty and Senate Bill 174 by Democratic Sen. In 2017, California child care workers ($12.29 an hour) and preschool teachers ($16.19) earned a median wage that was less than half of what teachers leading kindergarten ($38.33) and elementary classrooms ($45.17) earned, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley.Ī recent report commissioned by an influential group of legislators, including Democratic Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, set a long-term goal of ensuring that early childhood educators are paid as much as teachers in older grades. The governor’s always talking about quality, but you’re not going to get quality unless you raise teacher salaries.” ![]() “If we don’t raise teacher salaries, all this training money is going to go for naught because we’re not going to attract a stronger slice of college graduates and more qualified teachers,” said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley. ![]() It’s an expensive ask-on top of an ambitious agenda with a price tag already estimated in the tens of billions of dollars-but one that could be critical, according to experts. The $1.8 billion is expected to give tens of thousands more kids access to subsidized child care and preschool, and pump hundreds of millions of dollars into educator training and new child care facilities.īut left out of the budget picture was the issue of pay for early childhood educators, whose chronically low compensation has long troubled early childhood providers, advocates and experts. Gavin Newsom that included the most significant investments in recent history toward early childhood education programs. This year, legislators and early childhood advocates cheered a budget signed by Gov. “There’s people who are cashiers at McDonalds that make more than (preschool) teachers,” Gomez said. Gomez is not alone: Across California, early childhood educators are paid so poorly that more than half of the workforce-mostly women of color- rely on public assistance. Her chosen career, she says, just doesn’t pay enough for her to live in an increasingly costly Sacramento housing market. ![]() Her second and third jobs, as a rideshare driver and nanny, start as soon as class is dismissed at 3:30, and she works far into the evening to augment the $14 an hour she makes in early childhood education. She marvels, she says, at how quickly they grow-that is, when she has time. Every day, Gomez spends nine hours standing, sitting and crouching at the height of a toddler, passing out snacks, overseeing playtimes and teaching tiny Californians their numbers, shapes, colors, letters, and social niceties. when she welcomes a dozen 3-year-olds into her classroom. Preschool teacher Lorena Gomez’s work days begin at 6:30 a.m. Gavin Newsom has ambitious plans to improve California’s early childhood education, but experts say he’s forgetting a key: preschool teacher salaries.
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