WASHINGTON (AP) – The Biden administration is raising the wages of early childhood educators in the Head Start program as part of an effort to retain current workers and attract new ones amid a shortage of workers.
The government’s new rules announced Friday require large operators to put their employees on track to earn what their counterparts in local school districts will earn by 2031. Even large operators must offer their employees health care. Smaller operators – those serving less than 200 families – are not bound by the same requirements, but they must demonstrate that they are making progress in salary increases.
“We can’t expect to find and hire quality teachers who can make this a career if they don’t get paid decently as much as they might love kids,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in an interview. .
Many providers have had to reduce the number of children and families they serve because they cannot find enough staff. At one point, the federally funded program enrolled more than a million children and families. Now there are only about 650,000 places in the programs. A quarter of Head Start teachers will leave in 2022, some lured away by higher wages in retail and food service. Some operators have closed centers.
Head Start teachers, most of whom have bachelor’s degrees, earn an average of less than $40,000 a year. Their colleagues who work in support roles – assistant teachers or classroom assistants – earn less.
Founded in the 1960s as part of the war on poverty, Head Start serves the country’s poorest families, offering preschool for children and support for their parents and guardians. Many of those it serves come from low-income households, are in foster care or are homeless. It also aims to provide good-paying jobs for parents and community members.
“This rule will not only provide fairer pay for thousands of Head Start teachers and staff, but will also strengthen the quality of Head Start for hundreds of thousands of America’s children,” said Neera Tanden, White House domestic policy advisor.
The program has generally enjoyed bipartisan support, and this year Congress increased its funding to provide Head Start workers with a cost-of-living increase.
The requirements are expensive but do not include additional funding, which has led to fears that operators will have to cut slots to make ends meet. That’s part of the reason the administration changed the original proposal and exempted smaller players from many of the requirements.
But the administration has argued it cannot allow the anti-poverty initiative to pay wages that leave staff in financial limbo. Like much of the early childhood workforce, many Head Start workers are women of color.
“For 60 years, the Head Start model has been supported primarily by women of color,” said Katie Hamm, assistant secretary for the Office of Early Childhood Education. “We can’t ask them to continue that.”
The program is administered locally by nonprofit organizations, social services agencies, and school districts with some autonomy in determining pay scales.
___
Associated Press educational offerings receive financial support from several private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. You can find AP’s standards for philanthropy, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
