Pre-K Boost On Hold As Funds Come Up Light; CSA Asks Council To Press DOE For Increase

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

City leaders promised to enroll 2,000 more children in full-day pre-kindergarten classes this fall, with day-care centers playing a key role, but because of a bureaucratic funding dispute, many of the toddlers have yet to enter a full-day pre-k classroom.

CHRISTINE QUINN: Unions seeks her help.

In June, Mayor Bloomberg agreed to add $5 million requested by the City Council to the budget to increase the number of children enrolled in the much-lauded early childhood education program. Dozens of community-based city-funded day-care centers were given approval to launch programs in mid-August, but after they submitted their budgets, they were informed that the Department of Education would pay only $8,000 per child.

DOE officials denied a cap exists and said that the delay is due only to a need to scrutinize the various requests.

Ask Quinn for Help

More than 54 center directors, who are represented by the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, signed a letter delivered to Council Speaker Quinn last week asserting that the budget limitations had to be eased.

BETTY HOLCOMB: Have to pay for quality.

"I have everything on hold," said Lawrence Provette, the educational director of the Stagg Street Center for Children. "The real issue here is how much does it cost to have a quality program? $8,000 does not cover what it costs to run a program and pay people's salaries."

Most of the centers budgeted between $10,000 and $13,000 per child, roughly the amount that recent studies estimate is needed to operate quality pre-k programs. While some center directors have cobbled together different pots of money to start the program, others have empty classrooms, unable to cover their costs using DOE's numbers. None of the pre-k proposals have been approved.

Some directors and advocates questioned whether the problem was an inter-agency squabble over who would pay for the full cost of the program.

ACS Working With DOE

In a statement, Administration for Children's Services officials said that they were working closely with the DOE in order to expand pre-k classes as widely as possible. "For providers that will hold both contracts for child care and universal pre-kindergarten, the DOE and ACS are determining the respective contributions of each city agency to the providers' overall funding," ACS spokeswoman Sheila Stainback stated in an e-mail.

Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein have consistently stated that universal access to pre-k was a top priority for the administration. Studies have shown that children who have access to pre-k are less likely to drop out of high school and have higher rates of employment as adults. Advocates argue that there is a $17 return for every dollar invested in quality pre-k.

A City Council commission released a report last year that concluded that quality full-day pre-k would cost about $12,000 per child. A study released last month by Child Care Inc., an early-childhood education advocacy group that spearheads a statewide coalition, put the figure at $10,500.

'Can't Do It on Cheap'

The group's policy director noted that DOE's $8,000 figure was an improvement on previous allocations. "DOE has taken a step towards better funding, and it would be great to see our city leaders really examine and support sufficient funding levels," said Betty Holcomb. "You don't get outcomes in programs if you do it on the cheap; that's what all the research says."

DOE officials said that no decisions had been made on whether to deny contracts to the centers that budgeted more than $8,000 per child. "We are closely scrutinizing proposals over that amount," said DOE spokeswoman Maibe Gonzalez Fuentes, "because we have received proposals for less than that amount."

Daycare Council of New York Executive Director Andrea Anthony, who runs the membership organization for child-care providers including the ACS-funded day-care centers, noted that centers have different costs, depending upon other streams of funding and facilities costs, such as whether the building is owned or leased. She was frustrated with the hold-up in services. "No one's getting rich here, so what's the problem?" she said. "What galls me is that these are mostly black and Hispanic women taking care of black and Hispanic children, and the city can't get it together to figure out the basics."