Pre-K Teacher Salaries Fall Short of De Blasio's Promise

Many teachers in private pre-kindergarten programs are not getting paid the salaries that Mayor Bill de Blasio promised when he laid out his vision last spring for the massive expansion of full-day pre-k.

At the time, he said certified teachers would earn $44,000 a year and if they had a master's degree they could get an annual salary of $50,000. Those salaries remain listed on the Department of Education's web page for prospective teachers. 

But they are not the salary figures teachers and pre-k directors shared with WNYC in recent interviews. 

One teacher with a master’s degree in education said she applied for a pre-k job after seeing the city's ad campaign. The job she landed pays $5,000 less than the recommended salary. Her director told her the total reimbursement from the city simply wasn’t large enough to cover a higher salary.

“The way that it played out in my life was not with nearly as much ease as many people in my life believed from the ad campaign,” she said.

Department of Education spokeswoman Devora Kaye said the city was advising the community-based early childhood centers, or CBECCs.

"The 'Pre-K for All' program has attracted more qualified and better trained people into the field than ever before," she said. "We are working closely with CBECCs on their individualized budgets, and have made additional resources available to programs seeking to increase pay for qualified teachers, but ultimately each program makes a decision on what to pay its staff.”

The higher pay rates were supposed to attract high-quality teachers to private preschool programs, which historically have paid certified pre-k teachers about $10,000 less than those in public schools, who earn salaries ranging from $45,000 to $51,000.

Richard Marotta, the head of the Garden School in Jackson Heights, Queens, said he hired 21 new teachers over the summer to help staff 12 pre-k classrooms. None of the new hires with certification made the minimum the mayor recommended, Moretta said. 

Raedell Wallace, the careers coordinator at CUNY’s Early Childhood Professional Development Institute, said interest in teaching pre-k has exploded because people heard of the mayor’s announcement and think they can finally make a living wage. But of about 10 certified teachers she helped find work recently, none were offered the recommended rates.

Some program directors said they boosted pay this year from years past — but did not quite reach the mayor’s recommendation.