There is little precedent for the dramatic and rapid expansion of free prekindergarten programs that Bill de Blasio has made a cornerstone of his mayoralty.
To pull it off, the rookie mayor and his administration must triumph over a grueling set of logistical challenges — from hiring 1,000 teachers to securing classrooms that meet hundreds of exacting specifications — by September.
“It took Boston 10 years to do this. If we try to do it too fast, I’m worried it won’t turn out well,” said New York University education Prof. Pedro Noguera, referring to a universal pre-K program in the Boston public schools that could serve as a model for de Blasio.
“This is going to be a major undertaking for New York City.”
Inspired by a body of research that shows pre-K can have a transformative impact on children, communities across New York State have struggled to implement sweeping pre-K programs for years.
In the 1990s, the state set aside millions of dollars to fund pre-K programs, but more than a decade later, fewer than a third of all school districts had it.
De Blasio has promised to reinvent prekindergarten for the country’s largest public school system within two years of his taking office.
Carmen Fariña, a 40-year veteran of the city school system who was lured out of retirement to assume the role of chancellor, promises she can turn de Blasio’s campaign pledge into reality.
Susan Watts/New York Daily News
Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, a 40-year veteran of the city school system, calls Mayor de Blasio’s ambitious prekindergarten plan ‘a big, historic undertaking.’
“Our eyes are wide open. There’s no question this is a big, historic undertaking,” Fariña said. “But we are ready to make history and get this done.”
RELATED: CHIRLANE MCCRAY: NO TIME TO WAIT TO PROVIDE PRE-K TO OUR CHILDREN
Administration officials insist the only questions hovering over the program are not logistical, but financial — Gov. Cuomo’s promise to fully fund universal pre-K from existing state revenues rather than from an increase in taxes on the rich, as the mayor has proposed.
Fariña and de Blasio begin their project with just 20,000 existing full-day, preK seats for city 4-year-olds. They seek to more than double that number to 56,000 seats in the school year that starts in September.
By the middle of the following school year, January 2016, they promise to have enough seats for 73,250 city children, a project that will cost $ 750 million each year to operate.
To create the seats they need in year one of the project, de Blasio’s team promises to convert 26,000 existing half-day pre-K seats to full-day seats.
They’ll upgrade about 12,000 existing day care slots to meet pre-K specs. And they’ll create about 12,000 new classroom seats from scratch.
Observers say the first roadblock Team de Blasio will run into is finding space for those new classrooms. The new seats alone will require about 1,000 new classrooms by September, and another 1,000 in the following year.
Glow Images/Getty Images
Potential classrooms must have at least 30 square feet per student, and be located no higher than on the third floor of the building — which may be a tall order in the city’s notoriously crowded school buildings.
And they can’t be just any classrooms. Hundreds of regulations govern the siting of pre-K classes. For example: Each classroom must have at least 30 square feet of space per student, and be located no higher than on the third floor of a building. The classrooms must have special sinks and be near kiddie-size bathrooms.
In the city’s notoriously crowded school buildings, where fights over classroom space have become a way of life, finding suitable rooms for pre-K poses a challenge.
“If we create all these new pre-K programs in schools where there’s no room and increase class size, that’s going to be doing these kids a disservice,” said Leonie Haimson, founder of the advocacy group Class Size Matters.
RELATED: CUOMO’S PLAN IS A KO IN MATCH WITH DE BLASIO OVER PRE-K
Education officials say they’ve identified 4,000 unused classrooms that they’re evaluating for the new pre-K programs. However, they have declined to release a list of where those spaces are.
“There’s a need for pre-K, but not at the cost of undermining public schools and creating even more crowding,” Haimson said.
Some 850 community-based organizations now house pre-K programs, about 60% of the total, and they will likely take a similar share of the new seats.
But building out space in those programs will be difficult as well, since they are subject to similar regulations.
Bryan Smith/New York Daily News
Leonie Haimson, founder of the advocacy group Class Size Matters, says there is a need for pre-K, but not at the expense of creating more crowding in schools.
Finding qualified teachers poses another challenge. The expansion will require the addition of 2,000 pre-K instructors, all of whom must pass lengthy background checks. Education Department officials said they do not anticipate a problem filling all the positions.
Those hired by the Education Department will enjoy union protections and a starting salary of $ 45,000 a year. But to qualify, applicants must have an early-childhood teaching certification, which typically takes three years to obtain.
Community-based organizations generally pay pre-K teachers thousands of dollars less. The instructors in those programs are required to hold only a bachelor’s degree in any subject, although they must be working toward their early-childhood certification.
As a result, some educators said they are worried that community-based programs will end up having most of the inexperienced teachers.
“You really need someone with experience and training,” said Sara Garro, a prekindergarten teacher at Public School 11 in Chelsea, who has a master’s degree and a certification in early-childhood education.
RELATED: QUEENS PRESCHOOL READY FOR UNIVERSAL PRE-K
“There are so many developmental factors going on that it can be overwhelming for someone who doesn’t have the experience,” she added.
Education officials say they will create new programs to monitor the training of uncertified teachers and step up their oversight of community-run pre-K programs, which have been often cited for serious health and safety violations.
Mark Bonifacio/New York Daily News
Pre-K teacher Sara Garro outside her Brooklyn home. Garro is an educator at PS 11 in Chelsea.
But officials couldn’t say how many new staffers they would hire to implement such a program, or the timetable for when they would roll it out.
In previous years, the city has notified parents of placements in city-run pre-K programs by early June, but this year officials said they may delay that as they scramble to create thousands of new full-day seats.
“Our bottom line is that we want families to know about their options and be able to apply,” said city Early Childhood Education Director Sophia Pappas.
The verdict is still out on whether de Blasio will achieve his promised vision, especially when he seeks to accomplish it so quickly, and for just $ 10,000 on average per student.
That’s far less than what cities in New Jersey spend on pre-K, and a fraction of the city’s average spending of about $ 17,000 per year for kids in grades K-12.
The outsize scale of the campaign and the abbreviated time frame the mayor has promised for its completion have many experts worried the entire project could go off the rails and wreck de Blasio’s credibility as a leader.
“There are so many moving parts to this enterprise: regulations, instruction and finances,” said David Bloomfield, an education professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Grad Center. “If it’s inadequate, there will be a huge outcry from parents.”
With Annie Karni
http://ift.tt/1eolDxN
via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1
No comments:
Post a Comment