Mark Bonifacio/New York Daily News
Mayor de Blasio wants to boost equality through a rapid expansion of publicly funded early childhood education — and the figures show that he has his work cut out for him. Here, a pre-K classroom at A To Z Center Too in Queens.
Official figures obtained by the Daily News reveal the scope of Mayor de Blasio’s ambitious plan to offer free pre-K to all city 4-year-olds who need it.
De Blasio’s plan to build equality through a rapid expansion of publicly funded early childhood education builds upon a significant infrastructure created under previous administrations.
But to reach his goal, the rookie mayor must triple the number of free, full-day seats now available and boost his budget for such programs by hundreds of millions of dollars.
It’s a tall order. But de Blasio has made it clear that he’s willing to stake the credibility of his administration upon the success of his initiative.
“Every year that we fail to provide full-day pre-K for our children, they are falling behind,” the mayor said at a Feb. 12 speech unveiling his inaugural budget.
“We owe it to our children to move this initiative,” he said.
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Figures supplied to the Daily News by the de Blasio administration and state education officials show the mayor has a long way to go before he delivers on his promise.
City educators must overhaul hundreds of existing pre-K programs to boost the breadth and quality of their offerings. They must also add hundreds of new classes and teachers.
They must create a bureaucracy to oversee the massive new project, and they must secure funding to pay for the whole sweeping plan.
Observers reckon the mayor has a hard road ahead, even if he has chosen a righteous cause.
REUTERS
Mayor de Blasio delivers his inaugural budget address on Feb. 12. The mayor said at the speech that children are falling behind every year they go without full-day pre-K.
“I think the mayor was right to focus on an issue that is of great concern for many people,” said New York University Education Professor Pedro Noguera. “We don’t have enough high-quality pre-K available, for poor children in particular. And there are a lot of middle-class parents who struggle with this as well.”
But if de Blasio stumbles on the execution of his grand plan, taxpayers could be unforgiving.
RELATED: MAYOR DE BLASIO’S PRE-K PLAN FACES FUNDING, STAFFING CHALLENGES
“It needs to be done well to assure the public their money is being well-spent,” Noguera said. “If you waste resources on something done poorly, you’re not going to get the benefits.”
Details of first year expansion ending June 2015:
- Adding approximately 1,000 classrooms and 1,000 new teachers
- Bringing the 20,000 full-day seats now in use up to same quality standards as new programs
- Converting 11,800 half-day seats to 11,800 full-day seats
- Creating 11,880 new full-day seats
- Bringing about 12,700 programs with half-day services combined with Child Care and Head Start up to full-day pre-K standards.
- Improving quality of all seats through increased teacher training and supports.
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