WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is raising salaries for teachers in the early childhood program Head Start as part of an effort to retain current employees and attract new ones amid a staffing shortage.
The new state rules, released Friday, require large operators to put their workers on a path to earning what their counterparts in local school districts are earning by 2031. Large operators must also provide health care to their workers. Smaller operators — those serving fewer than 200 families — aren’t subject to the same requirements, but must demonstrate progress in raising wages.
“We cannot expect to find and hire good teachers who can make this their profession if they are not paid a decent salary, no matter how much they love the children,” Health and Welfare Minister Xavier Becerra said in an interview.
Many operators have been forced to reduce the number of children and families they serve because they can’t find enough staff. At one point, more than a million children and families enrolled in the federally funded program. Now, the programs have only about 650,000 spots. A quarter of Head Start teachers left by 2022, some lured by higher wages in the retail and hospitality industries. 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 — as assistant teachers or classroom aides — earn less.
Founded in the 1960s as part of the War on Poverty, Head Start serves the nation’s neediest families, providing preschool for children and support for their parents and caregivers. Many of the people it serves come from low-income families, are in foster care, or are homeless. It also seeks to provide good-paying jobs for parents and community members.
“This rule will not only ensure fairer pay for thousands of Head Start teachers and staff, it will also improve the quality of Head Start for hundreds of thousands of American children,” said Neera Tanden, White House domestic policy adviser.
The program has generally enjoyed bipartisan support, and this year Congress increased its funding to provide a cost-of-living boost to Head Start workers.
The requirements, while costly, are not matched by additional funding, leading to fears that operators would have to cut slots to make ends meet. That’s one reason the government has amended the original proposal, exempting smaller operators from many of the requirements.
But the administration has argued that it cannot allow an anti-poverty initiative to pay wages that leave staff financially insecure. Like many early childhood workers, many Head Start employees are women of color.
“For 60 years, the Head Start model has been essentially subsidized by women of color,” said Katie Hamm, deputy assistant secretary at the Office of Early Childhood Development. “We can’t ask them to continue doing this.”
The program is administered locally by nonprofit organizations, social service agencies, and school districts, which have some autonomy in setting salary ranges.
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