ALBANY, N.Y. — It may not always be easy to tell the difference between pre-K and daycare. Both help to educate very young children.
In New York State, though, pre-K and daycare are entirely separate entities, as far as the government is concerned.
The relationship, or lack thereof, creates some challenges for early childhood education providers which may need state or federal money to care for all phases of pre-kindergarten learning, but only qualify to serve certain age brackets.
Tuesday, the state Assembly hosted a discussion to attempt to help pre-K and daycare work together in New York. The forum brought together some of the state's biggest players and lobbies in education. Among them, the Alliance for Quality Education, statewide care coordinator Child Care Resources and a number of New York City factions.
The work group boiled it down to two basic recommendations: early childhood care in New York needs more money, and less programs and departments handing it out.
"There's 'childcare,' there's pre-kindergarten, there's Early Intervention programs, there's (the federal program) Headstart," said Child Care Resources of Rockland's director, Jane Brown. "They're all under their own regulations and laws."
Brown says the push to qualify for as many funding streams as possible leaves some smaller child care centers overworked, and still underqualified.
"We've had child care programs that have closed because they've lost children to the pre-K world," she said, referring to public-school operated programs that are given an inherent advantage, "and (the small providers) can't make their ends meet, and they can't get more children in to cover the costs."
To combat the confusion and disadvantage, the group of advocates Tuesday proposed creating a new state "Office for Early Learning," which would regulate all early education and streamline funding through one department.
Another lengthy discussion Tuesday centered on transportation to and from daycare and pre-K programs, especially for low-income and working families who cannot afford to shuttle their children throughout the day.
"We have to provide funding," insisted assemblywoman Addie Russel (D–Theresa). "Transportation is a huge barrier to people, especially in rural New York. I'm advocating that as we move forward in funding these programs, that we understand the need to fund transportation."
Currently, such transport cannot be funded with state-administered pre-K funding, by law.
Members at the roundtable Tuesday also indicated that much insight has been provided through New York City's universal pre-K experiment. For example: under city law, it currently pays about $44,000/year to teach four-year-old pre-kindergarten classes in New York City, while other early childhood care providers are not regulated and make much less. Advocates claim that specific incentive is stealing the best teachers away from two-and-three year-olds, and their care centers.
The group discussed the possibility Tuesday of incentivizing all early childhood care providers in Upstate New York, equally.
At least two more roundtable discussions on early childhood education will be held in the coming months, ahead of Governor Cuomo's budget address next year.