These cities raised taxes — for child care. Parents say the free day care 'changed my life'
These cities raised taxes — for child care. Parents say the free day care 'changed my life'
A growing number of cities are passing tax increases to expand access to child care. Last year, New Orleans added more than 1,000 child care seats for low-income families after voters approved a historic property tax increase.
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Last year, New Orleans added more than 1,000 child care seats for low-income families after voters approved a historic property tax increasein 2022. The referendum raised the budget of the program seven-fold — from $3 million to $21 million a year for 20 years. Because Louisiana’s early childhood fund matches money raised locally for child care, the city gets an additional $21 million to help families find care.
New Orleans is part of a growing trend of communities passing ballot measures to expand access to child care. In Whatcom County, Washington, a property tax increase added $10 million for child care and children’s mental health to the county’s annual budget. A marijuana sales tax approved last year by voters in Anchorage, Alaska, will generate more than $5 million for early childhood programs.
The state of Texas has taken a somewhat different tack. In November, voters approved a state constitutional amendment that allows tax relief for qualifying child care providers. Under this provision, cities and counties can choose to exempt a child care center from paying all or some of its property taxes. Dallas was among the first city-and-county combo in Texas to provide the tax break.
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And how much money is going to the educators to support them? Or will it all funnel into the owners pockets at tax payer expenses?
Educators receive some of the lowest median wages of all industries and are struggling to hire workers due to shortages because it is an unsustainable and grueling profit driven industry when for-profit centres are involved. Many educators already have to supply their own resources, they can’t afford more children enrolled.
And if you want high quality education and care for these children, you need to retain staff who have institutional and professional knowledge.
- Full-time teachers are paid $14 per hour on average, and real wages have actually dropped by 6.5 percent during the seven years since the first survey was conducted.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/still-underpaid-and-unequal/
The report revealed that while 12.3 million children required childcare services in 2022, only 8.7 million slots were available in licensed childcare centers, resulting in a notablegap of 3.6 million spots.1
ECE experts are noticing a decrease in the number of high-quality child care workers, which has only been made worse since the pandemic compelling numerous competent caregivers to leave the profession, citing health concerns, insufficient support and inadequate compensation.
Why You Can’t Find Child Care: 100,000 Workers Are Missing
Where did they go? To better-paying jobs stocking shelves, cleaning offices or doing anything that pays more than $15 an hour.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/us/child-care-worker-shortage.html
The learning centers are nuts. The one my son went to started at $2600/month three years ago. It's more now, of course. Each teacher was responsible for up to four infants. Over $10k per month per teacher. Guess how much they made? The senior teacher made $25/hr and the junior one made $20/hr (barely above minimum). So $3900/month went to the infant teachers. One year olds got a cost break down to $2400/month and each teacher could watch five. There is no reason for a teacher to go there instead of just doing nannying where two kids would make them $35-40/hr.
Insurance, licensing, physical building and maintenance, FICA, health insurance, PTO, additional coverage for workers who are constantly sick from kids being sick, administrative assistant, building security, accounting, attorneys, and so on.
I understand that labor costs are not the only costs. But over $10k per teacher is the low end and also numbers from three years ago. When we left a year ago, his tuition was $2300 after a 10% discount from my work. That was a classroom with 6 kids per teacher so likely over $14k revenue per teacher per month who still averages $3600/month. They did not do a great job with extra teachers since I recall him having to stay home a dozen times because of a lack of teachers. They were not even close to the most expensive. Bright Horizons charged about $3200 per infant three years ago. They definitely make healthy profit while paying their teachers very little in a high cost of living city.
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First a lot more administrative tasks are added to the educators. More paperwork, more reports, more bureaucracy, permits, rules. Then more people are hired to handle the paperwork and stuff. In the end, more money disappears into bureaucracy.
What the fuck is up with lack of school supplies? Every teacher that I have ever known has always spent at least a grand or two of their own money to provide basic school supplies.
The US expects parents to provide supplies for their children, but many can't or don't. This leaves the teacher in the hard place of having to use their own limited personal budget to buy supplies for those children or for them to have these kids in their classes without basics like notebooks and pencils. Teachers care about their students, so they sacrifice their own money to provide for these children.
I agree with you about educators, but educators are not involved in this case because it's child care and not school. And while child care workers definitely need to be paid more as well, this is a good thing for a lot of poor people and don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Professionals working in Early Childhood Education, that is 0-5 years, are called educators.
We teach children, that is our job. We are not simply minders while you work. We hold university degrees for teaching, we follow (where applicable) state regulations, we plan curriculum, and buy resources to teach with.
Children learn more in the first few years of life than they ever will at any other point. ECE is critical.
Okay, my apologies for not knowing the term. I would still say not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You do deserve to be paid more, but that doesn't mean this is a bad thing.
This isn’t even good, there’s already a huge demand for a spot in a centre that cannot be met due to staff shortages, all this does is add to the number of children trying to be enrolled.
If you want to see more children attending, you need to get more educators, to get more educators you need to focus on their wages and working conditions.
Programs like this while potentially great for handful of low income families fuck over us low income workers.
apples and oranges dude. this article is about child care, not education. youre not wrong about education also taking a back seat, but this is an article about the critical nature of child care and a mild success in its implementation, not the also critically important child education.
Childcare is the colloquialism for Early Childhood Education.
So no, not apples and oranges, it’s bananas and nanas.
ahh i see, youre not capable of separating them despite our society being setup in very distinct compensatory categories. got it.
I work in the industry, we are educators.
And if you think teachers in schools are getting compensated well you’re also mistaken.
You don’t know what you’re on about, got it.
Boop beep I got delete.
I apologized for not knowing the correct terminology. What more do you want me to do?
Boop beep I got delete.
No worries, I understand the anger.