The Biden administration is lining up a big pay bump for early childhood educators, with one major asterisk: it risks forcing deep cuts to available classroom spots for high-need kids.
The Department of Health and Human Services is advancing plans to increase the annual salaries of some educators working for Head Start — the popular, free early learning and health program serving children from low-income families — by more than $10,000 on average. It would also require minimum pay for other Head Start staff, such as janitors and classroom aides, and add benefits like mental health support.
The proposed increases are meant to bring Head Start pay more in line with public elementary school teachers and reduce staff turnover, which spiked amid the Covid-19 pandemic. But the boon for workers will mean steadily cutting more than 110,000 slots for students over the next seven years unless Congress OKs additional funds — a difficult gambit for some Democratic lawmakers. The wage requirements alone would cost Congress $875 million in new annual dollars and $2.4 billion to implement the full proposal in 2030.
