Dr. Maria Mavrides Calderon’s policy brief discusses the implications of compensation and work conditions policies affecting New York City Early Education Centers (NYCEECs). Throughout this brief, Dr. Mavrides Calderon (Early Scholar Cohort 2021) amplifies the voices of directors, teachers and parents working or attending NYCEECs. The brief uses information from a qualitative study conducted by Dr. Mavrides Calderon. By contrasting and comparing policy and the participants’ experiences, she argues that the city’s 2019 policy announcements regarding compensation parity are changes toward “sub-parity,” not parity, concluding that more work needs to be done to achieve true parity across settings.
Three takeaways from the brief are:
- Compensation and work condition disparities (including ancillary benefits and union membership) deeply affect every layer of the early childhood education ecological system, including directors, teachers and parents. Some stakeholders report more resilience depending on structural and systemic factors.
- While salary sub-parity provided some needed relief to the teacher turnover crisis, it did not substantially reduce the impact of disparities, particularly disparities in total compensation among those working at NYCEECs.
- Director pay disparities and centers’ reliance on study plan teachers, without a path to solve these problems, threatens the sustainability of NYCEECs both in the long and short term.
