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Before Pre-K: Improving Early Childhood Education in New York City


kids puzzle

From "Big Dreams for New York City's Smallest Children"


When you ask the people running childcare and early education programs for low-income kids what would help their all-important work most, the predictable answer is: more money. And the experience of EarlyLearnNYC, the City's much-ballyhooed revamping of subsidized programs for kids from 6 weeks to 4 years old, shows that while instruction standards have been raised, funding not only hasn't kept pace; one effect is that teacher take-home pay has, perversely, been reduced.

The good news – contained in our recent Center for New York City Affairs at the New School report on EarlyLearnNYC's mixed record since its 2012 launch – is that there's a lot we can do to financially shore up early childhood education using already existing funds. The key is getting more kids currently eligible for subsidized programs enrolled in them – a goal that EarlyLearnNYC has struggled to meet. In fact, enrollment in child care programs that hold contracts with the City crashed in the first months of EarlyLearnNYC, plummeting below 80 percent of the system's total capacity. That number has slowly climbed back up to 89 percent over the past year-and-a-half – but that still leaves more than 4,000 subsidized child care slots sitting empty.

We've identified how, with a little entrepreneurial effort and red tape cutting, the City can recapture tax dollars for quality early education that are now all too often being spent for little more than informal babysitting.

Here's the deal: Federal law requires the City to provide childcare vouchers to parents making the transition from receiving public benefits to holding jobs. Since 1999, the number of kids covered by such vouchers has jumped by more than two-thirds, to nearly 57,000.

Parents are legally entitled to use those vouchers any way they see fit – and today the overwhelming majority wind up paying friends or family members to mind their tots during the workday. That's a huge missed opportunity to reach and teach kids whose brains are sponges for knowledge and who aren't getting the exposure to learning they need. It's also a pretty poor return on what's expected to be an outlay of $367 million in tax dollars ($67 million raised directly from city tax levy) over the next 12 months.

Our formula for changing that has two key elements. The first requires getting two major city agencies – The Human Resources Administration that manages childcare vouchers and the Administration for Children's Services that oversees EarlyLearnNYC – consistently on the same page. When they have worked together to encourage parents to use vouchers for EarlyLearnNYC programs, they've produced positive results. The goal should be making such cooperation, reinforced by targeted social media outreach and mass media ad campaigns, the rule rather than the exception it now is.

The second reform we propose is: Make it easier for parents to enroll youngsters in EarlyLearnNYC. There's no doubt that the current way-too-cumbersome enrollment process can be made simpler, quicker, and more convenient without any serious downside. The discouraging schedule of parent co-pays for EarlyLearnNYC – now as high as $3,000 a year for families making less than $25,000 – also needs to be made more financially realistic.

Getting more kids in EarlyLearnNYC would be a win for them, and also for their parents, for early childhood education programs, and for the city as a whole. It would prime thousands more kids for success when they move on to the city's expanded all-day pre-kindergarten classes.

It would also strengthen the case for upping funding for early childhood learning. The mavens are absolutely right when they say they need more money. We think they'll have an even better argument to make by working with the City to aggressively, creatively, and cooperatively increase EarlyLearnNYC's now foundering enrollment.

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Kendra Hurley and Abigail Kramer of the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School are authors of the new report, Big Dreams for New York City's Youngest Children: The future of early care and education

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Are Smaller Apartments The Solution To New York's Housing Crisis?


NYCHA picture

 Apartment buildings in New York City (wikicommons)


New York City's housing market has not caught up to the changing lifestyles of its residents. Today's New Yorkers are more mobile, more likely to live alone, and more likely to be clustered on opposing ends of the age spectrum. Yet, the city's housing is geared toward large families that inhabit apartments for years at a time.

A new Furman Center study this week showed a potential way out of the impasse: more compact units that are better suited to current housing needs. The study should be a catalyst for city leaders to lift restrictions that have limited smaller apartments and build a new generation of housing that will work for today's New Yorkers.

In 2010, the city contained 1.8 million one- and two-person households, but only a million studios and one-bedroom apartments. This disparity continues to grow. As a result, the single and elderly move into larger units, leaving less room for larger families and ultimately discouraging many from making a home in New York.

Such a trend is unsustainable. Years ago, when the city experienced a similar demographic wave, single-room occupancy housing proved to be a practical solution. Such units, which house one or two residents without the costly amenities of a typical apartment, allow a whole new generation to live in New York.

A number of obstacles, however, stand in the way of more SROs today. Due to an array of outdated regulations, developers simply lack the incentives to build such housing. But by making these units a more attractive option, we could set off a building boom that gives millions of New Yorkers access to an apartment that works for them.

First, we need to allow smaller apartments and smaller rooms. Current regulations will not allow apartments under 400 square feet, a true stumbling block to building small. We also need zoning changes to allow higher-density developments and, with many SROs classified as hotels rather than residences, a variety of different uses in the same zone.

Moreover, we need to rethink our definition of what constitutes an apartment. Not every apartment, for example, needs a window in every room – particularly when a single window in a small space can go far. In the same vein, not every kitchen needs a full set of appliances, nor does every bathroom need a full bathtub. By making these design requirements more flexible, we can encourage more units that would not be acceptable today.

These small changes can go a long way to encouraging SRO construction, and Mayor de Blasio has the power to change them. An influx of smaller units can free up larger apartments for families and help solve the growing housing discrepancy in the City.

As Mayor de Blasio considers his range of options to make housing more affordable, it is vital that smaller units be part of the mix.

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Leonard Grunstein is Managing Member at Hanlen Real Estate Development & Funding

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The Politics of Governance


bdb sharpton bratton

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, Mayor de Blasio, & Reverand Al Sharpton (Rob Bennett, Mayor's Office)


Last week, an acquaintance asked me whether the problem in our American democracy today is the state of our politics, or the state of our government. The question admittedly stumped me. While there are definitely major challenges in both realms, the actual distinction is critical, and one which we're quick to overlook, which can lead to inefficacy in both realms. And perhaps nothing illustrates this slight better than New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's recent challenges in dealing with the Eric Garner tragedy.

In purely definitional terms, the Greek root of the term "politikos" is "of, for, or relating to citizens." In other words, politics encompasses the actual activities associated with how citizens influence the policies and actions of a government. Thus politics, despite the partisan labels modern society attaches to the term, is citizen-centered. Government, on the other-hand, refers to the actual body that makes the policies and enacts them. Thus, the question essentially becomes whether more effective politics, or citizen engagement, leads to more effective governance, or whether more effective governmental institutions will lead to better results for citizens.

Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Staten Islander who died after being placed in a chokehold by a police officer attempting to arrest him for selling untaxed cigarettes, was victim of faulty governance practices. Justifiably, the aftermath of his death has focused on the police policies that allowed such an incident to happen. Namely, critics argue, so-called 'broken-windows' policing, promoted extensively by Police Commissioner William Bratton, is inherently racist, and police focus on low-level criminal offenses in a way that disproportionately targets minorities.

De Blasio is an organizer at heart, and ran a successful mayoral campaign largely because he understands politics so well. He understood that the electorate had tired of a third Bloomberg term, he understood that stop-and-frisk had become a racist policing tactic, and he understood that economic inequality was becoming the defining issue for a generation. He spoke to these as a consummate political being, promising to bring people together, to influence the bodies that made these policies. De Blasio mastered the politics of the moment in New York City.

The transition from politics to governing has proven challenging. But interestingly, de Blasio has attempted to merge the two constantly - every policy becomes a campaign. His first major move was to push for universal pre-kindergarten. Before long, "UPK" pins were commonplace throughout the city, and Albany rallies seemed to happen weekly. Although he did not get his tax on the wealthy passed to pay for it, he did get funding for his pet project. In a similar mold, de Blasio's push for the Democratic National Convention to be held in Brooklyn, which he claims would spur economic activity in the region, has included designing Nets jerseys with the names of delegates on the back - and, naturally, new DNC NYC 2016 pins. There is nothing inherently wrong with these campaigns - UPK is now happening (great), and the convention might come to Brooklyn (disputably great).

But this approach will not always work, and it has not worked with the Garner case. Immediately after returning from his vacation to Italy, de Blasio's political instincts kicked in, and he held a public roundtable with both Bratton and civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton at City Hall, ostensibly to show that police and civil society could work together in the aftermath of the death. But neither would have any part of it. Sharpton ripped into Bratton, and Bratton seemed completely unsure of his role at the podium.

In the days since, de Blasio has continued to stammer. First, he came to Sharpton's defense, saying that the reverend "had been active and productive" on police policies for decades. When a report then came out saying he would side with Sharpton over Bratton, potentially ousting his commissioner, de Blasio responded with vigorous defense, calling the notion "idiotic" and asserting that Bratton is "the finest police leader in the United States." Meanwhile a wide-scale rally is planned on Staten Island to protest the police policies - a rally de Blasio certainly would have attended while running for Mayor.

Civil society is coalescing around the Garner issue, in a way that shows politics at work. This engagement, in a city that just had its lowest electoral turnout since World War II, is undoubtedly positive. But the way that de Blasio can move forward is by actually responding to the politics of the moment with concrete policies, demonstrating a willingness to create police policies that will both protect and respect New York City's citizenry. The mayor's expansion of the Gun Violence Crisis Management System is a step in the right direction of governance over politics and he should take it to every city precinct. The sole act of creating a political stage, and attempting to bring foes to the table, does not work. New York City's citizens are getting more political. But they need a leader to not just play politics, but rather, to govern.

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Scott Warren is the CEO and co-founder of Generation Citizen, an national non-profit based in New York City dedicated to empowering young people to be active citizens.

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