Chair Lee questions OMB on childcare workforce development and CUNY training
Lee raises CUNY's $6 million request for early childhood education training and certification programs. Solomon notes CUNY's role in workforce development, the $40 million for childcare provider rate increases, and ongoing evaluation of the request, while Lee also raises pay parity between CBO and school-based providers.
And then childcare workforce development.
With the expansion of 2K, 3K, there is a growing need for trained and certified early childhood educators.
To support the growth, CUNY has requested that the administration allocate an additional $6 million for various early childhood education training and certification programs, including an apprenticeship program.
So what investments has or will the administration make in supporting the training and certification of early childhood educators in anticipation of the ECE expansion?
We're examining further.
I mean, I think CUNY as an engine of upward mobility also plays an important role in terms of workforce development.
I know this is a big priority for the Chancellor.
My time there, certainly, I've heard him talk about this a lot.
And so CUNY can really be a catalyst with...
This kind of work.
And so we're evaluating their requests.
We look forward to having those discussions with you in the next few weeks.
I would also note just in general, I know this is not the same issue, but it's related in the sense that we were happy to put up $40 million in the executive budget to increase child care provider rates.
We know that between that, between the other investments that we've made to stabilize and expand
3K, and then the launch of 2K in the four districts so far, we know that this is an important piece of the puzzle that we look forward to working on.
Because you need a workforce to be able to accomplish the goals that this administration set forward.
Right.
And I know that, again, to my earlier question, I think the process takes a while in terms of the background checks and all of those things.
And so I think that'll be in helping us to streamline and get more folks in the pipeline.
So whatever you all can look at to speed that up, that would be great.
And I know that we were also talking yesterday at the DOE hearing about pay parity across the board with our early childhood programs.
And so if you could work with DOE to make sure that we look at that holistically.
Whether you're a CBO provider versus a school-based provider, I think there's differences in the contract amounts there.
So that would also be great if you could look at those numbers as well with Dewey.