This spring marks the one year anniversary of the D.C. Council passing a law to boost pay for the District’s early childhood teachers. The Pay Equity Fund taxes the District’s highest earners, and sends an annual bonus payment of up to $14,000 to teachers of children between 0 and 5 years old in preschools and daycares in the District. 

Gladys is an Assistant Teacher at Toddlers on the Hill, an early childhood center in Capitol Hill, where tuition costs $28,000 a year. She asked to be named only by her first name to protect future job prospects. Her school offers teachers benefits, including matching 401k and health insurance. She makes more than most assistant teachers in the country, but living in D.C., she still has trouble making ends meet. 

Then one day last summer, she opened her mail and found a check from the D.C. government – for $10,000.

“It was at a point where had it not come, I probably would’ve had to put my two weeks in so that I could move in with my parents (in Florida),” Gladys says, holding back tears. 

“That was just such a blessing.” Still, Gladys says she relies on her weekend job as a hearing screener for newborns at George Washington Hospital to make ends meet.

And she’s not the only one. Sasha Sargent, a lead teacher at Toddlers on the Hill, has two additional jobs. In addition to full-time teaching, she manages a gym at Trinity College two nights a week and babysits every Saturday. Her bonus check was for $14,000. Sargent says it sounds like a lot, but it works out to an extra $200 a week. 

“This is not a career that’ll have you rolling in money” she says. “I’m grateful, but it’s not much.”

Mayor Bowser signed the Birth-to-Three Act For All DC Act in 2018, which included the plan to subsidize teacher salaries.

The goal was for all early childhood teachers to make as much as the starting salary for DC’s public schools – $63,000 per year.

This provision of the Birth-to-Three Act was unfunded until last year, passing in the wake of the pandemic, which destabilized the childcare industry nationwide.

Advocates say D.C.’s policy is already incentivizing regional teachers to apply to jobs in D.C., rather than bordering counties in Maryland and Virginia. D.C.’s early childhood centers may pay up to $30,000 more than similar centers in Maryland and Virginia, where minimum wage is still the norm. D.C. is also offering teachers a new health insurance option, a rare benefit in the field. 

“We do not treat childcare like the public good that it is,” explains Julie Kashen explains, Director of Women’s Economic Justice at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank. 

Childcare has never been compensated properly, she argues, because it relies on the underpaid and unpaid work of women. 

“With K – 12 education, we put in federal dollars and we put in state dollars, and we treat it like something that everybody has some stake in and everybody should get for free,” says Kashen.  

Teachers of K-12 education get that money through their salaries. In early childhood care, that is not the case. 

“Childcare is a failed market where it’s basically asking parents when they can least afford it, to pay as high prices as possible to pay the early educators as high as possible,” she says. 

Without a major government subsidy, higher pay is impossible. 

And there have been recent plans to give parents more equitable access to early childhood education: the Biden administration’s original 2020 Build Back Better Plan included a $400 billion dollar universal child care legislation. The plan would have limited child care payments to 7-percent of a family’s income. A version of the Build Back Better plan passed in 2022 – but it didn’t include the money dedicated to childcare.

“It was devastating and enraging when it didn’t happen,” Kashen says. “Congress was able to pass industrial policy, manufacturing jobs and climate change jobs. They’re creating millions of jobs and parents aren’t going to be able to participate equally in those jobs because we don’t have a care system in place.” 

A government subsidized care system would mean that early educators wouldn’t have to work multiple jobs like Gladys and Sasha Sargent. And even with the Birth-to-Three Act subsidizing teacher pay, there remains some uncertainty around the program. For fiscal year 2024, D.C. will route payment to teachers through school payrolls. But for 2025 and beyond, there is currently no commitment to the program.

Anya Landau French, Toddlers on the Hill Head of Finance and Operations, says that this leaves local schools with uncertainty as well.

“The hope is that the funds won’t look much different than what teachers have come to rely on the last two fiscal years. And of course, the big question after 2024 is, will the commitment of funding still be there?” she commented by email.

But Gladys says that despite its challenges, nurturing children is ultimately something that’s very meaningful to her.

 “This is a very critical time in their lives and we want to make sure that every moment counts, making sure that they’re cared for physically, socially, and emotionally. It’s so important that we make enough so that we can sustain ourselves and not get burnt out… because you don’t get to not show up for them. That’s not an option,” she says.

Gladys hopes to stay in the classroom, but keeps her resume ready. If an offer in a better paying field comes her way, she might have to take it.