QUESTION
What analysis has been conducted on 3K seat availability and its effects on New York City families?
5:03:05
·
4 min
The Independent Budget Officer’s Office is requesting data to analyze the availability and distribution of 3K seats, amid concerns of a supply and demand mismatch.
- Council Member Lincoln Restler questions the accuracy of claims regarding the sufficiency of 3K seats, citing unserved families in his district.
- Sarita Subramanian, from the Independent Budget Officer's Office, acknowledges ongoing efforts to acquire detailed data on 3K seats, especially focusing on extended day/year seats.
- Discrepancies in the utilization of extended day/year seats are discussed, along with the impact of eliminating early childhood education outreach on enrollment.
- Louisa Chafee highlights ongoing studies into early childhood education, including issues related to service procurement, information accessibility, and the implications of recent budget cuts for this sector.
- The potential impact of early childhood education availability on family migration patterns and the city’s economy is considered.
Lincoln Restler
5:03:05
I wanted to to ask about early childhood education cuts.
5:03:10
The budget director testified again today that every child in New York City who wants a 3 k seat can get 1.
5:03:17
I'd like him to come and tell that to the families in my district who have been shut out of the system.
5:03:21
But just wondering if you could offer, if you could share, have you conducted any analysis of the long standing argument that the administration has been making, that we have too many 3 k seats, and that the system has just been that we have put seats in the wrong places and that we are in fact fulfilling demand is do you believe that that to be an accurate argument?
Sarita Subramanian
5:03:49
That is something that we are also interested in under getting a better understanding of.
5:03:55
So we have requested data at the site level from the Department of Education.
Lincoln Restler
5:04:00
So by.
Sarita Subramanian
5:04:01
Yeah.
5:04:02
And it's taken quite some time.
5:04:05
So that is something that we are actively pursuing with them.
5:04:09
We've thought about once we can look at not just the total number of seats, but also the type of seats because what we've heard is that there's a greater demand for extended day year seats.
Lincoln Restler
5:04:21
But we looked at the data from last year and we've requested it again for this current school year.
5:04:25
The data they provided us last year showed that the seats were fulfilled at a lower percentage for the extended day extended your seats.
5:04:34
Which is shocking.
5:04:36
Right?
5:04:36
Because any family that you could find would tell you that they are desperately in search of extended a extended your seat so that they can hold down a job, and they're they're have their kid taken care of, which to me only comes back which to me comes back to the unfortunate reality that they eliminated the outreach program for early childhood education and that that is part of the challenge that we're facing, that they're no longer trying to engage anybody, to encourage anyone to apply.
5:05:04
I guess relatedly, the demographic trends migration trends that we've been looking at have shown that disproportionately the people leaving New York City are low income families with young children.
5:05:17
And just wondering if I believe the black population in New York City shrunk by 10% over the last or during the 21st century.
5:05:26
You know, after only having gone up since the great migration up from the south.
5:05:31
And so what are we are you have you conducted any analysis of your own to understand how the lack of early childhood education options is impacting decisions of families to leave, impacts on the New York City economy, anymore, you can elaborate for us there.
Louisa Chafee
5:05:50
So we haven't we are in the process of looking far more in-depth at the early childhood, 3k, and UPK arenas.
5:05:59
And we're very interested in usage.
5:06:02
We're also very interested in the procurement issues because we're aware of the intense stress on the provider community with just operational delays from DOE.
5:06:11
We're also really concerned about the entry to the In other words, as a family, how do you learn about how to get what you're eligible for and how to enter it's a not necessarily as user friendly as one might expect of our Department of Education.
5:06:27
We have looked at migration, out migration through the COVID era, throughout the Department of Education, but would be happy to speak with you more focused, much more on the early years.
5:06:41
As we are also very concerned about what the data tells us about the future of New York City.
5:06:48
The city government provides to city children.
5:06:51
And we're also concerned about the general pace and accuracy of data that, you know, we are Charter mandated to receive.
Lincoln Restler
5:06:58
Absolutely.
5:06:59
Well, if there are any ways we can be helpful, your analysis on this topic is of great interest to me, and I think my colleagues, you know, the $1,000,000,000 in cuts that the mayor made to early childhood education last year were devastating.
5:07:09
And he's decided to double down and make another $175,000,000 of cuts this current fiscal year.
5:07:16
It is I'm touchingable to me why he would be so insistent on decimating early childhood education in New York City, and we have to fight back and more data analysis and insight from you and your team will be immensely helpful in that effort.
5:07:28
Thank you.