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Andrea Mu帽eton has been a Head Start educator in California for 14 years. The work is important but greuling, she said, involving up to 80 hours a week of mental and physical labor that doesn鈥檛 end when her students head home at the end of the day.

And the pay? It  doesn鈥檛 compare, she said.

鈥淲e鈥檙e underpaid, overworked and we鈥檙e not appreciated. We鈥檙e seen as, 鈥極h you鈥檙e just a day care. No, I鈥檓 not a day-care person. I鈥檓 a teacher.鈥� 鈥� 

Mu帽eton started off as an aide and worked her way up to full-time teacher and president of the , an American Federation of Teachers local union in California.

Mu帽eton said when she was an assistant teacher, more than half of her paycheck went to health insurance, and her husband was forced to work a second job to help support their two kids, who are both Head Start students. This year, Mu帽eton said she reached a breaking point and considered leaving her decade-and-a-half -long career in early childhood education to apply for a job at Target.

Mu帽eton is far from alone: child care workers nationally have one of the lowest-paid occupations, with 11% to 34% living in While the average salary of a public preschool teacher and a kindergarten teacher is about $49,000 and $60,000, respectively, the average annual salary for Head Start and other preschool teachers is about

But this could all change over the next several years according to a recently released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start and aims to raise annual wages for teachers in the program by about $10,000 and increase access to benefits such as high-quality, affordable health care coverage and paid leave. The rule is largely in response to the struggle to hire and retain qualified staff, which has ultimately led to classrooms closing.

Head Start organizations must comply with some elements of the ruling by October but have until August 2031 to begin providing increased pay. There is an emergency exemption for the 35% of agencies with fewer than 200 funded slots, but they must still make 鈥渕easurable improvements in wages for staff over time.鈥�

Some agencies may also be eligible for waivers for wage requirements in 2028, if the funding does not increase at a sufficient pace, which could be the rule鈥檚 greatest challenge. In order to qualify, they would need to demonstrate that implementing the pay raises would force them to cut occupied seats and show that they’re meeting certain quality requirements.

a nonprofit organization that represents Head Start families, providers and educators, welcomed the federal announcement in an Aug. 16 press release, but expressed disappointment that the edict does not address the need for significant additional funding to fully achieve its goals and could end up forcing operators to slash staff to meet the salary mandates.

鈥淭he organization remains concerned that, if Congress and future administrations do not agree to such increases, the impact of the final rule could prove devastating, by significantly reducing the number of children and families served by Head Start programs,鈥� the organization wrote.

While the rule is an important step forward from a policy perspective, it is a 鈥渄ouble-edged sword鈥� in terms of funding, according to Dan Wuori, the founder and president of and a former kindergarten teacher and South Carolina school district administrator. 

鈥淭hey鈥檙e sort of stuck either way,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f they can鈥檛 attract teachers then they can鈥檛 serve kids. But if they have to compensate at a higher level to draw qualified staff then that 鈥� in the absence of new funding 鈥� could mean serving a much smaller number of children.鈥�

Katie Hamm, deputy assistant secretary for Early Childhood Development at the which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an Aug. 30 interview that she believes the administration can partner with Congress to increase Head Start appropriations over time while simultaneously restructuring the current budget to put more money toward wages.

Khari Garvin, the director of the office of Head Start, told 蜜桃影视 the hope is that the changes will position the program to recruit, attract and retain the 鈥渂est and brightest talent in this field,鈥� which 鈥渢ranslates into better developmental outcomes for children and families.鈥� 

鈥淭he great irony 鈥� is that for too long we鈥檝e had individuals 鈥� committed staff 鈥� working in what is an anti-poverty program, many of whom have made either poverty-level wages, or close to poverty-level wages,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd so now we鈥檙e correcting that.鈥�

Mu帽eton doesn鈥檛 think Head Start teachers should have to wait so many years for this potential shift in pay, benefits and working conditions. But when 鈥� and if 鈥� it does happen, it鈥檒l be life changing, she said. 

鈥淚’ll be able to afford maybe purchasing a house rather than renting out of my parents鈥�. I鈥檒l be able to tell my husband, 鈥楬ey, quit the other job so we can see you more often.鈥� I鈥檒l be able to pay off the debt that I鈥檓 still trying to pay off monthly,鈥� she said.

鈥楢 really important stake in the ground鈥�

Head Start began as an eight-week demonstration project in the 1960s, as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson鈥檚 . Since then, the programs have reached more than 38 million children and their families, the majority of whom meet federal low-income guidelines. Currently, it serves about 650,000 children from birth to age 5 and their families, in urban, suburban and rural areas in all 50 states.

They also connect families to community and federal assistance and can help provide a career pathway for parents into early care and education: As of almost a quarter of Head Start鈥檚 260,000 staff were parents of current or former Head Start children. The vast majority of Head Start center-based preschool teachers nationally had a bachelor鈥檚 degree or higher in early childhood education or a related field with experience. About of education staff members are Black, 30% are Latino and the vast majority are women. 

The 1,600 local agencies are funded by the federal government, though many also tap into state and local revenue sources. For years, these agencies have struggled to hire and retain highly qualified educators, with turnover hitting 17% in

鈥淲e really have a crisis on our hands,鈥� Hamm said.

For a single adult with one child, median child care worker pay does not meet a living wage . Salary and benefits were cited as the top reason why almost 1 in 5 staff positions were vacant nationwide in a 2023 National Head Start Association . Of the 20% of Head Start and Early Head Start classrooms that were reported closed in the survey, 81% attributed the shutdowns to staffing vacancies. 

These persistently low wages come from a century-long history of falsely dichotomizing care and education, according to Wuori, the policy expert and former kindergarten teacher.

鈥淲e think of early care as being almost an industrialized form of babysitting,鈥� he said, 鈥渨hereas education kicks in 鈥� from a policy level 鈥� maybe a few years later. And one of the side effects of that then is that the people who work with the youngest children are not respected as the professionals that they are. And a primary way that that is the case is through their compensation, which 鈥� lags well behind that of fast food workers and employees at big box stores.鈥�

This new federal rule, he said, serves as a 鈥渞eally important stake in the ground鈥� to rectify that mindset.

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