Why free 3-K is so crucial for parents in New York City

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we look at the effects of budget cuts on the city’s 3K program. We’ll also get details on why the former Trump Organization chief financial officer is going back to prison.

For nearly a decade, every four-year-old in New York qualified for a free seat in kindergarten, and three-year-olds were next in line. With many families spending more than $30,000 a year on child care for one toddler, the program was intended to make an increasingly unaffordable city a little more reasonable. But after Mayor Eric Adams made cuts to free preschool for three-year-olds, lower- and middle-income families faced enormous uncertainty. I asked Troy Closson, who heads education in New York City, to explain the situation.

Many parents assumed that 3-K would mean they wouldn’t have to pay for child care. What now?

That is the question families ask themselves.

It’s not just New Yorkers with the lowest incomes who are struggling. Even middle and upper middle class people struggle with unaffordable child care and housing costs. We already see the composition of the city changing. A year ago, our colleague Nicole Hong and I spoke to middle-class black families who had left New York. The common theme was that it was too challenging to raise children here.

The pressure that drove these families away has only increased since then, and this has direct consequences for the future of the city.

So why did the Adams administration target 3-K for cuts?

The mayor points to large numbers of empty seats in some neighborhoods. He has said his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, shifted seats too quickly. Adams stopped short of adding large numbers of seats, especially in parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

Adams took office in January 2022, after preschool enrollment fell nationally due to the pandemic. So it is now unclear what the current needs are in many neighborhoods and whether there will be enough seats for everyone.

If you’re a parent, it’s confusing.

Yes. One of the big challenges for parents is thinking about what will happen in the coming months and years. Some city officials have said everyone will have a 3-K seat somewhere, but before that, parents were told during admissions sessions and on the Department of Education website that there would be no seats.

So it was a confusing environment for families to navigate. Making plans for the future is very difficult when you are now the parent of a 1-year-old.

Are families aware of 3-K and pre-K programs?

When the de Blasio administration started pre-K, there was a major outreach effort. And after the pandemic, places like Chicago and Dallas realized the need for new outreach campaigns so families knew how to sign up.

Lately, the question has been whether 3-K seats are empty because families don’t need them or because families don’t know how to get into them because there isn’t enough coverage.

Does the mayor have an alternative to the pre-K program?

When this government came into office, there was a huge backlog and waiting list for access vouchers that reduce the cost of childcare for poorer families.

This government has paid a lot of attention to eliminating the backlog and speeding up the process of obtaining vouchers.

But many childcare workers and early childhood education experts believe more needs to be done — especially for the middle class. I heard this repeatedly in my reporting: “Our income doesn’t qualify for these child care assistance programs, but we need help.” That’s a big area where experts and families say we need to see more.

You wrote that some experts fear a chain reaction: If parents can’t get affordable care, they will move, and the public school enrollment pipeline could disappear, leading to massive cuts to programs. How realistic is that?

It is a realistic concern, even if it may not be something we can assess in the short term.

Many families I spoke with were counting on finally being able to say goodbye to one of their biggest childcare bills when their children turned three. That promise had made the bills worth it in the first few years of their children’s lives.

Many of them said that even though they weren’t ready to pack up and leave, they started to wonder again if this is a place they can stay long-term, and if they want to have more children, is that possible here? ?

Weather

It will be a mostly rainy day with temperatures in the low 50s. Expect a chance of rain overnight, with temperatures rising into the 40s.

ALTERNATE PARKING

In effect until March 24 (Purim).

The latest New York news

Allen Weisselberg’s loyalty to Donald Trump once again proved paramount.

Weisselberg, who served as the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer for decades, pleaded guilty to perjury on Monday.

But he did not implicate his former boss, and the plea deal did not require him to testify against Trump at the former president’s first criminal trial, set to begin March 25 in Manhattan.

Weisselberg’s guilty plea will send him back to the city jail complex on Rikers Island, where he served nearly 100 days after pleading guilty in a separate tax fraud case. How much time he will spend there will be determined at a hearing next month. Prosecutors are asking for a prison sentence of five months.

Weisselberg has found himself between Trump and law enforcement agencies before. On Monday, he acknowledged lying under oath to the New York attorney general’s office in 2020 as prosecutors investigated Trump on suspicion of fraud. At issue was the value of Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower, which measures 10,000 feet but was repeatedly listed at more than 30,000 square feet in Trump’s financial statements.

Weisselberg downplayed his involvement in the apartment’s valuation — first in the 2020 statement and again in another statement last year.

Those statements were made before the civil case that ended with a huge financial penalty for Trump — more than $450 million, plus interest. Weisselberg, who was also a defendant in that case, was fined $1 million, plus interest. Judge Arthur Engoron also banned him from ever working in a financial capacity at any New York company again.

METROPOLITAN diary

On the couch

Dear Diary:

I was in the habit of taking walks in Carl Schurz Park on early summer mornings, when the sun cast a beautiful orange glow over the quiet East River promenade.

My walk was identical every day. What also became routine was seeing the same older man sitting on the same couch every morning. He held a flat tweed cap in his hands and always stared wistfully at the water.

One morning I decided to talk to him.

“Hi,” I said, walking over to the couch where he was sitting.

He looked up.

“How are you?” he said.

“I don’t mean to bother you, but I see you here every day,” I said.

“Is that correct?” he said.

“And if you don’t mind me asking, I was wondering why you were sitting on the same bench?”

He turned away with a deep sigh.