Nonprofits don't like Mayor Bill de Blasio's plans for early child education

A child holds her hand up in a classroom with other children.

A child holds her hand up in a classroom with other children. Shutterstock

By Zach Williams

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Citizens Committee for New York City has four new members on its junior board. They are professionals in their 20s and 30s who want to get involved in the nonprofit’s work promoting quality-of-life issues in the five boroughs. The new members are: Parul Bhatia of Shearman & Sterling LLP; Sam Fisher of Seven Bridges Advisors; Kiara Reed of JPMorgan Chase & Co.; and Jeremy Shevett of Compass. Fourteen people now make up the board, according to an April 25 press release.

 

Project Hospitality is getting a $1.84 million contract extension from the New York City Department of Homeless Services. The money will fund through June 2020 a drop-in center for homeless people, according to the City Record. The nonprofit also secured a one-year $437,278 contract extension with the department to operate a “respite” center. The Institute for Community Living received an eight-month, $845,848 contract to provide housing and support services for people living with AIDS.

 

A few friends in high places are helping out the Osborne Association in western New York:

 

Day One raised $300,000 at an April 17 event in Manhattan. The event commemorated the sexual assault-fighting nonprofit’s 15th anniversary and honored filmmaker Abigail Disney, according to an April 25 press release. MSNBC political analyst Zerlina Maxwell, a rape survivor who created the #RapeCultureIsWhen hashtag, also attended the event. NYN Media featured the nonprofit’s work in combating dating violence in a 2018 video:

 

A group of nonprofits wants New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to reverse course on two high-profile RFPs. More input is needed from providers, teachers, and families before the city can follow through on plans to shake up its Birth-to-Five and Head Start/Early Head Start initiatives, according to the 69 organizations that sent an open letter to de Blasio yesterday.

“Not only is greater transparency needed on the total amount of resources the administration aims to commit to the creation of the Birth-to-Five early education system, but goals must be established on the number of children the system hopes to reach by age cohort and program type,” reads the letter. “Most importantly, the administration must guarantee that contracts are funded at a level that not only supports salary parity with teachers, staff and directors in public schools but fully covers the costs associated with running a high-quality early education program.”

Organizations that signed the letter include FPWA, Children’s Aid, Citizens’ Committee for Children, Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies, United Neighborhood Houses, and CAMBA. Here are five key reasons why they say the current RFPs have to be rejected, taken verbatim from the letter:

  • They perpetuate salary disparities
  • They penalize providers with Pay for Enrollment
  • They fail to efficiently structure programs
  • They provide no funding for indirect costs
  • They lack cost escalators

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